(dramatic music) - Production funding for "American Grown" provided by James G Parker Insurance, protecting agribusiness in the valley for over 40 years.

Brandt, professional agriculture, discovering, manufacturing and supplying the ag inputs that support the heroes that work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By unWired Broadband, today's internet for rural central California, keeping valley ag connected since 2003.

By Hodges Electric, trusted by builders to wire thousands of valley homes, now bringing that trust direct to you.

By Wawona Frozen Foods, fruit as it should be.

Family owned since 1963.

By Harris Farms, a legacy of growing.

By Harrison Co., providing family farms insight to make the best possible financial decisions.

And by Valley Air Conditioning & Repair, family owned for over 50 years, dedicated to supporting Valley agriculture and families that grow food for the nation.

(dramatic music rises) (serene music) There are places that become part of who we are.

Places that measure our summers, our weekends, our childhoods, and for many, an entire lifetime.

For California's Central Valley, that place has always been the Sierra National Forest.

Stretching between Yosemite and King's Canyon, climbing to the granite spine of the Sierra, this forest has long been one of California's greatest gifts.

(music rises) (water trickling) Its rivers give life downstream.

Its timber helped build mountain communities.

Its trails invited generations to explore farther, climb higher and discover the wild places that still exist just beyond the edge of everyday life.

Artists found inspiration here.

Photographers like Ansel Adams saw something timeless in these mountains.

Light and granite, forests and sky, reminders that some landscapes deserve to be remembered forever.

But forests, like people, need care.

Over the decades, changing conditions, dense growth, insects, drought, and catastrophic wildfire transformed much of this landscape.

Millions of trees died.

Entire mountain sides burned.

Roads disappeared beneath fallen timber.

Trails that had carried families for generations simply vanished back into the forest.

For a while, it seemed as though silence might win.

But there are still people who refuse to walk away, people who believe these mountains are worth fighting for, not with headlines, not with politics, but with chainsaws, shovels, axes, sweat.

Because they understand something simple.

Public lands don't stay public simply because they belong to everyone.

They stay alive because someone is willing to care for them.

This is the story of the people who answered that call.

(motors revving in distance) (motor growling) - So basically what we're doing today that's marked in yellow is our daily work schedule.

We've got two crews, one going this way and a meeting at this point here.

The other crew has a different sheet.

They're coming in through here.

We're supposed to meet up at this point.

(gentle music) Actually show up was right out of high school, '66, '67.

However, I got involved with a club in Fresno called the Fresno Motorcycle Club.

And we started putting on enduros up here out of Milt Allen's property up on Highway 41 north of Sky Ranch.

- [Interviewer] Yeah.

- So that was my first real experience with dirt bikes in the area.

And we were using the trails that the oldsters, you know, Milt Allen and the Donnelly's and so forth had built way back when.

And this is well before any travel management, so it was open for us, you could go wherever you wanted to.

So that was my first experience with it.

And of course then when I moved up here, I was a firefighter so I had days off during the week.

So I was out riding, you know, kids would be in school.

Sherry would be at work.

I'd be on my dirt bike out riding and making trails.

- [Interviewer] And so you got pretty familiar with the trail system that's in what we now know as the Bass Lake Ranger District then?

- Oh, absolutely.

Yeah, we made most of them to begin with.

- I grew up in mostly Fresno.

My dad was a construction worker, so we jumped around to several places, but we ended up in Fresno, went to high school at Fresno High and then Reedley College.

Took forestry in Reedley.

Was one of the second classes to graduate in the program.

And Reedley had a really good, good program going with the Forest Service for summer jobs.

So I got my first summer job with Forest Service at Huntington Lake.

18 years old, and I've been with them ever since for 42 years basically.

Growing up through the Forest Service, back in the '70s and the '80s, the mission for the Forest Service was pretty clear.

You know, the goal was multiple use, which included everything from timber sales, to recreation, to mineral extracts, things of that sort.

And so also included public access to public lands.

And that's kind of the way I grew up is to be able to enjoy public lands, including the national forest, national parks.

The parks, at that time, were more of a conservational mode, single use.

And that's what always made the Forest Service unique because we had all these different activities going on within the forest.

Back in the 90s, things got a little more blurry on the mission.

It got more pushed toward the conservation side of things.

Activities for the public got more and more restricted.

And so that was kind of hard to swallow at the time.

(serene music) - [Narrator] As more people discovered the Sierra National Forest, a growing community of riders, hikers and outdoor enthusiasts found themselves doing more than simply exploring the trails.

They were helping build them.

Working alongside the Forest Service, volunteers placed new routes into the back country, opening access to parts of the Sierra few had ever seen.

Then in the early days of California's Off-Highway Vehicle recreation program, something important happened.

Registration fees collected from off-road motorcycles and other recreational vehicles began flowing back into the trails themselves, creating new opportunities for local clubs to organize, partner with public land managers and help maintain the places they loved.

(engine humming) Here in the Sierra, that idea quickly took root.

And what began is a handful of passionate volunteers soon became something much larger.

- What that was about was green sticker money, and what the green sticker fund is, of course, if you buy an off-road vehicle, you have to buy a license for it which is a green sticker.

The money that was supposed to go into a fund that would allow, you know, more trails to be made and maintained and so forth, we had not seen any of that money.

Now that came into effect in around 1972.

I was approached by a Forest Service employee that was a dirt bike rider that that knew me saying that we could get green sticker money on the district.

However, they needed a club to sponsor it.

So I got together with a bunch of friends, locals, and we started the Miami Mountain Trail Blazers.

And at the time, the person in charge of the OHV division we worked with that person trying to get the trails mapped and so forth.

Unfortunately, the relationship didn't work out very well because what we were told on one side happened differently when it came to pass.

- [Interviewer] And was this a position within the Forest Service?

- Yeah, mm-hm.

It was a position I guess created because of the fact they were getting the green sticker money.

So we saw a lot of negativity there.

And so basically the Miami Mountain Trail Blazers original group that started were all locals.

Well, we started seeing all this negative stuff so most of us just kind of faded away.

- One of the biggest issues with the loss of the timber program is the funding.

Timber sales brought major funding into the local economy.

(gentle music) The National Forest, Sierra National Forest, the school systems received funds from timber sale receipts.

And locally, timber sales did the majority of road maintenance for the roads that were being used.

And back in the '70s and '80s, early '90s, the Sierra National Forest used to have two large road maintenance crews.

And anywhere from 30 to 50 people on each crew, we had multiple graders, tractors, water trucks, dump trucks, all kinds of equipment to go out and do road maintenance.

And what most people don't understand is that the road maintenance from the timber sales took care of 70% of the roads on the Sierra National Forest.

We had two large crews to take care of the other 30%.

So it was a real balance and it worked.

And we had the funding to take care of the maintenance crews.

So now what we have is we have timber sales.

I don't believe they really call them timber sales anymore.

They're treatment plans for that.

But there's no funding to do road and trail maintenance or road maintenance to extract the timber.

So that work doesn't get done.

And because of budget cuts, the Forest Service is down to two people and a grader and a dump truck.

And we have roughly 2,400 miles on the Sierra National Forest and it just not working.

(lighthearted music) - [Narrator] As the years passed, the challenges facing the Sierra continued to grow.

Volunteer groups came and went.

Some struggled to find support.

Others simply faded away.

At the same time, shrinking budgets and changing priorities left fewer resources available to maintain the vast network of roads and trails that had long connected people to these mountains.

Sometimes the best ideas aren't born out of success.

They're born out of watching something you love slowly disappear.

One lifelong trail rider who refused to give up, one Forest Service veteran who understood both the challenges and the path forward.

Before long, those two journeys would converge around a simple idea: if the work wasn't getting done, perhaps it was time for the volunteers to do it themselves.

(music rises) - The Stewards came about from the travel management plan and the EIS that was supposed to be written up for the plan.

And so the forest had several public meetings.

And at these public meetings, which I was a part of, there were several members from the public who continued to come and voice their opinion as to what trails they would like to see come forward and where they're located, things of that sort.

And so they started talking to me, and we quickly gained a relationship.

And Ed Cole, who was forest supervisor, saw that and he asked me if I would be the liaison between the Forest Service and the Stewards.

And I said, "Sure.

I'd be glad to do that."

And when this small group of folks got together, their full intent was to sue the Forest Service because they felt that they weren't getting their, you know, their voice heard, the trails that they wanted, things of that sort.

And sure enough today, they're volunteers for the Forest Service for free.

So it's kind of crazy how that worked out.

- We're cleaning off the residue of the old numbers and stuff so if we can put the new numbers on and the letters and stuff so people will know what trail they're on.

And then we'll clear this stuff here too out so they can see the numbers there.

- This is what happened with me is later on, and we're talking about 2008, I was out riding my dirt bike and I came to a trail that I had made years ago, decades ago, that had been closed for decades.

And here's a Carsonite sign on it with a number on it and it was open.

And I though, "Well, how the heck did that happen?"

So I started asking around trying to find out exactly what happened, and I was informed that there was a new group called the Stewards of the Sierra that had been formed.

So did my research, I found out who was in charge.

Went to one of their get togethers, and I was very, very impressed by their organization, how they had put it together, and what they were getting done, which we weren't able to get done.

(engine ignites) (energetic music) (chainsaw grinding) ♪ Oh ♪ - [Narrator] Today, the Stewards of the Sierra have grown into a dedicated core of volunteers working side by side with the Sierra National Forest Off-Highway Vehicle Program to restore access to one of California's greatest outdoor treasures.

It's a partnership built on something simple: trust.

Forest Service personnel identify the work that needs to be done.

Volunteers supply the time, the equipment, and the determination to get it done.

Together they're reopening roads, clearing trails, replacing signs, improving recreation and helping ensure firefighters can once again reach parts of the forest when every second counts.

- Motivationally, we are very dedicated to what we're doing.

We're focused on it.

We'd like to see more input from younger folks.

Our biggest mission there is to get younger folks involved.

We do understand they have families and they work regular jobs so weekends are all they have, and you know, for them to give up family time to come out and do that sort of work is kind of tough.

So most of our workers are retired.

And you know, we have 84, 83, 82, 81.

We right on down to our average age I think is 65 now so.

(chainsaw grinding) (upbeat music continues) ♪ Ooh ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ ♪ Oh ♪ - [Narrator] It's hard work, dirty work, sometimes dangerous work.

But for these volunteers, every tree cleared, every mile reopened and every trail returned to the public is another investment in the future of the Sierra.

And the best way to understand what they've accomplished is to go see it for yourself.

- So what we have to deal with now, of course, is all the dead trees not being harvested, the ones that are still usable.

But the fact that all of this buck brush is getting full sun now and all the water, any water there is.

So this stuff is growing across the trails.

I mean, all the trails we're working on now, this stuff is growing in so fast that it's almost impossible to keep up with it.

And that's a result of the fire.

- The encroachment is so fast that you could brush it out one season, come back the next season and hardly notice you did anything.

(gentle music) - [Narrator] I grew up exploring these mountains.

I've spent a lifetime hiking, driving, camping and filming on the Sierra.

So when Steve and Ed told me they wanted to show me what the Stewards of the Sierra had been working on, I figured I already knew these trails pretty well.

I was wrong.

In just a few hours, they led me on routes I never knew existed.

Hidden connectors, forgotten roads and miles of trail that had been reopened through thousands of hours of volunteer work.

It was eye-opening, and it gave me an entirely new appreciation for what this organization has accomplished.

- This is a trail that we reopened.

It's actually an old stock drive, over a hundred years old.

And as you can tell, it was covered with downed trees.

When our crew came in, I had several people that just hopped right out.

And we looked at it, we do an assessment on the best way to cut it safely.

And to get through this mess and those large trees, it probably took us an hour and a half.

All this work, where you see the logs piled up, has all been done by hand.

So a lot of effort, and looks good.

And it looks like it's being used.

So that's a good thing.

- [Narrator] The trail network stretching through the Sierra National Forest above Bass Lake is enormous.

It's a web of single track trails, jeep routes, forest roads and OHV corridors that weave through some of the most spectacular country in California.

By reopening old routes, removing obstacles, improving drainage and installing proper trail markers, the Stewards of the Sierra have helped reconnect that network.

Today, off-highway vehicle riders can travel farther through the forest while staying on designated routes, reducing the need to leave the trail system or travel on paved county roads where OHVs are not permitted.

(engine revving) It's the kind of work most people never notice until it's gone.

These trails don't stay open on their own.

They require constant maintenance, countless volunteer hours and people willing to roll up their sleeves long after everyone else has gone home.

Sometimes the places we treasure endure because government agencies and dedicated volunteers work together.

And sometimes it takes people who simply refuse to let these places disappear.

The Stewards of the Sierra are proving that when a community takes ownership of its public lands, remarkable things can happen.

- I was a battalion chief and a strike team leader, and when I bring my guys in, I'm bringing in five engines, full crews into areas.

Access and egress, big time.

That's the important factor.

And so that's what the Stewards do.

We're trying to keep all the roads that are accessible or could be accessible to fire apparatus open.

It's important big time access and egress.

You got to be able to get in and get out, get your people in safely and get them out safely.

(pensive music) - This group has committed and given to the Sierra National Force over $1.2 million in volunteer labor in that time.

(chainsaw grinding) That's a lot of effort.

The hours I believe is something like 24,000 hours.

I have several folks in our group that have committed over a thousand hours of volunteer time.

And that's worthy of the Chiefs Award, which comes from the Chief of the Forest Service.

That's a big deal.

The Stewards in, I believe, 2011 received a national award from the Forest Service for Trail Group of the Year.

We've received awards from 2011, 2013, 2018.

Other West Coast Forest Service awards for trail groups.

- Our mission is recreation for everyone.

No in particular group.

We want hikers to enjoy it.

Horse people to enjoy it.

We want bicyclists, now that they've invented mountain bikes, which you have to realize these trails initially were opened by motorcyclists.

But then along came three wheelers, we welcomed them.

The trails got a little wider.

And then they invented quads.

Welcomed them, they got a little wider.

And then they invented mountain bikes.

Now we got mountain bikes using them.

So we've got a lot of different users, and we want to keep that open for everybody.

That's our mission.

(birds chirping) (dramatic music) - Production funding for "American Grown" provided by James G Parker Insurance, protecting agribusiness in the valley for over 40 years.

Brandt, professional agriculture, discovering, manufacturing and supplying the ag inputs that support the heroes that work hard to feed a hungry world every day.

By unWired Broadband, today's internet for rural central California, keeping valley ag connected since 2003.

By Hodges Electric, trusted by builders to wire thousands of valley homes, now bringing that trust direct to you.

By Wawona Frozen Foods, fruit as it should be.

Family owned since 1963.

By Harris Farms, a legacy of growing.

By Harrison Co., providing family farms insight to make the best possible financial decisions.

And by Valley Air Conditioning & Repair, family owned for over 50 years, dedicated to supporting Valley agriculture and families that grow food for the nation.

(dramatic music rises)