Executive director: ‘We’re working real hard to develop a cost structure that makes sense’
By Lee Juillerat for Ashland.news
Despite an expected loss of $750,000 over the next two years, the Siskiyou Mountain Club is devising ways to continue its mission of maintaining and improving public lands in Southern Oregon and far Northern California.
“It’s a big hit,” Gabe Howe, the group’s executive director, said of the loss of funding.
By late 2024 the club had about $750,000 in agreements that had been obligated by the U.S. Forest Service.
The money would have been used to help staff, buy tools, service the fleet, feed volunteers, and support interns over the 2025-2027 seasons. But, as Howe said, “At this point it would not be prudent to factor those obligations into any financial planning … The real question mark comes next year. We’re working real hard to develop a cost structure that makes sense.”
“An obligation is like a handshake … Historically we could trust that handshakes would get drafted into agreements, be signed, then woven into our annual operations, albeit with plenty of process that we happily managed for the last 15 years of doing business with the agency,” Howe added.
The U.S. Forest Service, along with other federal agencies, has seen cuts to budgets and staffing as a result of President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Because of the cuts, Howe said the seasonal staff performing trail work was cut from 18 last year to 11 this summer. The number of days on trails has been reduced from 50 to about 40 days.
“This moment in history represents an opportunity to develop a more sustainable cost structure,” Howe said. “I think this marks a moment for us to remember our mission – to maintain and improve backcountry trails. This is the moment to step back and listen to the community and identify what they want.”
Because of the cuts, Howe said the club is focusing on building community support, an effort that is proving successful.
“We really started last spring devoting more time and energy for community support,” he said, noting those efforts allowed crews to spend several days in the Mountain Lakes Wilderness Area doing long-deferred trail maintenance and other improvements.
“This means that the next six months are going to have tremendous bearing on our long-term trajectory as we maintain service levels with fewer resources and also do the hard work it will take to adopt the seismic shifts in our budget,” Howe said.
The Siskiyou group partnered with the Klamath Falls-based Klamath Trails Alliance and the Backcountry Horsemen, a partnership “that represents the future on how we fund things. It’s been great communicated with the groups over there,” Howe said, crediting KTA’s Heather Berg, a retired Fremont-Winema National Forest district ranger, for helping create the partnership, calling her a “dynamic coordinator.”
Howe said the club is seeing increased efforts to work with other groups and a great emphasis on working with local communities.
“We’re up for it. The team we’ve built is stronger than the economic and political gusts we face. It’s my job to keep them together as we chart a strategic transition to a more sustainable cost-structure,” Howe said.
“This is the moment we step back a little and listen to the community and identify what they want,” he added.
Howe also presented information that shows the shift in government revenue, work hours, and miles of trails maintained.
- Government revenue for 2024 compared to 2025 through July 31 dropped from $355,762 to $136,824.
- Intern hours dipped from 6,809 to 2,527 while staff hours have risen from 5,336 to 5,706 to maintain commitments made to staff.
- Volunteers have shifted from 2,295 to 3,324.
- In the field, because of less contract work for heavy trail restoration, the miles of trails restored has dropped from 21.08 to 8.5 miles. In contrast, the miles maintained has climbed from 74.89 to 129.67 miles.
“We have covered nearly double the inventory in the same period with fewer resource,” Howe said.
Email freelance writer Lee Juillerat at [email protected].
