Photos by Nick Dempkowski

On Sept. 21, 2019, the Utah State University collegiate club of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers hosted a Public Land Pack Out in Providence Canyon. This project was in coordination with the Logan U.S. Forest Service ranger district office to remove debris from a heavily trafficked area used for recreational shooting. Due to easy accessibility from the city, this area receives an incredibly high amount of use and unfortunately is left with a gross amount of trash as evidence.

Roughly 40 people from the USU club, Dedicated Hunter Program and members of the local community started the morning meeting at the Providence Canyon Trailhead with some hot coffee from Caffe Ibis, a local coffee roaster in Logan, Utah. The volunteers were split into groups to target areas of focus with the most amount of debris. After completing the assigned areas the groups met at the last location to focus on a large area that is used as a shooting range.

Volunteers collected more than 110 13-gallon bags of trash, mostly consisting of small items like shotgun wads, shells, targets, plastic water bottles and glass. Many larger items were not able to fit in bags or were too heavy to be carried by one and were loaded directly into the bed of a truck. Items like computers, TVs and pallets were used as targets and left behind. While driving back down the canyon, volunteers stopped to pick up the collected bags and any loose trash we found and left at the roadside to clean the most heavily trafficked area.

We ended the day by thanking our volunteers for all the hard work with a lunch consisting of 15 pounds of pulled pork, 15 pounds of loaded mashed potatoes and 10 dozen rolls donated by our local Texas Roadhouse. If you live in the Cache Valley area please support this business that has done a lot to give back to our community.

The USU BHA club would like to give a big thanks to all of our volunteers, Caffe Ibis, Beau Baker at the Logan Texas Roadhouse and Nick Dempkowski for all the photos. We are dedicated to giving back to our local community and will be doing many projects in the future. If you are interested in getting involved or have ideas for future projects, please feel free to email us at [email protected].

Learn more about Utah BHA.

Learn more about BHA’s collegiate club program.

Support BHA’s efforts on behalf of our public lands and waters. 

USU BHA Board from left to right:  Garrett Vasa (Vice President), Tyler Coleman (President) Kolby White (Secretary) Mike Moulton (Treasurer).