Newly retired White River National Forest supervisor Scott Fitzwilliams says he wants to take “the high road” when discussing challenges facing the agency in the aftermath of federal employee firings mandated by the Trump Administration, but he concedes they are worrisome.
After 35 years with the forest service, the last 15 as the man in charge of Colorado’s sprawling White River forest, Fitzwilliams took advantage of buyouts offered to federal employees last month as the Trump administration sought to cut the size of government.
He maintains he was not making a political statement, though.
“I was probably going to retire in the next year anyway,” said Fitzwilliams, 60. “I have 35 years in, and I want to do some other things. With everything going on, I thought, ‘Well, now is a good time.’”
While not politicizing his departure, he worries about the short-term future of the 3,600-square-mile forest he managed — which stretches from the Continental Divide to Glenwood Springs and beyond — as well as other national forests.
Because of its 11 ski areas, which operate on forest land with special use permits, along with 10 fourteeners and other exceptional hiking opportunities, White River is the busiest national forest in the U.S.
“When you don’t have boots on the ground — and that’s the people we’re getting rid of, seasonal and part-time people — that concerns me,” Fitzwilliams said. “Maybe it’s short-term, and through whatever plan is put in place, we’ll get through it, but I’m really worried about this upcoming season with so few people working in the field.
“I say that now as what will be a retired user of public lands,” the Wisconsin native added. “I want trails clear. I want bathrooms cleaned, toilets pumped. That stuff is just basic services that, right now, forests are struggling to figure out how that can get done.”
He’s also troubled because many experienced forest service lifers are taking the same exit path he did. White River’s deputy supervisor, Heather Noel, also resigned.
“People are signing up for early retirement,” Fitzwilliams said. “The amount of institutional knowledge that is about to walk out the door should worry everyone.”
Joe Lavorini, Rocky Mountain region program director for the non-profit National Forest Foundation, says Fitzwilliams was a one-of-a-kind leader who was an “amazing advocate” for public lands.
“His team admired Scott for his innovation, but also the high standard to which he held himself,” Lavorini said. “He knew what the land needed, protecting the resource, but also protecting the user experience. I really admired the balanced approach that he took to managing national forest service lands.”
Because the mandate of the forest service within the U.S Department of Agriculture is to manage its lands for “multiple use,” making decisions for White River involves mineral exploration, grazing, logging and oil and gas development. Recreation is its top priority, though. The forest attracts approximately 10 million visitors annually.
That means many of the issues Fitzwilliams worked to solve involved growing visitation pressures, such as implementing a reservation system for Hanging Lake and requiring permits for backcountry camping in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness.
“Anytime you talk about permitting to go camping, just to stay overnight, that’s hard because the great part about national forests is that you’re free to roam,” Fitzwilliams said. “But the impacts were such that we had to do something. There was human feces all over the place. There was garbage all over the place. There was no solitude. Campsites were trashed. It wasn’t a wilderness experience, and we weren’t meeting the intent of the (federal) wilderness act.”
Parking reservations at the Quandary Peak trailhead, managed by Summit County, were another innovation to address increasing visitation during Fitzwilliams’ tenure. Yet another was summer closures of the parking area at the Booth Creek trailhead near Vail, where hikers access the popular trail via shuttles from Vail parking structures.
Massive challenges came from the Grizzly Creek wildfire in 2020, which was followed by flooding and debris flows a year later which severely damaged the iconic Hanging Lake trail in Glenwood Canyon. White River collaborated with Great Outdoors Colorado, the National Forest Foundation and others to fund trail reconstruction that the forest otherwise would not have been able to afford.
“I don’t have the exact numbers, but let’s just say it was a $4.5-million remake, and less than a million was taxpayer money,” Fitzwilliams said. “Shared stewardship — that’s people coming together and solving a problem. It’s an example of the work we were able to do, and that’s what I’ll miss most.”
Lavorini admired the way Fitzwilliams brought those stakeholders together to rebuild the trail better than it was before. The project is expected to be finished this summer.
“He recognized we were going to need to bring in other partners in order to raise the funds and give Hanging Lake the care and attention it needed after the Grizzly Creek fire,” Lavorini said. “He recognized that in order to manage these lands sustainably, we need to foster stewardship and create the next generation of environmental stewards. To do that, people need to interact with their public lands. They need to be able to visit these places.”
Fitzwilliams and Gov. Jared Polis alarmed locals in Garfield and Eagle counties in 2021 after the governor announced that Sweetwater Lake would become Colorado’s 43rd state park on land owned by the forest service but managed by Colorado Parks and Wildlife. Three and a half years later, it remains unclear whether CPW will manage the property and, if it does, whether it will be designated a state park.
Locals in Garfield and Eagle counties feared Sweetwater would be overrun by visitors. Fitzwilliams insisted that visitors from afar were going to discover Sweetwater no matter what, but concedes White River could have done a better job communicating why asking CPW to administrate it was necessary.
“That whole vision of state park, and what a state park looks like, took over a little bit,” Fitzwilliams said. “We had to backtrack, and hopefully they will be able to catch up.”
Fitzwilliams says his White River tenure was a dream job, and that he turned down promotions at the regional and national level because he enjoyed “rolling up sleeves with partners and communities, solving problems.”
Despite the current challenges facing federal land managers, Fitzwilliams calls himself an “eternal optimist,” and he notes that the national debt stands at $36 trillion.
“There’s no bigger advocate of getting rid of inefficiencies in government than I am, especially when you live it for 35 years,” he said. “But short-term, it’s going to be a bumpy ride, and I’m a little worried about how you bounce back.”