Join Friends of Badger Mountain for our annual celebration!

Hors d'oeuvres, wine, friendship, appreciations, elections, exciting news and... honoring special guests

Thank You Volunteers - Summer/Fall 2018

FoBM board member Dave Beach did a superb job of coordinating over 40 volunteers working more than three months to remove 1000’s of Yellow Star Thistle plants from the Candy Mountain Preserve. Yellow Star is an especially noxious weed that can do real damage if allowed to spread. Plants were removed not only in the Preserve, but also on nearby neighbor’s lands.

Gretchen Graber and members of the local Washington Native Plant Society chapter helped ninety 5th graders from Pasco’s Robert Frost Elementary plant sagebrush to enhance the Badger Flats habitat from sage seedlings they had grown as 4th graders. With this project giving students hands on experience learning about and restoring habitat, key to their 5th grade science curriculum, the Pasco School District is now fully supporting this as an annual project.

Members of Girl Scout Troop 5332 dug into hard soil for two Autumn Blaze Maple trees that they contributed. The trees will provide welcome shade for the Trailhead parking lot.

REI again teamed up with FoBM to launch fall trail work on Badger Mountain on National Public Lands Day. FoBM’s Trailmaster, Jim Langdon, organized work parties on 28 days this fall.

Volunteers placed rocks to secure and strengthen over 2000 feet of the edge of the new step by-pass trail. Crews also filled in potholes, weeded and generally gave the trails on the east end of Badger a noticeable “spruce up.”

On November 10th, the City of Richland marshaled a crew of volunteers to complete the fence that protects the new start of the east side trails. Also on November 10th REI and a large crew from the LDS Church turned out in force to widen the lower part of the heavily used Canyon Trail. FoBM volunteers then added over 25 tons of new gravel to finish the project.  

We deeply appreciate the contributions made by individuals and groups to improve the trail experience for all. If you want to find out about upcoming volunteering opportunities, make sure to visit friendsofbadger.org/volunteer

“Excellence in Customer Service” Award Winner

FoBM was the winner of the 2018 Tri-City Visitors and Convention Bureau annual award to honor “Excellence in Customer Service.” We were surprised — and proud. This is the first time the award has gone to a volunteer organization and is in recognition of all the ways you have contributed to creating this jewel for our community.

Your Membership is Important to Us

We hope you’ll consider renewing your annual membership to FoBM – or, if not yet a member, joining! Your donations are the lifeblood that keep FoBM accomplishing all the projects you read about above. In the coming year we plan to get started on a new trail and we expect to make other exciting progress on our vision of creating a 20 mile system of trails connecting our local ridges. We’ll share the details at our annual meeting. Yearly membership is $30 per family or $20 for individuals.

Support The Future Little Badger Mountain Trail

The next big step for FoBM is creating a trail on Little Badger. We have a proposal in to the WA Wildlife and Recreation Program (WWRP) for funding. If WWRP gets the full $130M they are requesting the Little Badger Mountain Trail Project will get about $1M. That would be a huge boost to our effort! You can help by requesting that WWRP gets the $130M they are seeking. Take a minute now to sign the WWRP letter.

Support Us When You Shop at Fred Meyer

Did you know that you can link your Fred Meyer Rewards Card to Friends of Badger? Sign up by following the link below. Then whenever you use your Rewards Card, you’ll help our organization earn a donation from Fred Meyer. 

12/20/18 – Winter Solstice Hike, Badger trails. Sunset at 4:13.  
1/1/19 – Annual I-MAC New Year’s Day Hike, meet 10:00 am, Skyline Trail
1/26/19 – Annual FoBM Meeting and Celebration
March 29 & 30, 2019 – 9th Annual Badger Mountain Challenge
April – Spring “Hike Wine Dine”
April & May 2019 – Wildflower Walks  
March-May – Trail building and maintenance  

For more details, see the calendar on our FoBM website and Facebook pages.

Wishing everyone lots of warmth, laughter, and outdoor fun...

Sharon Grant

Chris Lindhartsen