Bill Baehr is one of our original Ambassadors for Responsible Recreation. He started as the Camping Ambassadors at Toppings/Spread Creek in 2017. Previously, Bill worked as a wrangler guide at Triangle X Ranch, which is adjacent to the BTNF, for 19 seasons, 13 seasons of which were full-time. “I love helping the public to safely enjoy their National Forest,” says Bill, who is back at Toppings for summer 2025. “Helping campers out brings a lot of gratification.” For his years of work as an Ambassador, Bill, and his partner Sandy, were recognized as the “Super Volunteers” of 2022 by the local weekly paper, the Jackson Hole News & Guide.
“One thing I really admire about Bill is that he has taken personal ownership,” says Scott Kosiba, Friends of the Bridger-Teton’s executive director. “He shares a personal investment in the Toppings and Spread Creek areas. He treats it as his home. He comes to visitors as neighbors and as people who care about that more than just as a volunteer or someone working for a land management agency. People who are coming and communicating with him leave having had a better experience recreating on public lands. They have a better understanding of what it means to recreate responsibly.”
Bill doesn’t just help campers, but also the land. He has expanded the scope of his Ambassador-ship by tackling invasive species in the area. Starting in 2017, Bill has removed thousands of musk thistle plants. A single plant of this invasive noxious weed (from the Mediterranean region) can produce up to 6,000 seeds, each of which can stay viable for nine years. Like many other invasive species, musk thistle, which can grow to between six and eight feet tall, forms dense patches that outcompete native plants for moisture, sunlight, and nutrients. “I noticed they were overwhelming some of the campsites,” Bill says. “We just started digging them up and, over the years we’ve been doing this, we’ve seen a huge decline. It’s rewarding to know that we’re making a difference in the health of the land, and that’s on top of helping so many people!”
In addition to removing musk thistle around the Toppings area, Bill likes helping educate campers about fire safety and proper food storage in grizzly country. He wouldn’t take credit for this, but since 2017, there hasn’t been a food-caused animal-human conflict at Toppings.
Fun Fact: Bill saw grizzly 399 walk through Toppings in 2021 with her four cubs. “At that point they were almost as big as her,” he says. Just before the family walked through the area, he had been talking to campers about why it was important to store food where bear could not access it.