Vicky presents Senator Dianne Feinstein with an award for helping secure protection for California's deserts.

Vicky Hoover has spent over the last twenty years of her lifeprotecting wild places. Whether she is working, volunteering or recreating, wilderness advocacy has become a way of life. Even Vicky admits that it is “sometimes hard to draw the line.”

Describing herself as a “full-time volunteer with a job on theside,” Vicky’s dedication to protecting wild nature has evolved out of her love for the wild places she often visits. In the late 1960s, Vicky began leading backpacking trips for the Sierra Club in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. “When I started leading trips I took it for granted that these wild places were just there,” said Vicky. “But all those years of leading outings made me think that I should try to get more places protected.”

In 1985, Vicky began devoting herself whole-heartedly to wilderness advocacy work. She started working part time for the Sierra Club’s Alaska Task Force, working to educate and interest Sierra Club members from the lower 48 states in Alaska wilderness issues—a job Vicky still does today.

Vicky started her volunteer wilderness work in 1985, joining the Wilderness Committee of her local Sierra Club chapter. At the time, Senator Alan Cranston was about to introduce the California Desert Protection Act; Vicky became caught up in this new campaign and began working to help make the bill a statewide issue. As part of her efforts, she succeeded in getting 14 counties to pass resolutions in favor of the bill. “Fourteen out of 58 may not seem like a lot,” said Vicky, “but they were the counties with the majority of the population. They were the ones that counted.”

It was during the almost decade-long campaign to get the Desert Act passed that Vicky first met the Great Old Broads for Wilderness. It was 1991, and Broads, only a few years old at the time, wanted to help get the Desert Act passed. When Susan Tixier and Frandee Johnson, two of the original founders of Broads, came to the Sierra Club to discuss what Broads could do, they were referred to Vicky as the local campaigner. “They gave me a t-shirt and made me a member right then, and I’ve been a member ever since,” said Vicky.

The California Desert Protection Act was finally signed into law on October 31, 1994. To add to the delight of seeing her hard work pay off, Vicky was given the honor of presenting Senator Dianne Feinstein with an award for her leadership in securing protection for California deserts.

After successful completion of the desert campaign, Vicky devoted her energy to working on wilderness issues in Utah, where in 1995, Rep. Jim Hansen introduced the Utah Public Lands Management Act, dubbed by the conservation community as the anti-wilderness bill. Vicky set up numerous volunteer phone banks, until 1996 when the bill was defeated for good.

Still going strong, in 1997, Vicky fired up her volunteer energy to start the Sierra Club’s California/Nevada Regional Wilderness Committee, which she continues to chair, keeping Sierra Club members in both states up-to-date on upcoming legislation for wilderness, new threats and management issues on already designated lands.

In the midst of her numerous volunteer efforts, Vicky continues to lead outings for the Sierra Club. No longer just leading people into wilderness, Vicky structures her outings to teach others about wilderness issues and wilderness advocacy, often with a service-oriented feature, such as removing exotic Russian olive near Utah’s Escalante River or building barriers in Nevada to protect wildlands from off-road vehicles (ORV).

In 2004, Vicky was presented with the Sierra Club’s highest honor, the John Muir Award, for her persistent commitment to wilderness advocacy by taking others on wilderness outings and pushing them to become activists. It is clear to all who know Vicky that she works for wilderness protection out of a deep love for wild places.

“Once harmed, once altered, the wild qualities of an area are destroyed and you can’t ever get it back,” said Vicky. “I’m alarmed every day as I see new developments being built and open space being torn up. I believe that every bit of roadless area that we have now should stay that way to compensate for all of the development.”

Vicky acknowledges that there are many challenges for wilderness. “The greatest physical challenge to wildlands is increasing ORV use and the increasing technology that’s not stopping,” said Vicky. “We don’t know what type of mechanized recreational toys will be developed in 20 years and the agencies seem obliged to accommodate ORVs. We need to work for a cultural change in the permissiveness of managing our public lands for ORVs.”

Yet, Vicky also remains cheerfully optimistic. “We have a good opportunity these next two years in Congress. Wilderness protection is basically a political thing and we now have a favorable Congress with leaders who favor wilderness protection. We’ve got to push hard in the next two years because who knows what we’ll have after that.”

There is no doubt that Vicky, and her tireless efforts, will help push for the type of grassroots action that is needed to increase the preservation and protection of wildlands.