The Recreational Aviation Foundation Tent at Oshkosh and the Volunteers Who Fight to Keep the Backcountry Strips Open

The Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF) is a volunteer-driven nonprofit that works to keep public backcountry airstrips open across the United States. Founded in 2003 by a handful of Montana pilots, the organization partners with agencies like the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, along with state governments and private landowners, to preserve grass and gravel runways that would otherwise vanish. Its work is unglamorous and largely invisible, but it has saved, reopened, and even created backcountry strips that pilots and families rely on today.

What Is the Recreational Aviation Foundation?

The RAF is a nonprofit built around a single mission: stop backcountry airstrips from disappearing. There are hundreds of public backcountry airstrips scattered across the country - small grass and gravel runways tucked into national forests, up river canyons, and on the edges of wilderness. Some are more than a hundred years old, dating to an era when an airplane was the only way to reach a fire lookout, a ranger station, or a hunting camp.

These strips rarely close because of accidents. They close quietly. The grass grows over. A culvert washes out and no one repairs it. A land manager decides an unused runway is a liability. One strip at a time, they slip away - and usually nobody notices until it’s gone.

The RAF exists to reverse that trend. It does the patient, procedural work: sitting in meetings, filing paperwork, building relationships, and showing up year after year to make the case for keeping public land accessible by air.

Why Are Backcountry Airstrips Disappearing?

The threat isn’t dramatic. It’s neglect and administrative decision-making. An unmaintained strip becomes overgrown and impassable. A washed-out access feature goes unrepaired. A land manager, facing liability concerns and no obvious constituency for a runway, closes it.

Because each closure is small and local, there’s rarely public outcry. The cumulative effect, though, is significant: a slow, steady erosion of the network of strips that make backcountry aviation possible.

What Do RAF Volunteers Actually Do?

The hands-on work is closer to landscaping than to flying. Volunteers drive out to remote strips with weed trimmers, shovels, and chainsaws. They fill gopher holes, cut back encroaching brush, rebuild windsock frames, and haul out other people’s trash - removing any reason a land manager might have to close the strip.

The motivation is generational. One volunteer, a retired airline pilot who flew heavy jets across oceans, now loads a mower into the back of his Cessna and flies two hours to spend a weekend cutting grass on a strip that maybe 40 pilots a year will ever use. His reason: if he doesn’t, his grandkids won’t get to land there.

Crucially, none of this requires an expensive airplane. You can fly a modest two-seater onto grass, drive out to a work weekend without flying at all, or simply pay dues and let your money do the work in meetings you’ll never attend.

The “Airstrip as a Trailhead” Idea

One of the RAF’s most effective concepts is reframing the airstrip as a trailhead. When you hike into the wilderness, you begin at a trailhead. A backcountry airstrip is the same thing - except the trail is the sky and the boots have a propeller.

The strip isn’t the destination. It’s the front door to the destination: the river you’re going to fish, the ridge you’re going to camp on, the valley with no road. Framed this way, the airplane stops looking like an intruder to a land manager or a state parks department. It becomes just another way people access public land, no different from a canoe or a horse.

That reframing has real results. Strips slated for closure are open today because someone made that case calmly and repeatedly in meetings.

Why This Matters for Pilots

Every open backcountry strip is a place you can still legally and safely reach in a small airplane - and the network only stays intact because volunteers defend it. But there’s a second reason it matters: pilot behavior directly affects whether strips stay open.

The RAF is emphatic that backcountry flying is about judgment, not showmanship. It’s not about the shortest, gnarliest landing you can brag about. It’s about:

Knowing the density altitude, because a strip that’s easy in the cool of morning can become a trap on a hot afternoon when the air thins and both engine and wing lose performance.
Understanding canyon winds, which curl, roll, and often ignore the forecast.
Having the discipline to fly all the way out, assess the strip, decide it isn’t right today, and turn home. The mountain will still be there next week.

Every safe, respectful landing is an argument for keeping a strip open. Every reckless one is ammunition for those who want it closed. That’s why the backcountry community polices itself hard: pack it in, pack it out; fly neighborly; respect wildlife, ranchers, and other land users; and leave the place better than you found it.

The Culture and Gear of Bush Flying

Backcountry airplanes are built for rough ground. Wings sit high, the landing gear is long and springy to absorb rocks and ruts, and the tires are enormous - so-called bushwheels measuring 31 to 35 inches tall that let an airplane roll over a boulder field like a putting green.

You’ll see Piper Super Cubs, Cessna 180s and 185s, Carbon Cubs, Scouts, and homebuilt kit planes out on the bush line. The equipment culture runs deep: beefed-up landing gear, extended baggage kits for a week of camping supplies, folding bicycles, packable canoes, and shelter systems that turn a wing into a roof.

The STOL (short takeoff and landing) community lives here too. These pilots train to stop an airplane in almost no distance and get it airborne just as fast - essential when the runway is 300 feet of gravel bar with a river at one end.

What Success Looks Like for the RAF

Asked what winning looks like, one of the founding generation put it simply: the goal is that in fifty years there are more backcountry strips than there are today - not fewer. In a world where small airstrips seem to be constantly closing, the RAF is betting it can turn the tide, and its record of strips saved, reopened, or newly negotiated into existence suggests the bet is working.

The organization runs entirely on volunteers and members - no corporation behind it, just pilots who chip in, show up for work parties, and learn how to talk to a county commissioner. If you’re interested, find the RAF at fly-ins (look for the green banner in the bush area). Volunteers will hand you a map of your own state and show you strips you never knew existed, often within an hour of your home field.

Key Takeaways

The Recreational Aviation Foundation, founded in 2003 by Montana pilots, works to keep public backcountry airstrips open by partnering with the Forest Service, BLM, states, and private landowners.
Backcountry strips disappear quietly through neglect and administrative closures - not accidents - making ongoing volunteer maintenance essential.
The “airstrip as a trailhead” framing has helped save strips by presenting aviation as one more legitimate way to enjoy public land.
Backcountry flying rewards judgment over showmanship: density altitude, canyon winds, and the discipline to walk away are core skills, and responsible flying helps keep strips open.
You don’t need an expensive bush plane to participate - membership, dues, and volunteering all support the mission.