The People of the Land Trust: Dustin Weatherford

Dustin Weatherford is one of Truckee Donner Land Trust’s hut masters for our new Frog Lake Backcountry Huts, caretaking and ensuring guests enjoy their stay for the month of January, and again later in the winter after a break. He relieved Executive Director Emeritus Perry Norris, who ran the huts in December, and brings a wealth of outdoor knowledge and an attention to detail that is already garnering compliments from our guests.

“I wanted to be the hut master at Frog Lake because I’ve been recreating in the Truckee Donner area for many years,” Weatherford said. “I love the area and I thought this would be a great way to give back to this community.”

Originally from Traverse City, Michigan, Weatherford moved to California to get a degree in art, but decided he had enough time behind a computer screen, and chose to focus on the outdoors – rock climbing, splitboarding, paragliding and SCUBA diving.

His first tenure at Frog Lake started with a bang – or with ten feet of new snow more accurately – finding Weatherford picking up where Norris left off constantly digging out doors, windows and the power system for the huts, only to find them buried again the next morning.

“Life at Frog Lake is very special, but it can also be a lot of work,” he said.

But that prolonged time spent in the unique landscape of Frog Lake has given him a unique appreciation for the place – and why it’s so important to protect.

“Places like this are so rare – I don’t know of any other places around here where you can get a backcountry experience like this,’ Weatherford said. “We as backcountry visitors should care about conservation because of just this. Without strong conservation efforts we will lose more and more backcountry and natural habitats.”

To learn more about the Frog Lake Backcountry Huts and the nearly, 3,000 surrounding acres protected by the Truckee Donner Land Trust, Northern Sierra Partnership, The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land, click here, or to join Dustin Weatherford in supporting the Truckee Donner Land Trust, click here.