WHILE IT may not be as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack, creating an inventory of every recreational site in the Big Sur backcountry is certainly no easy challenge.

But that isn’t stopping a team of six volunteers from trying to accomplish the task, which involves navigating about 300 miles of trails on steep terrain and visiting about 50 different backcountry campsites. The effort was organized by the nonprofit Ventana Wilderness Alliance and is funded by a $40,000 grant of taxpayers’ money from the National Forest Foundation.

According to VWA executive director Mike Splain, the U.S. Forest Service needs extensive information about its backcountry trails and campsites so it can best determine how to spend its limited resources on maintenance and improvements.

Big Sur’s backcountry can be a particularly unforgiving place. Human “improvements” often don’t last long, as slides make trails impassable, wildfires turn trail signs into cinders, and the region’s famously dense vegetation swallows up everything in its path.

Even the best cartographers have found themselves challenged by Big Sur’s topography. Earlier this year, a VWA member found more than 250 mistakes on a Big Sur map produced by National Geographic.

Ideally, the forest service would conduct its own inventory of backcountry sites. But budget and staffing constraints make that impossible, Splain said. With the federal agency undermanned, the VWA is becoming its eyes and ears in the Ventana and Silver Peak wilderness areas, which encompass about 270,000 acres. “They have a hard time getting boots on the ground,” Splain told The Pine Cone.

Some backcountry campsites badly need work. For instance, Big Pines Camp — which is located seven miles from Bottchers Gap — no longer functions as a viable campsite because of the rapid growth of chaparral surrounding it following the Basin Complex Fire. “It used to be a beautiful camp,” Splain said. “But you can’t camp there now. Every flat spot is covered with ceanothus [also known as wild lilac], which has sprouted so fast.”

On the other end of the spectrum, Sykes Camp on the Pine Ridge Trail gets too many visitors — and it shows. With so much traffic resulting from its no-so-hot springs, the camp is often trashed. And it’s also a fire risk. “We counted 70 fire rings there on Memorial Day,” Splain recalled. “Most of those are inappropriate.”

A condition of the grant requires that the inventory project to be completed by May, 2013. “I think we’re going to beat that date,” Splain predicted.

With short days, long shadows and cool temperatures, winter hardly seems like a great time to visit the Big Sur backcountry. But Splain said the season does have its advantages. “We want to do the work when nobody is camping,” he said.

In addition to identifying where repairs and improvements need to be made to campsites, Splain hopes the inventory project will shed light on the small but growing number of people who come to Monterey County to hike Big Sur’s backcountry — and spend money while they’re here.

“There’s no good data on where hikers go,” Splain added. “How many people are coming here to visit the wilderness? And can we improve our resources? If we can learn more, it’s going to be a benefit for the county.”

One of the six volunteers, Bryce Winter has launched a blog about the project. Visit www.wildventana.org.