With all that’s going on at the Forest Service, we’ve been remiss at rounding up recreation news, so here goes. Please add your own in the comments.
1. Lake Tahoe Basin Wide Trails Analysis Project
I couldn’t find much detailed news coverage of this decision, but I think it’s pretty interesting what the Lake Tahoe folks can do. Note what they did with adding trails. Here’s what the decision is doing (from the Draft Decision Notice September 2024).
Designate existing non-motorized trails as open to e-bikes (112.6 miles)
Change existing motorcycle trail designation as open to e-bikes only (1.1 mile)
Designate existing non-motorized trail as open to motorcycles (3.8 miles)
Decommission Trails (2.5 miles)
Construct new trails open to e-bikes (27.5 miles)
Construct new non-motorized trail (14.7 miles)
Construct new motorcycle trails (4.2 miles)
Designate existing closed road as open to e-bikes (2 miles)
Designate existing unmanaged trail as non-motorized (1.7 miles)
Construct three new trailheads (Pine Drop, Brockway Summit, Elks Point). Trailheads would include a paved
parking lot and visitor information signage. Restroom facilities may be included.
Upgrade stream crossings
Upgrade trails for Best Management Practices
Install wayfinding and interpretive signage
Update the LTBMU Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM)
Here’s the need for change:
There is a need to provide a sustainable trail system meeting National Forest Trail Management Standard, including low-maintenance design principles, diversity of experience and challenge opportunity, and appropriate trail use guidance.
There is a need to update the wheeled vehicle designation of the National Forest System trails and roads to reflect the use of e-bikes and update the Motor Vehicle Use Map to reflect these changes.
There is a need to provide trail system connectivity to logical access points, such as trailheads, public transit routes, community centers and neighborhoods, and underutilized areas.
There is a need to manage and upgrade some existing unmanaged trails.
There is a need to provide a trail system that incorporates “stacked loop” design – trail experiences of different length, type and challenge exist from common access points.
There is a need to provide Aquatic Organism Passage at trail crossings.
There is a need to provide additional capacity on popular recreation trails.
There is a need to limit potential impacts related to use conflict, or overuse of popular trail sections and areas.
Seems like many of these would apply in many places; perhaps other forests don’t have the capacity to take this on.
2. The Continuing Steamboat Mountain Bike Trail Controversy
There’s plenty of coverage of this one. Here’s a story from 2019. From last month:Forest Service changes to Rabbit Ears Pass mountain bike project have advocates hopping mad
That seems like six years, almost as long as fuel treatment project time frames. It makes you wonder why people can agree in the Lake Tahoe Basin, but not in Steamboat?
3. Trail Stewardship Act Funding
Here’s another recreation story about folks helping out with FS work this year, this time rafting.
Aherin, of Lewiston and Salmon, Idaho, owns Idaho River Adventures and is president of the Middle Fork Outfitters Association. During the chaos that followed the Trump administration’s decision to dismiss probationary federal employees, his organization worked with the Idaho congressional delegation to lay the groundwork for a solution.
The Middle Fork Outfitters Association has been using the Trail Stewardship Act to help the Forest Service maintain the roads that provide access to Boundary Creek. The 2016 law allows holders of special use permits to use the money they are required to pay the Forest Service (3% of their gross profits) for trail maintenance and to care for other recreational infrastructure.
Before the act, outfitters would write a check to the federal government. Now they can write checks to contractors who perform maintenance work and then use the receipts to offset what they owe the feds.
This summer, Aherin and other outfitters will divert the money they owe the Forest Service to the Selway Bitterroot Frank Church Foundation. In turn, the group will hire four people to work as checkers at put-ins and two to work on Forest Service river patrol crews.
“It is really in line with our mission, it’s just not something we have done before,” said Ryan Ghelfi, executive director of the foundation.
The group typically hires trail crews and wilderness rangers to help the agency care for the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return wilderness areas that overlay much of central Idaho’s backcountry. Working on the river is new and so far a temporary part of the group’s work.
Ghelfi said the people the foundation hires will work under the direction of the Forest Service and at least for now, it is just for this summer to help the agency deal with unexpected circumstances.
“The way things are right now, it’s something our organization needed to be able to say yes to and we did.
4. Moth Plan for Shoshone
Very interesting and comprehensive story from Wyofile on managing moth/grizzly tourism. Who knew there was moth/grizzly tourism? I try to avoid grizzlies, myself.
The Shoshone National Forest has been assessing its moth sites in consideration of management changes since 2015, when it completed its Forest Plan. Before that, around 15 years ago, Yellowstone region managers prioritizing grizzly bear issues identified the moth sites as a top-three issue in the ecosystem, U.S. Forest Service biologist Dan Tyers told the room in Cody.
5. FS and BLM Recreation in Wyoming Compared: BLM Not Having Problems
This is coverage of the Wyoming Outdoor Roundtable
The panel was part of the Wyoming Outdoor Recreation Summit, which gathered businesses, agencies and recreationists in Laramie to talk about issues like access and economic opportunities. Though Ashcroft and his fellow panelists discussed longstanding challenges, participants were keen to hear about recent DOGE impacts on Interior Department agencies like the U.S. Forest Service, Park Service and Bureau of Land Management.
“Is there going to be a hair-on-fire moment when the bathrooms aren’t getting cleaned and maybe the campgrounds are getting closed?” asked Wyoming Office of Outdoor Recreation Manager Mark Tesoro, who moderated the panel.
“One forest may have lost their entire special uses program, which impacts guiding and outfitters, where another forest may be whole in that region,” Ashcroft said. “So it truly is varying by district to district, forest to forest, that you’re going to see impacts.”
Regardless, he said, “the agency’s priority is to keep sites open, and so we are going to prioritize that to the extent possible.” Sites may, however, not be open at the same level of service that users have enjoyed in the past.
“There could be sites that historically had running water, that may not have running water,” he said. “There could be sites that had trash collection that may not have trash collection this year.”
***
Trail maintenance will be a big challenge, Ashcroft added, so users could encounter more debris or downed trees.
Agency leadership wants to keep decision-making as local as possible, Ashcroft said, and has identified safety, fire, timber and recreation as priorities. “I see us trying to focus what we have on those priorities, recreation being one of those priorities.”
***
Jennifer Fleuret McConchie, Wyoming BLM deputy state director and the third panelist, doesn’t think the federal challenges will prevent the BLM from getting its work done this season, she told the crowd.
Wyoming BLM staff, key to Trump’s “energy dominance” strategy, have been largely spared by DOGE.
“I don’t think any of the challenges coming to face us this year are going to stretch our ability to meet those challenges and work with our partners to get the work done where it needs to be done,” Fleuret McConchie said.
Knowing what we know, I wonder why the FS would have more problems than the BLM. Possibly because of the last Admin’s getting rid of temps for this year, plus the FS having 5K or so probationary hires? Or is it a budget thing? Certainly DOGE could tell a BLM minerals employee from a recreation employee. I’m guessing it might be more complicated than just “they have minerals there.”
Anyway, this might be a year to recreate on BLM sites preferentially.