More on the Nez Perce-Clearwater-Lolo revision (and the Great Burn)

Here’s a little more (added to this) on the Nez Perce-Clearwater revised forest plan.  Mostly I wanted to share this graphic of how they are “reaching out” to the public.  They ask an important question:  “What can you do?”  The obvious meaning seems to be what can you do about the forest plan, and the answer for most people is “nothing.”  They say that the plan is in the objection period, but don’t tell us that the only people who can participate are those who have already done so.  They invite us to “learn more,” about this nearly-done deal, which they misleading label as a “draft Forest Management Plan.”  (At the draft EIS stage, the Planning Rule refers to it as the “proposed plan,” and at the objection stage it is just the “plan.)   While they have must have included similar outreach at earlier stages in the process, for those encountering this for the first time, it’s almost disingenuous.

But while I’m at it , there was also another article recently that focused on the State Line Trail, which runs through the Hoodoo Recommended Wilderness Area in the Great Burn between Idaho and Montana.  (I’ve been there but haven’t been directly involved in the planning, so know only what I read.)

“It used to be a marquee backcountry ride for mountain bikers, too. That ended in 2012 when the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest, which controls the Idaho side of the trail, approved a new travel management plan that barred bicycles from its portion of the trail. On the Montana side, the Lolo National Forest has long allowed bicycles on the trail.”

A new revised forest plan for the Nez Perce-Clearwater could change that, by determining that bicycles are an appropriate use in the portions of Idaho around the trail, which would mirror access on the Montana side. If the changes in the plan are finalized, possibly later this year, that would set the stage for the Nez Perce-Clearwater to revisit and alter its 2012 travel plan to formally re-allow bicycles on the trail.”

The rationale behind these changes, according to the forest supervisor, don’t seem to include consistency (more on that later):  “We have these types of very primitive, amazing, out in the middle of nowhere experiences that you can get to no matter what your matter of conveyance is.”  No apparent agency recognition that the conveyance is part of the experience for those who encounter it, and for some it makes it feel unpleasantly more like “somewhere.”

One of the supporters added, “It’s a small segment of the sport that this is going to appeal to,” he said. “It’s not that close to Missoula. It’s hard. The trail’s in deteriorating condition. But this opportunity is, for certain people, something they really, really want.” That small segment of certain people (who apparently want to deteriorate the trail even more) must be pretty special to get this kind of personalized attention.

“Some mountain bikers are drawn to remote, rugged, and challenging backcountry trail experiences on wild and raw landscapes,” a group of supporters commented. “These are places where it is uncommon to see other trail users, and where riding requires a high level of physical fitness and technical skill — in many cases it involves pushing a bike instead of riding at all.”  That would be like hiking, wouldn’t it?  So, it’s not like closing the area to this use would exclude these physically fit people from these wild and raw landscapes.  I’ll admit that I don’t understand the rationale of wanting to experience a “wild and raw landscape” on a machine, which (to me) reduces the rawness and wildness of the experience.

The aura of personal opinion and politics behind these wilderness debates is why I focus my energy on other things.  Here there is also talk about snowmobiles and mountain goats, and why mountain goats are treated differently in adjacent national forests.

As for the effects of snowmobiles on mountain goats, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game blamed them for disappearance from one part of this area, but the founder of the Backcountry Sled Patriots says otherwise (citing other research).  The Lolo National Forest cited the negative effect of motorized over-snow machines as reason for designating them a species of conservation concern.  The Nez Perce-Clearwater is not concerned about mountain goats.  The Forest Service minimizes the importance of the areas at issue to mountain goats (though they apparently used to be some places they are not found now).

About the Lolo, Marten, the regional forester, who determines which species are SCC, wrote:

“Compared to other ungulates, the species appears particularly sensitive to human disturbance. Motorized and non-motorized recreation, as well as aerial vehicles, are well documented to affect the species, particularly during winter and kid-rearing season, with impacts ranging from permanent or seasonal (displacement), to changes in behavior and productivity.”

The regional director for ecosystem planning said that she didn’t see the different listing decisions as being in conflict with each other. Rather, she said, they reflect that mountains goats are doing better overall on one forest than the other.  This may be technically/legally possible since SCC are based on persistence in an individual forest plan area.  However, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to manage one national forest to increase the risk to, and to contribute to SCC designation on, another forest.  Moreover, the Planning Handbook states that “species of conservation concern in adjoining National Forest System plan areas” should be considered by the regional forester in making this designation.  This all has kind of an arbitrary ring to it.

As for consistent management across national forest boundaries, The Nez Perce-Clearwater plans to change the shape of the Hoodoo RWA to remove the key snowmobile areas from it, so that boundary between the national forests becomes a boundary for the RWA.  The Forest Service points out that the plan revision process in the hands of forest supervisors, not the regional office.  The forest supervisors disclaim any obligation for consistency, and even suggest that travel planning may produce a different result, and “forest plans and travel management plans are continually updated and amended” so they could change again.  That doesn’t square well with history.  The every-third-of-a-century Forest plan revision should be the time to get it right.  Even if the regional forester doesn’t want to say what the plans must do, that person could simply order them to be consistent along this boundary.

Udall: We Need to Keep Climbers in Wilderness So They Can Advocate for Wilderness

Image from https://www.boulderclimbers.org/news/fixedanchorsinwilderness-bolts

 

Op-ed linked here.

Here are some excerpts:

As a United States senator, I sponsored and helped to pass new Wilderness protections for Colorado’s James Peak Wilderness, Indian Peaks Wilderness, and Rocky Mountain National Park. These bills became law thanks to a united coalition of advocates for conservation and recreation. In my experience, the two cannot be separated. The time we spend outside is what defines every conservationist I know.

Protecting Wilderness requires careful management that allows primitive recreation activities that are compatible with preserving Wilderness characteristics. Over the last decades, the management of fixed anchors in Wilderness areas has been ad hoc. It’s varied from area to area, often causing confusion and conflict. The Protecting America’s Rock Climbing Act (PARC Act) would clarify for the land agencies, the public, and climbers where fixed anchors are appropriate, when they can be replaced, and where they are banned.

By resolving the ongoing debate over fixed anchors, our public land managers can devote their priceless time to the serious, existential, and quickly progressing impacts to America’s Wilderness Preservation System. For example, air pollution and climate change don’t respect boundaries on a map. In fact, 96 percent of national parks “are plagued with significant air pollution problems.”

If we’re going to take a proactive approach to protecting America’s last pockets of Wilderness, we need a new generation of advocates to lead the way. Supporting sustainable climbing access to America’s Wilderness areas will help ensure that climbers—long-standing wilderness champions—are part of that coalition.

Here’s what I think: saying advocates for conservation and recreation “cannot be separated” is one of those generalized expressions that glosses over the fact that certain forms of recreation on the Pyramid of Pristinity are often kicked out or never allowed in Wilderness.  Also, that even those activities allowed can have serious environmental impacts. But maybe that’s still conservation? By definition?

The fact is that our “public land managers” “priceless time” will probably not be spent on cleaning up air pollution nor reducing “climate change.”  I heard one of my colleagues say “perhaps the best things federal lands could do for climate change is to not allow recreation of any kind because of the transportation and fuel impacts” and I’m not sure it was tongue-in-cheek.

His last argument is fairly pragmatic.. although I’m not sure what a “proactive approach to protecting” means… more Wilderness, or fewer things allowed, or protecting via reducing pollution and decarbonizing? What do they need climbers for, and why stop with them?

A Three Sisters Wilderness Trailhead Information Station Volunteer Corps

 

Volunteer John Flood, M.D., staffing the Green Lakes Trailhead.

Volunteer John Flood, M.D., staffed the Green Lakes Trail Head
Information Station for several summers.

By Les Joslin

“Now I want you to recruit and train and supervise wilderness volunteers to work at the trailhead so you can get back on the trails,” Marv responded to my written report on the Green Lakes Trailhead Information Station’s first summer of operations.

With this license, and eschewing such terms as “trailhead host” and “information kiosk” used by Marv and others, I set about recruiting a small group of volunteer “wilderness information specialists” possessed of first-hand knowledge of the Three Sisters Wilderness to operate the “information station” as uniformed Forest Service representatives. The station would be open nine hours daily from July 1 through Labor Day and on weekends into the fall.

“Working alone or in pairs,” my recruiting brochure and news releases advised, “volunteers will assist wilderness users and other national forest visitors by providing information and explaining the wilderness permit system, regulations, and etiquette. They will also gather visitor statistics and maintain trailhead facilities. Additional duties may include trail patrols.”

I laid out the details, and did so in a way that set the tone I intended as it assured potential volunteers they would not be just hanging out at a trailhead but doing a real Forest Service job for free.

Qualified persons at least 18 years of age who can commit at least one day per week may apply. In addition to familiarity with the Three Sisters Wilderness, volunteers should possess strong interpersonal skills and be physically capable of performing the full range of trailhead duties. Additional qualifying experience might include previous Forest Service or similar public contact service and relevant education. Current first aid and CPR certification also is useful. The Forest Service will provide supervision, pre-season and first-day on-the-job training, uniforms, and equipment. Volunteers are not considered federal employees, but they do receive legal protection as well as insurance for work-related injuries and reimbursement for certain expenses.

“The Forest Service,” I assured them, “needs reliable volunteers to supplement its small wilderness ranger force.” People who “are qualified, enjoy working with people, and would like serving as a ‘friendly face and a helping hand’ in the Three Sisters Wilderness this summer,” were invited to contact the Bend Ranger Station or me.

This challenging invitation attracted a few good volunteers from all walks of life. Two who proved the most active were Bend residents Larry Robertson, a retired General Motors executive engineer and former head of the Mount Bachelor ski patrol, and his wife Marian. Larry, a native of Corvallis, Oregon, and an Oregon State College aeronautical engineer who served as a U.S. Navy aviation maintenance officer during World War II and later helped design the Corvair and defend it before Congress from Ralph Nader, served at the trailhead station two or three days a week that summer and the next. As the summers went by, others included both active and retired Central Oregon doctors, lawyers, armed forces officers, and other professionals and retirees. Still others were college students who—along with Central Oregon Community College and Oregon State University, for both of which I taught part-time—eventually added another dimension to the project.

Training those volunteers—whom I referred to as Wilderness Information Specialists—at the trailhead station, staffing the station myself when no volunteer was scheduled, and patrolling trails while continuing the campsite surveys I’d begun in 1990 put me in the field for fifty-nine of the seventy-four days the station served over six thousand visitors that second summer.

Even after the previous summer’s shakedown, a few issues remained to be resolved. One of these was overnight wilderness permits. Day-use permits were self-issued at the trailheads, but overnight permits had to be obtained from a forest officer at a ranger station, and that could mean a sixty-mile roundtrip to Bend. On July 3, I made the case for trailhead volunteers to issue overnight permits to the Deschutes National Forest community affairs staff officer when he visited the station. “To the public, this is a ranger station.” On July 9, the Green Lakes Trailhead Information Station was authorized to issue overnight wilderness permits. A few years later, overnight permits, too, were self-issued at trailheads.

The success of the volunteer program begun at the Green Lakes Trailhead Information Station that summer of 1993 is reflected in statistics for the fourteen years during which a total of ninety-five uniformed volunteers I trained and qualified worked with me to staff the station for 997 days—8,560 hours—during which they represented the Forest Service and the wilderness concept to about 82,500 wilderness visitors and served another eight thousand Deschutes National Forest visitors who stopped by the station for other assistance and information. Add to those numbers the many wilderness visitors served by these same volunteers who staffed the Devils Lake wilderness trailheads about fifteen to twenty days annually for many of those years and patrolled wilderness trails, and the positive presence of these wilderness volunteers well exceeded ten thousand hours of service to more than one hundred thousand visitors served.

 

When Monumentizing Goes Wrong?: The Case of Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument

This is related to yesterday’s post..Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks is considered to be a co-managed federal unit between the Cochiti Pueblo and the BLM. It’s been closed for three years.

Here’s a story from KRQE News 13.  The story starts out with how difficult it was to find anything out about the closure and when it might be reopened:

The National Monument was closed to the public in the 2020 pandemic shutdown and it remains closed today. Why? KRQE News 13 went digging for answers.

For months, emails and phone calls requesting interviews with the state’s Tourism Department, the Bureau of Land Management, the Secretary of the Interior’s Office, Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernandez, and Senator Martin Heinrich were answered with replies such as, “We will not be providing a comment or participating in this story at this time.”

Cochiti Pueblo leaders also declined to comment. The BLM updated the statement on its website on April 28, during the weeks of KRQE’s requests for information. Finally, the BLM agreed to chat via Zoom.

“BLM has been meeting regularly with the Pueblo,” said Jamie Garcia, an outdoor recreation planner with the BLM. “We have been in discussions about what reopening looks like.”

This isn’t very transparent.  Conceivably it could have been possible to give that answer sooner. One wonders if the co-management aspect may have made it more difficult to arrive at one answer that could be communicated.

On to the Monumentization aspect:

A ‘Double-Edged’ Sword

Garcia said they’re addressing long-standing issues including over-visitation, staffing needs, and resource protection, alongside Pueblo de Cochiti. “We’ve had such high recreation use and we want to make sure that we are taking a step back and really looking at that big picture item there, and seeing how we can move forward in a more sustainable and responsible way,” Garcia told KRQE News 13.

The Cochiti Pueblo remains closed citing Covid-19 restrictions, blocking road access to the national monument which sits on BLM land. As part of the presidential proclamation, the site is managed by the BLM in “close cooperation and partnership” with the Pueblo.

“I suspect that the designation of the National Monument was a double-edged sword,” said Dr. Smith. “On one hand, it provides resources and legal protections for preservation. But once someone sees a national monument on a map, it’s close to Interstate 25, it’s close to the Albuquerque-Rio Rancho-Santa Fe metropolitan areas — then that just becomes a magnet to draw more people,” Smith explained.

DR. GARY SMITH, UNM PROFESSOR

There’s a calculus here.. do more resources show up in enough quantities to deal with the enhanced visitation from Monumentizing? What, I wonder, was the Monument protected from?

Data published in a government-issued 2020 science plan shows visitation levels each year since the monument designation. In 2000, Tent Rocks recorded 14,674 visitors.

In 2001, that jumped to 25,000 annual visitors with the presidential proclamation. And since then, visitation has soared to more than 100,000 people a year before the covid shutdown.

(Tent Rocks Visitations by Fiscal Year )

“But even before the pandemic, I recall seeing activity discussions between the BLM and Cochiti trying to think about how to handle the large crowds, that it was having a detrimental impact on the landscape that they were joint stewards to preserve,” explained Smith.

During Spring Break 2018, KRQE News 13 reported on the massive line of cars waiting to enter Tent Rocks National Monument. Visitors were waiting 90 minutes just to park their vehicles.

“In the past few weeks, they’ve been over-capacity,” said Danita Burns during that Spring Break surge in 2018. “People from Australia, people that are coming in from Japan. It’s quite the destination now,” she said.

Monuments can attract tourists from outside the area.. this may be good for some in local communities, but lead to problems of overcrowding and reduction of the experience for locals and wildlife.

According to the pre-2020 data report, “Current visitation is nearly three times the original planned capacity,” which was designed to hold about 50,000 visitors annually. That’s been a concern for those working at the site.

Dr. Gary Smith with UNM students at Tent Rocks in 1992.

Timed ticketing, fee increases

So, will visits to the monument move to timed ticketing? Garcia says an online reservation system along with a fee increase has been proposed.

“We have not implemented anything yet, but it is something we would like to do, make sure that we can keep up with growing costs of supplies and demand,” Garcia told KRQE News 13.

Meanwhile, locals are still seeing advertisements for Tent Rocks, and still waiting for the monument to reopen. “Oh, I’ll look forward to going back again, for sure,” said Smith.

Dr. Smith said his colleagues and friends have been messaging him, asking for updates about the monument. “Do you think Tent Rocks will open this spring? How long can they keep it closed? You know, so it’s – everyone wants to know,” Smith said.

The Bureau of Land Management says it will update plans for Tent Rocks on its website, but they have yet to provide a timeline on when the national monument will reopen. Part of that depends on when the pueblo decides to open its gates to the public once again.

It seems to me that Monumentizing, in some cases,  is like many politically symbolic activities.  Someone announces something that sounds good and makes a splash… then leave the same old folks with the same pots of dollars and competing priorities to actually carry it out.

Abandoned Campers And Squatting In National Forests: Interview with FS Region 2 Law Enforcement

We’ve seen some stories about this before, but hunting season definitely brings this to mind (exceeding limits and leaving unoccupied RVs in the forest). This was an issue that I noticed in the Bighorns even ten years ago, so it can’t be easy to solve. I’d be interested to see from current employees (1) is it a problem where you are? (2) what have you tried to deal with it? and (3) what kind of help or resources would you need to deal with it?. I think about Forest travel management and how “bad actors” off-trail ruined it for everyone, in some respects. As Jon said in his post: “The goal was to reduce resource damage from unmanaged motor vehicle use off that road system.”
Hopefully this won’t happen with dispersed camping.

This is a more comprehensive story on the issue, but was published in the Cowboy State Daily, so that’s the Wyoming connection.
Here’s a link. Thank you Cowboy State Daily for no paywall! You can always donate to them if you appreciate their reporting.

A Forest Service official also told Cowboy State Daily that the problem is ongoing across the West.

“Within the Rocky Mountain Region, which covers five states — Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska and South Dakota — abandoned campers and RVs and long-term recreational camping continue to be issues in national forests throughout the region. We tend to see higher rates during the summer and fall months and lower rates during the winter months,” said Nick Walters, the law enforcement patrol commander for the Forest Service’s regional headquarters in Lakewood, Colorado.

Is Private Management The Answer?

A long-term parking area was set up on the National Forest near Greybull in the 1980s, District Ranger Mark Foster recently told Cowboy State Daily. He oversees the Medicine Wheel Ranger District, which is based in Greybull and part of the Bighorn National Forest.

The system worked well at first, but then people started abusing it, leaving broken-down campers there for years — so long that animals started taking up residence inside some of them, he said.

Now, Foster wants the camper parking area cleared out.

Foster said he doesn’t want to permanently ban long-term camper parking. Instead, he hopes the Forest Service can convince a private concessionaire to take over the site.

They could charge a minimal storage fee and crack down on bad actors by seizing abandoned campers and immediately putting them up for auction, he said.

To sell or auction off abandoned campers, the Forest Service must go through a bureaucratic process that can take up the three months, he said.

Stinking Carcasses
Fawcett said that from what he’s seen in the Sheridan area, he’s convinced that people are flagrantly ignoring camp site time limits, and he doesn’t think the Forest Service is doing enough to crack down on it.

“It’s pretty obvious that the Forest Service and the users don’t pay attention to this,” he said.

Mosely said that as she and her husband have been making the rounds among campsites over the past couple of years, they have noticed some people who seem to have stayed in particular sites for months on end.

“We’ve seen people who stay in one spot for three or four weeks, or even months at a time,” she said.

And as hunting seasons open up across Wyoming and the rest of the region, a few hunters are campsite slobs, Mosely added.

“It’s not just the trailers, it’s the carcasses of animals that they won’t bury or properly dispose of,” she said. “When they’re done taking the meat from a big game animal, they leave the skin and the rest of the carcass just sitting out on the ground. The smell is nasty.”

Worse Near Big Cities

While Mosely said she saw people hogging good campsites at Flaming Gorge, Walters said Wyoming might be spared the worst of the abuses, which seem to take place near large metro areas.

“We see more recreational use on the National Forests that are close to highly populated cities or towns. With this use comes an increase in long-term camping, abandoned campers, vehicles, trash and waste. It’s hard to say if any one place is worse than another. These activities impact each forest or ranger district where they occur,” he said.

“We tend to see more extended use near the Denver Metro area, but we have resources available to assist with removal. The more remote district offices do not tend to have resources immediately available, so several abandoned campers could significantly impact those areas,” Walters added. “I am not able to respond to the question of whether there has been an increase or decrease in this activity from previous years.”

Check Local Regulations
To avoid annoying other campers, or possibly getting on the wrong side of the law and having their RVs impounded, people should double-check camp site time limits in whatever area they’re headed to, he said.

“Since most forests have slightly different stay limits, I suggest that individuals reach out to the Ranger District office that oversees the area they plan to visit. The Ranger District will be able to provide the most up-to-date rules and regulations for that specific area,” Walters said.

I’d just add that (in my experience) it’s not always easy to access human beings at Ranger Districts to ask questions via phone or email.

Over the Weekend – Blue Mtn. blues, Flathead secrets and monumental benefits

I guess this is a bookend to Sharon’s “Friday News Roundup.”

 

BLUE MOUNTAINS

I recently provided an update on the status of the Blue Mountains forest plan revisions here.   And here’s a little more detail on that, especially on the question of “access.”  (This term gets used for a couple of different things, and this one is about closing roads on national forests rather than creating access across private property to reach public lands.)

One group says its leading the charge to fight for what they call “original rights” is Forest Access for All.  “We defend the rights that we’ve had since Oregon was a territory, free reign where we go and utilize the forests which are public lands,” says Bill Harvey, a group member and former Baker County Commissioner. “A couple decades ago the Forest Service began closing off sections of the forest and that’s when Forest Access for All was formed.” Harvey says his group’s particular ire is at the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest (WWNF), which he claims “have closed thousands of miles of roads in the forest the last twenty years.”

The group also has other “conflicts” with the Forest Service include the need for  more vegetation management, economic benefits of (motorized) recreation, and better public engagement.

“By law right now, we have an open forest. They will admit it, everybody admits it, and it’s in the books, I’ve seen it a million times. It is an open access forest,” says Harvey. “Why in God’s name would we want to give that up? Nothing benefits us to give up our rights that we have currently. We’re not asking for more rights, we’re asking for the existing rights to stay in place.

I’m going to disagree with him on this one, and I hope the Forest Service does, too (although it looks like they could have done a better job of setting the locals straight on this before now).  In 2005, Subpart B of the Travel Management Rule changed the culture of motor vehicle use on roads, trails, and areas from “Open unless closed” to a system of designated routes.  As for why?  The goal was to reduce resource damage from unmanaged motor vehicle use off that road system.

 

FLATHEAD

Newly revealed emails show that the Flathead National Forest under then supervisor Kurt Steele looked to keep a proposal of a tram up Columbia Mountain from public view for more than year prior to it being first proposed.

Does this sound familiar?  It sounds to me like the “Holland Lake Model” that got the forest supervisor a “promotion” to forest planning.  In this case the Forest properly rejected the proposal as inconsistent with its forest plan (thank you forest plan!).  But it does suggest a pattern of incentives and behavior that may be broader than the Flathead National Forest.

“The process where the public comes into play is when it becomes the NEPA process,” Flathead Forest spokesperson Kira Powell said about the emails.

“Bringing you into the conversation about this potential project on the Flathead NF because it’s coming from investors who apparently have the financial resources to build a tramway, meaning they likely have political savvy also … wrote Keith Lannom, who was deputy regional forester for Region 1 at the time …”

This account offers a window into the role of “political savvy” in Forest Service decision-making.

 

ORGAN MOUNTAINS – DESERT PEAKS NATIONAL MONUMENT

Since President Barack Obama created the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks National Monument in 2014, visitation has tripled and the national monument has spurred economic growth in the Las Cruces area as well as other communities near the national monument, according to a new report.

According to this overview, the report looks at the various factors that made this particular monument so successful, including its location relative to population centers and the uses it caters to.  Also local community support.

“We have always recognized that the establishment of the monument was due in large part to the grassroots effort at the local community organizations and individuals,” Melanie Barnes, the state BLM director, said. “And due to this engaged and proud community, the monument has seen an increase in visitation.”

She said the BLM is working on a resource management plan that will address land use and resource protection. The public scoping period for that plan recently ended.

 

Recreation Industry Worried About Future Lack of Recreationists Again

Skiers and snowboarders linger on the tundra below Peak 10 in the Tenmile Range, July 4, 2023, in Summit County. The Fourth of July Bowl tends to hold snow into the summer due to its aspect and elevation, which attracts the annual tradition to ski on July 4th. (Hugh Carey, The Colorado Sun)

 

Naturally, like probably all TSW readers, I am a big fan of, and participate in, recreation on National Forests.  It’s been interesting to observe the media concern loop on “outdoor recreation” over time.  First people weren’t getting outdoors enough (“nature deficit”); then people were getting outdoors so much that it created conflict and environmental damage; now the Outdoor Industry Association is worried again that there won’t be enough people recreating.  It’s always confusing because sometimes they count things like soccer balls as part of “outdoor recreation”; and of course RVs and boats and OHV’s and so on.  So sometimes it’s hard to tell what exactly what kind of outdoor recreation they are talking about, and how that relates specifically to FS and BLM lands.

Interesting story in the Colorado Sun.

A few years ago, the outdoor industry was struggling to get more people outside after several decades of participation studies showing nearly half of Americans did not go outdoors to have fun.

The pandemic changed that and the latest study by the Boulder-based Outdoor Industry Association shows a record 168.1 million Americans — 55% of the population ages 6 and up — went outside for recreation in 2022. That’s a 2.3% increase over the previous record in 2021. Since January 2020, 14.5 million more Americans went outdoors to run, hike, bike, camp and participate in all sorts of other activities.

And those newcomers are increasingly diverse. The participation rate for Hispanic people reached 56% in 2022, up from 34% in 2015. The rate of participation for Black people reached 40.7% in 2022, up 5 percentage points over 2021. Last year 61% of LGBTQ people recreated outside, with more than 18 million participants, up from 15.8 million in 2021. And more seniors (defined as 55 and older) than ever before went outside to play, with 35% joining the ranks of the outdoor recreators, up from 28% in 2018.

There’s a lot to cheer about in outdoor recreation right now, but “don’t think we are out here doing a victory lap,” said Kent Ebersole, executive director of the Outdoor Industry Association. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The latest participation snapshot shows storms on the horizon. Younger Americans — ages 13 to 24 — are not getting outside. Outings for families with children are declining.

Thank you for recreating outdoors. Please come again. And again.

Americans logged 11.8 billion outdoor recreation outings in 2022 and while that number seems huge, it’s troubling. The frequency of those trips outdoors is declining. Ten years ago the average number of outdoor recreation outings was 84.6 per participant. Now it’s down to 71.8.

The decline in younger folks getting outdoors to play harkens to the industry’s struggles around 2008 when participation in all categories was flat or declining.

Hard work to reach new outdoor recreation players and more diverse groups has helped, but still the industry is struggling to reach younger generations.

“Fast forward eight years when today’s 18-year-olds are 25. Will there then be three generations with anemic participation and does that spell a future where we go back to 2008 and are flat for a decade or more?” Ebersole said. “If we let another generation go by and we don’t talk to them and we don’t reach them, we are going to be in a world of hurt.”

**********

Land managers are adjusting plans to accommodate the growth in recreation. The Bureau of Land Management hosted 81 million visitors on its 245 million acres in 2022, up 40% from 2012 with almost a third of that increase occurring since 2020. The Forest Service counted 168 million nationwide visits in 2020, up from 160 million in 2012.

Both agencies are launching community-focused strategies around recreation.

The BLM’s new Blueprint for 21st Century Outdoor Recreation started last month with major shifts in how the agency prioritizes recreation on its 245 million acres. The BLM’s budget for recreation in 2022 was $60.2 million, or about 74 cents per visit, compared with 84 cents per visit in 2012. The new strategy will enable local land managers to partner with a growing roster of groups lined up to help ease costs or even fund recreational amenities and events.

The Forest Service a year ago launched its five-year “Reimagine Recreation” plan with this note: “Our public lands can also be a source of healing, inspiration, and purpose to bridge some of the divides and challenges our country has faced over the past few years.”

The challenge is to convert that growing army of outdoor users into advocates who can sway public policy, said Tania Lown-Hecht with the Outdoor Alliance, a coalition of national recreation and conservation organizations that pushes for legislation to protect outdoor spaces.

One thing that always confuses me is that these groups say that they want more folks outside, so they will act to vote to “protect” the spaces.  But many of the places “protected”, say Wilderness areas, don’t allow certain kinds of very popular recreation.. in fact, as Patrick McKay has pointed out, new Monument plans also disfavor certain kinds of recreation. So it seems like the OIA works to reduce access, and is also worried that apparently the right kinds of people won’t be doing the right kind of recreation (possibly involving buying things from their associated companies?) sometime in the future. Would it be so bad if there were fewer people in the woods, grasslands, shrublands? Not so bad for other people recreating, it seems to me.  Not so bad for wildlife.  Not so bad for climate- for all the carbon people expend getting to recreation sites. Simple observation of interstates or other main routes to federal lands on Friday evenings suggest that recreation can have quite a carbon footprint.

Of course it might be considered bad to sell more recreation goods that would otherwise be bought… often made out of fossil fuels, transported from Asia and so on.  It’s interesting to me that environmental advocacy is often about pointing fingers at other industries and ignoring their own industry’s contribution to climate change or reducing biodiversity.  Of course, that’s human nature, but who knew that business institutions had those kind of human tendencies?  And media folks don’t seem to report on that much for whatever reason.

Anyway, I took a look at the OIA policy platform and they have some interesting trade-related policies …plus this

Require the United States Forest Service (USFS) to develop a 10-year outdoor recreation strategy for national forests under the forestry title.

I’ve seen many strategies come and go in my time, or don’t actually go, but sit around unread and unused. And as we have seen, both the BLM and the FS currently have new recreation strategies. Perhaps someone out there knows what the goal of this requirement would be?

Two New Recreation Strategies: BLM and the Forest Service

Thanks to all who are contributing to our ongoing climate discussion! I think already we’ve seen that our thoughts are complex and not easily categorized and we’ll be looking at other ways to break free of categories. But there are probably many TSW-ites interested in more newsy things, so here are some posts along those lines.

BLM Seeks Public Input on a New Plan for Recreation Management

WASHINGTON – The Bureau of Land Management is welcoming public input on a plan to inform recreation management on America’s public lands. The new Blueprint for 21st Century Outdoor Recreation will guide Bureau decisions to proactively meet modern demands for exceptional and unique outdoor experiences, complementing the significant public land investments in President Biden’s Investing in America agenda.

“BLM hosted more than 81 million visitors on our public lands last fiscal year – a 40 percent increase since 2012. We are thrilled at this trend, but also recognize that more guests means a need for varied and diverse response strategies,” said BLM Director Tracy Stone-Manning. “The Blueprint aims to help BLM meet the growing demand for exceptional recreation experiences on our public lands.”

Managing for recreational opportunities is a core tenet of BLM’s multiple use mandate and aligns with BLM’s mission to sustain the health, diversity and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations. The increasing demand for recreational activities on public lands has provided a critical window of opportunity to advance a transformational shift in recreation management. This Blueprint will help BLM prioritize recreation investment and staffing appropriate for current and future needs.

BLM is seeking input from partners and the public, including in-person and virtual recreation Blueprint roundtables hosted by the Foundation for America’s Public Lands. Together, BLM and its partners will implement a strategy to guide the agency in providing the resources and experiences that visitors to public lands expect in the 21st century.

Forest Service Reimagine Recreation

The FS is also working on a recreation strategy that they call Reimagine Recreation.  They had a workshop in July and I will post the summary when I receive it from them.  Here are the Recreation Workshop – Case Studies and Successes Links .

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At that point maybe someone will volunteer to review both strategies and talk about similarities and differences?

Little E-Bike Drama on the Front Range: Perhaps BLM HQ Should Take Note?

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve seen everything, sometimes more than once.  Nature Deficit Disorder continues to be called out as a problem.  And after Covid, too many people are outside recreating..  which goes back to the argument of SUWA in the previous post on BLM’s E-bike “Instruction Memorandum.”

Brawer said that adding motorized mountain bikes “to already crowded trails necessitates the caution and further study provided for in this new guidance.”

This Denver Post article tells a more hopeful story about e-bikes.. on the Front Range, it’s turned out to be no big deal.

Just suppose, as I’ve observed (don’t know if there’s a study) that more old people use e-bikes.  Would this be age discrimination in access, then?  Many old people have disabilities.. would that be discrimination against the disabled?

I’m not saying this as an argument for bikes in Wilderness, just for e-bikes as a variety of mountain bikes on mountain bike approved trails.   Then there are at least two enforcement problems- you would have to see that that they are electric, and the confusion of adjacent jurisdictions with different rules makes it easy for people to claim ignorance or really not know. Finally, what would people in DC know about adjacent lands’ rules, or problems specific to an area? The whole “we know more research” rationale sounds to me like bunkum.

I bolded the relevant bits.

“There was no tolerance in our visitors for something with a throttle on a natural-surface trail,” said Mary Ann Bonnell, Jeffco Open Space visitor services and natural resources director.

“We heard that loud and clear,” she added. “We do not allow the Class 2, where you can have the power without pedaling. People said, ‘Nope, don’t want to see it. Don’t want to see someone flying up a hill and not pedaling.’”

But after five years, the county hasn’t found that e-bikes increased conflicts or created safety concerns, Bonnell said. “People continue to fall and have crashes on their mountain bikes, we continue to field complaints about conflicts, but they are not tied specifically to e-bikes.”

A mountain biker rides the singletrack trail on national forest land in Placitas, N.M., on July 8, 2019. Electric mountain bikes are prohibited on national forest land. (Photo by Susan Montoya Bryan/Associated Press)

In national forests, e-bikes are considered motor vehicles, so they are allowed only on roads and trails designated for motorized use. In Rocky Mountain National Park, e-mountain bikes can only go on roads where motor vehicles are allowed, paved or dirt. (It should be noted that human-powered mountain bikes are not allowed on the park’s hiking trails, either, with one small exception on the west side of the park.) In Colorado state parks, Class 1 and 2 e-bikes are allowed on roadways, designated bike lanes, and multi-use trails open to non-motorized cycling.

Boulder County Open Space allows Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on its flatland trails, and has since 2019, but neither are allowed on its mountain trails. But the city only started allowing Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on 39 miles of its 155-mile open-space trail system this month.

“As e-bikes were not allowed on city open space trails before July 1, we do not have statistically valid data for e-bike use on open space trails,” said Phillip Yates, a spokesman for Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks, via email. “E-biking will be added as a new category in future visitor surveys, alongside all other allowed activities, to track change over time as part of system monitoring. That will allow staff to report out changes, if any, that may be attributed to e-biking activity on the open space visitor experience.”

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The difference in how park and open space managers regulate e-mountain bikes reflects what is happening in Front Range municipalities. Denver allows all three types of e-bikes on bike paths, but with speed limits of 15 mph. Arvada passed an ordinance in January of 2021, allowing Class 1 and Class 2 e-bikes on its bike paths. Lakewood allows Class 1 and Class 2 bikes on bike paths. Class 1 e-bikes are allowed on Lakewood’s soft surface trails, including at Bear Creek Lake Park and at William Fredrick Hayden Park on Green Mountain.

Before making its decision, Jeffco Open Space interviewed more than 400 visitors in five parks in 2017 to glean their thoughts about the issue. The agency also sent out volunteers on e-mountain bikes, then asked visitors if they had noticed any e-bikes on the trail, and many said no. Satisfied that the presence of e-mountain bikes would have minimal impact on other users, Jeffco moved forward with e-bikes as a pilot program in 2018 and updated its park regulations the following year to make it permanent.

A cyclist rides his bike along Shadow Pine Loop, an area where fire mitigation projects have taken place, at Flying J Ranch Park in Conifer on Sept. 20, 2022. Jeffco Open Space allows electric mountain bikes. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
A cyclist rides his bike along Shadow Pine Loop, an area where fire mitigation projects have taken place, at Flying J Ranch Park in Conifer on Sept. 20, 2022. Jeffco Open Space allows electric mountain bikes. (Photo by Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)

“Every time it comes up, I have this sigh of relief that we took care of this in 2017, because I feel really good about how we made the decision,” Bonnell said. “We did a ton of data collection, getting in people’s heads, public meetings, meeting with stakeholders. I really feel like we did a thorough job. I feel good about the decision, and I also feel like it has played out well.

Some visitors raised concerns that people on e-mountain bikes would get lost, or injured, or would call rangers for assistance with dead batteries miles from the trailhead. “That hasn’t happened,” Bonnell said. “Conflict continues between riders and runners and hikers, but it’s not e-bike-related conflict.”

Gary Moore, executive director of the Colorado Mountain Bike Association, said while some mountain bikers have expressed displeasure on social media statewide, the impact of e-mountain bikers on trails has been negligible.

“Any conflicts between trail visitors continue to be more of a matter of the people themselves,” he said, “rather than their preferred mode of travel. You see them pretty much anytime you go out now.”

Meanwhile, Jay Bollinger loves having his wife with him and their boys, who are 10 and 15, on the trails.

“It’s been really good,” he said. “She’s still regaining her skills, but it allows her to keep up, rather than being the one who’s slowing everybody down.”

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Rather than sending requests to DC, another option would be to work with stakeholders directly involved like Jefferson County did. After all, that’s what we expect from local managers on pretty much every other land management issue…

I’m also reviewing the new CEQ NEPA regs, and in the press release the Biden Admin says decisions should be
“effective, efficient, and transparent, guided by the best available science to promote positive environmental and community outcomes, and shaped by early and meaningful public engagement and input.”

Those are great ideas, IMHO, but we tend to what what people and organizations do, not what they say.

BLM’s New Centralized E-bike Approval Policy

Scott Streater had an interesting article in E&E News yesterday about a new BLM policy on e-bikes.

The Bureau of Land Management is clamping down on the use of electric bikes in areas where motorized, off-highway vehicles are prohibited — concerning some outdoor recreationists but pleasing conservation groups worried about protecting natural resources.

At issue is BLM’s instruction memorandum, dated Aug. 1 and sent to all field offices, that walks back a Trump-era rule exempting e-bikes from off-road vehicle regulations, thus allowing them to be used in some cases on backcountry trails and other areas where motorized transport is generally prohibited.

BLM says in the latest memo that when it comes to authorizing the use of e-bikes in certain areas — such as on remote mountain and backcountry trails — it warrants the bureau taking a more “cautious approach” to regulation than what was outlined in the 2020 rule.

Specifically, the memo signed by Thomas Heinlein, assistant director of the National Conservation Lands and Community Partnerships directorate, requires BLM state, district and field offices to obtain his department’s approval “before using the e-bike rule to exclude e-bikes from the definition of off-road vehicle” or before authorizing “e-bikes on trails on which motorized vehicles are otherwise prohibited.”

Doing so “will allow BLM leadership to carefully consider the issues raised by application of the rule in site-specific circumstances,” the memo says.  The directorate “is better situated than individual state, district, and field offices to monitor new research on impacts and the compatibility of e-bike use on public land,” the memo says. It calls for the directorate to stay current on “relevant research” on e-bike use in the event that future studies indicate “e-bike use results in different — and potentially greater — impacts than what was assumed when the BLM promulgated the e-bike rule in 2020.”
The instruction memo requirements do not apply to people with disabilities who request “to ride an e-bike on trails where mechanized use is allowed and off-road vehicle use is otherwise prohibited,” it says.

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So going to the memo itself..

Moreover, the National Conservation Lands and Community Partnerships Directorate is better situated than individual state, district, and field offices to monitor new research on impacts and the compatibility of e-bike use on public land. To that end, the Directorate will monitor the status of relevant research. Staying apprised of recent developments will allow the Directorate to know whether new research indicates that e-bike use results in different—and potentially greater—impacts than what was assumed when the BLM promulgated the e-bike rule in 2020.

What’s interesting about this to me is the idea of running certain decisions through Headquarters and requiring a centralized approval.  A person could argue that a centralized office would be better able than a field office to monitor “relevant research” on just about anything.

Second, it may be difficult for the BLM to enforce critical aspects of the e-bike rule. Under the rule, an e-bike can be excluded from the definition of off-road vehicle and, therefore, allowed on trails where off-road vehicle use is otherwise prohibited, only when the electric motor is not exclusively propelling the e-bike for an extended duration. Despite language in the rule’s preamble asserting that such enforcement challenges are not unique, this limitation, which is intended to help keep speeds down and prevent riders from venturing too far into the backcountry, may be difficult to police on remote, non-motorized trails.

I wonder if scarce BLM law enforcement resources are best employed checking to see that bikes are e-bikes or not on trails.   But if there’s no enforcement people on remote non-motorized trails, it really doesn’t matter exactly what the rules are.

Conservation groups praised the move, saying it’s needed to ensure that increased public access to more remote areas afforded by the motorized bikes does not trump resource protection. “We are pleased the BLM is taking this issue seriously and recognizes that a ‘cautious approach’ is needed in managing e-bikes, particularly e-mountain bikes, on public lands,” Judi Brawer, a wildlands attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, said in a statement. Brawer said that adding motorized mountain bikes “to already crowded trails necessitates the caution and further study provided for in this new guidance.”

So the problem is too many people? And yet the same groups often advocate for “protection” designations based on the fact that they attract more people and revenue to gateway communities.

I asked Scott which conservation groups exactly, and he replied in an email: “SUWA. Sierra Club, PEER, Pacific Crest Trail, Backcountry Horsemen Association, some hiking conservation group whose name escapes me.”

I guess there’s two questions for me here.. if you don’t trust District Managers to make the right decisions, why start with e-bikes?  One of my contacts pointed out that centralizing decisions like this was considered to be bad during the Trump Admin, and the local folks were thought to be better at making decisions.  And so it goes…