Recreation

The Wilderness Visitor: Necessary Nuisance or Raison d’etre?

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First slide of powerpoint

 

The attached Powerpoint Chojnacky–NWSA Wilderness Presentation 10-25-19  includes complete notes on the slides by the authors.  This post is longer than usual, as it involves original material. Many thanks to Cindy and Dave for posting here!

The PowerPoint and notes are a presentation we did October 25 at the National Wilderness Stewardship Association (NWSA) in Bend, OR—an ecletic mix of agency wilderness managers, researchers, volunteer stewards (such as “friends” groups interested in trail maintenance for a particular wilderness) and other non-government entities.

Our presentation was based on observations in hiking 60 wilderness areas (including a few other protected designations) in 11 states over past seven years. We found, oddly, that much wilderness is underutilized and unknown—while a few areas with good trails, good information or well-known features are overused and get the most management attention.

I  The Wilderness Act- Ends and Means

Policy analysis focused on “legislative intent”—what did Congress intend? Readers can follow my analysis of the Act’s STATEMENT OF POLICY SECTION 2 in more detail in the PowerPoint notes. In paraphrasing 2 (a)—the Act states an intent to “secure for the American people…the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness,” and to designate wilderness areas which “shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people.” Therefore, the purpose for wilderness is people’s use and enjoyment—e.g. wilderness experience.

The task of management agencies is also spelled out: “these shall be administered in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness…” Unimpaired could be called wilderness quality. “In such manner” is the job of wilderness administration with wilderness quality the means for achieving the Act’s purpose or end: people’s use and enjoyment of wilderness (experience).  Much wilderness research, management and activism have focused on wilderness quality—and particular overused areas have received the most study and management concern. We concluded that focus only on wilderness quality—the means—if ignoring the overall purpose or end—wilderness experience—could  treat the wilderness visitor as a threat or nuisance.

The Act’s most repeated word is “use” (32x). SECTION 4 on USE OF WILDERNES AREAS starts with a long paragraph (a) aimed to ensure that wilderness management agencies retain their original mission and authorities along with the new task (b) of “preserving the wilderness character of the area.” This paragraph lists six “public purpose uses”: four we labeled experience (recreational, scenic, educational and historical) and two quality (scientific and conservation).

SECTION 4 (c) lists 10 PROHIBITED USES—probably well known to all—including commercial enterprise, roads, motorized equipment and mechanical transport. An exemption—”except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration of the area for the purpose of this Act”—might be the basis for Forest Service strict “minimum tool” regulations for wilderness management. For example, primitive tools such as cross-cut saws were probably appropriate for trail work in the first decades after the Act was passed because national forest wilderness included a vast legacy trail system that was built for transportation with stock that was still being regularly used for forest management. But today most Forest Service Guard Stations are closed; and long gone most stock and skilled field personnel that regularly cleared trails in course of duty. In addition, 1960-1990 was an era of relatively stable weather, small fires and minimal trail damage. Perhaps we should  relook at the Act’s exemption for select use of chainsaws in some areas where 21st century climate-related mega-fires, unprecedented avalanches, and other causes of tree mortality have blocked many trail miles with downfall—if public access is within the Act’s purpose.

Interestingly, the largest “use” word tally (12) is under SPECIAL PROVISIONS (d) is preexisting “prohibited” uses that may be exempted such as grazing, fly-in airstrips, commercial outfitter camps and so forth. The Wilderness Act appears to be a bold experiment in land use management to benefit the public with rather broad exemptions—not a mandate for rarely-visited, off-limits sanctuaries. Perhaps these are needed, but we will need a new law to do this.

II. Wilderness Experience Sample (many great photos of the authors’ experiences are in the Powerpoint)

Finally we attempted to quantify our own wilderness experience in 309 days of hiking about 3,339 miles in 60 wilderness areas in Eastern and Western states—spanning conifer forest, hardwood forest, desert and seashore. We identified six barriers to our experience and then evaluated each wilderness as to which barrier(s) severely impacted our experience—e.g. we would not repeat the trip for “enjoyment.” All but nine areas had at least one show-stopper barrier—most due to trail design or maintenance issues. We closed our presentation with a few ideas on shifting focus to visitor-focused management mainly in brainstorming mode.

III. Studying, Monitoring and Managing Wilderness Experience

Our analysis of words and wilderness experience are somewhat subjective because we began this project with a sense that our wilderness experience had been declining in recent years but were not sure why (furthermore, attempts to fund systematic studies of emerging enviromental issues in wilderness were met with disinterest; so we decided to just “go to the wilderness”). We’d love to see more systematic study of wilderness experience over the entire National Wilderness Preservation System. But, as one speaker pointed out at the NWSA meeting: much funding is spent on getting more wilderness acreage while only “pennies” are spent, relatively, on wilderness stewardship—let alone evaluating the wilderness experience.

Ironically, in the same sentence on wilderness in the 1964 Act SECTION 2. (a) that mandates “the preservation of their wilderness character” is also a mandate for “gathering and dissemination of information regarding their use and enjoyment as wilderness”—a type of report we have never seen. Instead “wilderness character monitoring” seems to be sole emphasis of agencies’ wilderness reporting—even though the Act does not mandate such a report. Nor is the science of wilderness character monitoring developed to the point where consistent indicators (and electronic protocol) would allow scaling up information to evaluate the National Wilderness Preservation System.                                      

“Bike Hate” and Public Comment-Induced Dysphoria (PCID)

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(Had trouble uploading photo, imagine e-bike)

I think many of us who have read public comments may feel sympathetic with Ms. Bonnell from Jefferson County, Colorado. She seems to have a case of “public comment induced dysphoria” or PCID. Not that it’s in the DSIM, but possibly should be. As I recall from my experience in the Forest Service, our healing modality involved a support group and often craft beer..

As part of her decision-making to allow electric bikes on trails in Jefferson County, Mary Ann Bonnell would sit at home reading survey responses.

“There were a lot of late nights screaming at pieces of paper,” she says.

They made her think of a webinar she viewed. An advocate from Europe, where the charged-up wheels are commonplace, had spoken on differing attitudes he observed in the United States.

Now they were tangible for Bonnell.

“In America, there’s this whole, ‘I earned it, I am getting my Strava times and all this by sheer me, and how dare you come in and use an e-bike to get the same time as me that I’ve earned, or how dare you get the same access as me.’

“It’s sort of that mentality that I saw in writing. The contents just made me feel icky.”

Two other interesting things about this article by Seth Boster of the Colorado Springs Gazette.

I. MBers worried about being kicked out of places due to ebikes. We’ve talked about that before here.

Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates President Cory Sutela is like many: happy for e-bikes commuting, not for them traveling the backcountry.

“We believe that unregulated e-bikes on mountain bike trails will lead to a loss of access for mountain bikes,” he says.

Bonnell found access to be the root of some fears in her sociological review. Back in the ’70s and ’80s, when mountain bikes were widely deemed nuisances, riders battled for the freedom they have today.

“The gen 1 riders remember when they weren’t allowed on trails,” Bonnell says. “So they worry about another visitor group coming in and reawakening that urge to ban bikes. That comes from a very real place.”

II. Amidst all the ideological fervor, some real world experience.

But Bonnell, a Jefferson County parks ranger, reports so far so good in the first year of Class 1 e-bikes being allowed on the local trails. No noticeable increase in conflicts. No accounts of e-bikers getting themselves stranded far afield, as opponents suspected would happen.

In 2018, Boulder County Parks and Open Space took cues and launched a similar review. With the rate of cycling incidents high in the foothills, e-bikes were tried on the plains’ wide paths.

“What we found, perhaps counterintuitively, was e-bike speeds are not greater than conventional bikes in most cases,” says program manager Tina Nielsen.

While pointing to a “massive caveat” in the small sample size of 12, she provided data showing average speeds of 13.8 mph for e-bikes, 14.5 mph for conventional bikes. While a conventional rider was clocked at 26 mph, rangers recorded the fastest e-bike at 17 mph.

Boulder County commissioners this month will decide on allowing Class 1 and Class 2 (powered up to 20 mph without pedaling) e-bikes on those plains trails. That will be Nielsen’s recommendation, despite a 57% majority of survey respondents opposed to the move.

The resistance stems from general “bike hate,” Nielsen says. “There’s a lot of anxiety about bikes. It’s not just e-bikes.”

She adds: “It takes a while for things to shake out, and over time, I think people are gonna find that e-bikes, they’re just bikes.”

Forest planning for “sustainable” recreation

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A former Forest Service backcountry specialist talks about ecological integrity and increasing human recreation activities, and tries to answer the question of “what is sustainable recreation?”  The 2012 Planning Rule requires plan components “to provide for: (i) Sustainable recreation; including recreation settings, opportunities, and access; and scenic character.”

What is “Sustainable Recreation”? The Forest Service defines it as “the set of recreation settings and opportunities in the National Forest System that is ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable for present and future generations.”

Here’s how it’s done:

The Recreation Opportunity Spectrum can be used in forest planning to define a desired condition for management within each zone. Indicators and standards are meant to define the tipping point beyond which management action must be taken.
 If the standard for a backcountry area (called “semi-primitive non-motorized” in ROS jargon) is that no more than six other parties are encountered on a typical day, when the encounter rate exceeds that number some action is supposed to take place to return to the desired condition.
It’s a neat framework, but doesn’t always play out as intended on the ground. ROS doesn’t differentiate between a semi-primitive area in the back yard of a town like Jackson or Bozeman and one that’s two hours away.
That seems like a major shortcoming, especially if all areas with a SPNM designation must have the same desired level of semi-primitive non-motorized use.  However, the Planning Handbook encourages “new approaches,” including creating “desired recreation opportunity spectrum subclasses” §(23.23a).
The usual sequence of remedial actions begins with non-intrusive measures like visitor education. If the problem isn’t solved, additional actions are considered.
The Bridger-Teton forest plan is typical in its prescribed sequence of actions, this excerpt taken from its direction on wilderness. The following recreational strategies should be used, listed in descending order of preference:
First Action – Efforts are directed towards information and education programs and correction of visible resource damage.
Second Action – If the first action is unsuccessful, restrict activities by regulation (for example, set a minimum distance between a lakeshore and where people can camp).
Third Action – If the first and second actions fail, restrict numbers of visitors.
Fourth Action – If first, second, and third actions are not successful, a zone can be closed to all recreation use until the area is rehabilitated and restored to natural conditions.
In my experience, outside of designated wilderness and other special areas where specific laws apply, the Forest Service keeps circling around the first action, which isn’t a bad strategy given the continuing need for it in communities where resident turnover is high.  It’s an ongoing need regardless of the often unmet requirement to step up restrictions. But restrictions trigger blowback, as when the Shasta-Trinity National Forest tried to set encounter limits for the wilderness that includes Mt. Shasta.
People basically said they don’t care if it’s crowded—they just want to reach the summit, and a judge agreed with them. On the other hand, those who float the Selway River are happy to wait until they get a launch day shared by no one else. Since everyone is going the same direction at about the same speed, everyone can experience a bit of peace and quiet. So the application of sustainable recreation standards depends on who is using the forest and what they will accept.
And those are the questions that forest planning should be designed to answer.  (Note:  the Bridger-Teton plan has not been revised, so may not be the current state-of-the-art.  Also, I couldn’t find the court case referred to.)  And this must be done against the backdrop of a requirement for ecological integrity.
User-built trails and roads are often the opposite of sustainable. They develop incrementally and aren’t designed with soil type, grades and curve radii in mind, or the needs of resident wildlife. The trail system after adoption by the Forest Service usually gets reworked so it doesn’t turn into deep ruts or wash into the creek, but where is the analysis that determines that the trail location is right in the first place?  The trail itself becomes more sustainable, but where do the grouse and elk and owls go?
The adoption of forest plan of components for desired recreational use has effects that must be evaluated during the NEPA process, but rarely does the Forest Service devote much attention to this.
The author describes a common fallacious argument that the Forest Service likes to make about sustainability to avoid controversy:
While the planning rule makes clear that ecological integrity underlies compatible uses in a national forest, the ecological, economical, and social sustainability have since been referred to as a three-legged stool, with all three legs of equal importance.
But if you parse the actual language of the Planning Rule, it is apparent that the ecological leg needs to support more weight (driven by the substantive diversity requirement of NFMA) (my emphasis).
“Plans will guide management of NFS lands so that they ARE ecologically sustainable and CONTRIBUTE TO social and economic sustainability; CONSIST OF ecosystems and watersheds with ecological integrity and diverse plant and animal communities; and HAVE THE CAPACITY TO PROVIDE people and communities with ecosystem services and multiple uses that provide a range of social, economic, and ecological benefits for the present and into the future.

For Want of A Document?: More on the Bear Creek “Trail’n’Trout” Litigation

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Cyclists take a break at an overlook along Trail 667 in North Cheyenne Canon Park. Seth Boster, The Gazette

Seth Boster of the Colorado Springs Gazette wrote this piece on another Cutthroat Trout/CBD Lawsuit story. What is really interesting to me is that he interviewed:
The District Ranger, the USFWS Biologist, the Plaintiff’s Attorney and the FS fish bio, who strike me as the main actors in the story thus far. I’m glad that the biologists and the Ranger were allowed to speak to the press and give their side of the story.

Bottom line: case seems to be currently based on FWS documentation. Similar to the Rio Grande cutthroat we’ve been discussing, but definitely at the micro scale.

Also: “there have been indications that maybe it wasn’t built up to the standard of some groups’ interest” hence the lawsuit. This seems to be an example of disagreements about design and location of a trail while protecting fish (originally introduced to that place by humans, but now having legal status). I like how Townsend says “we need to make sure the trail is situated in a safe way.” This makes clear that the lawsuit is a tool to achieve a specific on-the-ground outcome.

“They raised concerns with how Trail 667 came to be on the north side of Kineo Mountain. The plan previously was to build on the south side, before machines encountered blocks, as Pikes Peak District Ranger Oscar Martinez explained to stakeholders in an August 2016 meeting.

The center claims documentation is missing to show how the Forest Service coordinated the late change with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. In reading the notice, “I was thinking that perhaps the Center for Biological Diversity may not have been aware that the reinitiation on the consultation had already occurred,” Leslie Ellwood, the Fish and Wildlife biologist assigned to Bear Creek, told The Gazette in a phone call. “It seemed like a reinitiation should happen, when in fact one already had happened quite a while ago.”

A letter would confirm this, she said — a response approving the Forest Service’s direction. A Gazette request for that letter had yet to be met on Thursday.

“The way I would characterize is, I think there’s a schism,” Martinez said late Wednesday at the roundtable meeting. “Did we consult (Fish and Wildlife)? The answer is yes.”

To attendees’ questions of how the Forest Service would respond to the center, Martinez hesitated.

“I’m not gonna lay out all my legal cards here,” he said. “Do I think we followed the process to do the right thing relative to those concerns? The answer is yes. Will we continue to work with them to address those concerns? The answer is yes.”

He said he expected the center would hear back from his office in two weeks.

“If we do see evidence of consultation, it may change the immediacy of us filing a lawsuit,” center attorney Margaret Townsend said. “But we need to make sure the trail is situated in a safe way, and there have been indications that maybe it wasn’t built up to the standard of some groups’ interest.”

She added: “There may be new information that the Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife need to consider.”

Observers have criticized the sustainability of Trail 667, which they say is showing signs of wear and tear. One of them is Allyn Kratz, president of the local chapter of Trout Unlimited.

On Wednesday, he asked about “ravines” he said he had noticed along the trail, threatening to cause washouts in the stream.

“We did not observe any locations of concern along the trail,” said Janelle Valladaras, the Forest Service’s fisheries biologist. She said the team took “a critical eye” to 667 in early October after the center’s notice.

Townsend, based in Portland, Ore., said she was in the Springs this week to scout the site, but snow got in the way of those plans.

“We’re doing our due diligence to make sure we’re getting all the information and evidence necessary,” she said. “If all the evidence suggests the trail is safe and situated in such a way that the fish will thrive and folks can keep enjoying themselves as they have been, then there’s no reason to file a lawsuit.”

What Makes (Some) Recreation Conflicts (So) Intractable?

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A sign near Leadville alerts travelers to the closure of a Forest Service road this winter. A settlement reached in 2015 between the Pike and San Isabel National Forests and environmental groups has led to the seasonal closure of dozens of routes near Leadvillle, Buena Vista and Salida.(courtesy phot from this 2016 story in the Chaffee County Times http://www.chaffeecountytimes.com/free_content/lawsuit-forces-u-s-forest-service-to-protect-big-game/article_ea0168a4-bcc1-11e6-ab7c-5f4ff3ca5610.html)

I’ve been thinking about the Pike-San Isabel Travel Management decision and its long history of litigation, which started while I was still employed by the FS. I remembered another project that had the same level of conflict. It was the Rico-West Dolores travel management on the San Juan, which apparently has gone from being litigated by one side to both sides (see this article from last year). So I became curious as to why some travel management decisions are so intractable, and other travel management decisions are not. This seems like an area ripe for the picking in the social sciences, and in fact a Google Scholar search of “intractable disputes recreation motorized” yielded a few. One paper addressed “unmanaged recreation” (broader than motorized vehicles, as defined in the paper) as a “wicked problem” (shades of Dave Iverson) on the Arapaho Roosevelt, just north of the Pike San Isabel. The paper is “Understanding the Wicked Nature of ‘‘Unmanaged Recreation’’in Colorado’s Front Range”, by Jeffrey J. Brooks Æ Patricia A. Champ Environmental Management (2006) 38:784–798. Here are some excerpts:

Strategies for addressing unmanaged recreation that focus on measuring public consensus, opinions, or votes in the form of the aggregate attitude of the majority are insufficient because interest group polarization at national and regional scales has created an intractable ‘‘us against them’’ controversy over outdoor recreation. Collaboration that overcomes wickedness requires that decision-makers allow themselves to be directly informed by local positions and knowledge rather than the positions evident in national debates. Some local positions may be difficult to identify at first if not well organized and vocal. Nonetheless, in the context of increasing social complexity and wickedness, inclusive approaches that actively seek diverse input and involvement tend to succeed (Pellizzoni 2003; Propst 2005).

Overcoming wickedness requires a local social process that involves inclusive communication and collective action among all stakeholders with an interest in local recreation management. Solutions should be considered temporary and place specific. To achieve successes, researchers and managers are first encouraged to accept the wicked nature of unmanaged recreation. Working together by building relationships between local stakeholders is the key to resolving cases of unmanaged recreation. Allen and Gould (1986:23) concluded that ‘‘people are what make problems wicked … emphasis on people within the organization and on external customers is the central element when wicked problems are successfully handled.’’ Forest Service managers should be rewarded for using and developing people skills and their abilities to organize and facilitate social groups and collective action. Training, education, and requiring these skills and abilities for employment will continue to be important as the Forest Service addresses wicked problems.

In the experience of TWS readers, why are some travel management decisions successful and others not? Does dissatisfaction with an outcome lead to bringing in national groups to litigate, which then makes resolution difficult, as Brooks and Champ postulate? Is it personality-driven (though these disputes tend to cycle through many personalities, at least on the FS side), or a function of other factors? (though these disputes tend to cycle through many personalities, at least on the FS side). What have you observed in your experience, and are there any other scientific studies you’d like to point that look at this question and offer potential solutions?

Proposed More Privatization of Interior Federal Campgrounds… Blackout Periods for Senior Passes

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Angel Peak Scenic Area BLM Campground: Does this place need a food truck?
From Kitty Benzar:

SENIOR AND DISABLED PASSHOLDERS MAY LOSE THEIR CAMPSITE DISCOUNT
Proposal would start with National Parks, then be expanded to BLM and other agencies

WSNFC has been alerted to a potential policy change that would create “blackout periods” during which federal Senior passes would not be honored for the long-standing 50% discount on their campsites during peak visitation seasons.

Starting with a proposed pilot program in selected National Parks, the plan would expand to include all the National Parks as well as campgrounds operated by the BLM and Fish and Wildlife Service. Seniors are outraged by the proposed change, which would renege on the promise that was made to them when they qualified for and obtained their lifetime pass. The proposal so far does not specifically include holders of Access (permanent disability) passes, but since they receive the same benefit it’s likely the change would apply to them as well.

The change has been recommended by the Outdoor Recreation Advisory Committee (aka the “Made In America” committee) in a letter presented to the Secretary of the Interior at a meeting in Washington on September 24. The members of the Made In America Committee – (scroll down at that link for the list) – are all executives of commercial interests like park concessionaires, private campground operators, and equipment manufacturers.

Nobody represents campers or rv owners. Why is the DOI letting themselves be led by these profit seeking corporations?

This would be a massive change to current Department of the Interior campground management practices, without any input from the public or even from Congress!

The key recommendation in the letter (please read it for yourself) is:

“Confirmation of current practices that 50% senior discounts offered to campers over the age of 62 (established by the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act) apply only to base campsite fees, and introduction of new senior fee blackout periods during peak season periods;”

The blackout periods are part of a much larger proposal to convert nearly all federal campgrounds from agency management to private for-profit operation by commercial concessionaires. Those commercial operators don’t want to have to honor the promises made to passholders if it would cut into their prime-season profits. Unlike the National Park Service and other federal land agencies they are not “public service” providers, they are businesses operated for the benefit of their owners and shareholders.

In 2010 when the Forest Service, which uses concessionaires to operate the vast majority of its campgrounds, made the same proposal they were beaten back by a massive outpouring of public opposition from Senior and Disabled Americans. But unlike the Forest Service, which is under the Department of Agriculture, Interior agencies like NPS and BLM don’t use concessionaires to nearly the same extent. Some highly developed RV-park campgrounds in National Parks are under private management but the basic, affordable family campgrounds (and all of BLM’s campgrounds) are operated directly by the agencies. This proposal would extend concessionaire management, and hence commercialization and privatization, to those more basic campgrounds. It would encourage concessionaires to add “amenities” like wifi, stores, and food trucks – which would of course force camping rates to skyrocket.

And during the most popular seasons there would be no discounts for Seniors or the Disabled!

The Advisory Committee is recommending that this be implemented by December 1, 2019 at selected pilot campgrounds. They do not intend to go to the public – or to Congress – for any kind of feedback or comment.”

Note from Sharon: 1. Interesting that the FS managed to dodge this bullet in 2010. 2. Most FACA committees I’ve been involved with have a variety of stakeholders, that’s the whole point. This one seems to cover interests from Aa to Ab. 3. While Kitty focuses on the Senior Pass, check out the letter for other ideas – perhaps better for the industry than the campers.

Limerick’s 12 Zones of Kinship Between the Economies of Extraction and Recreation

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From https://outdoorindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/OIA_RecEconomy_FINAL_Single.pdf
Groceries?

We mentioned the group Great Old Broads for Wilderness earlier this week. I belong, instead, to Humble Dames Supporting Thoughtful Dialogue. If there were such a group, and there were a founder, it would definitely be Dr. Patty Limerick, a historian at the University of Colorado, who has had a variety of experience with natural resource conflicts. In one piece, she discusses the similarities between the extractive and recreation economies. When I reread this recently, I also thought of some of the divisions within the recreation economy, including OHVs and now mountain bikes, and even the Upton Sinclair quote “It is hard to get someone to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.“ But of course it’s not just the salary, people prefer recreating on/without motors, people prefer having a full woodpile and/or propane tank when winter weather sets in. When you are telling them they shouldn’t do what they prefer, you are substituting your judgment for their own. And one can reasonably ask “by what authority?”.

We are putting these assertions out for public contemplation partly because, by rattling conventional wisdom, they carry intrinsic interest, and mostly because we believe that this approach can deliver genuine benefits. Westerners have, after all, invested decades in an experiment of conceiving of extraction and recreation as activities usually pitted against each other. The results of this experiment have not been uniformly positive. A different experiment, raising the possibility that these two “opposites” are actually more connected than they seem, might deliver better results and might even hold out the promise of reconfiguring a relationship of rivalry into a something closer to collaboration.

We aim this report at a worthy, ambitious, and decidedly eccentric goal: persuading leaders and participants in Western extractive economies and in Western recreational economies to move toward a level of self-awareness that will position them to put less effort into stereotyping and simplifying each other, and to invest more effort in acknowledging their kinship and in considering alliances and common ground.

For justifiable reasons, enthusiasts for outdoor recreation have seen extractive industry primarily as a force for disturbance of their treasured landscapes. For less justifiable reasons, they have also been tempted to see outdoor recreation as an innocent enterprise, with earnest affection for nature serving as a buffer protecting landscapes and wildlife from any undesirable impact. On the other side, practitioners in extractive industries, when going defensive, have a way of advancing a hard-headed utilitiarianism, trivializing the cultural, emotional, and spiritual power of recreation. We would like this report to open the door to a more forthright and evidence-based discussion, scouring out the self-righteousness and assumptions of superiority that clog the channels of conversation between groups who have more in common than they might think. We hope that opening up these channels will reveal options and alternatives that current habits of thought have foreclosed.

Limerick’s Twelve Zones of Kinship between the Economies of Extraction and Recreation

1) Both economies have demonstrated the capacity to create substantial and consequential environmental disturbances.

2) Both economies are firmly embedded in capitalism and shaped by the drive for profit.

3) Both economies supply essential employment for the region, and both economies have multiplier effects in stimulating other economic activities and also in enhancing tax revenues.

4) Jobs in both economies can be dangerous and unevenly rewarded, and the workers are often invisible to the beneficiaries of their work.

5) People participating in and benefiting from both economies can be oblivious to their impacts, and thereby prey to the temptation to leave the dilemmas, to which they have contributed, for someone else to clean up in the future.

6) Since people in both economies see themselves as innocents, they are correspondingly puzzled and defensive when criticized. They can be equally inclined to grumpiness, defensiveness, and resentment of regulation. Both treasure an ideal of freedom, constrained only by their own will and choice.

7) Both economies are strikingly successful in finding uses, which early generations missed, for remote, difficult Western terrain.

8) Both economies are very dependent on a transportation infrastructure for which they rarely pay, with both relying heavily on fossil-fuel-driven vehicles.

9) Both economies involve “externalities” that are often omitted from calculations of their costs and benefits.

10) Both economies play a big role in the allocation of water and in the honest reckoning with, or the denial, of Western water scarcity.

11) Both economies are historically intertwined. Profits made from extractive economies can position leading figures in industry to be people of leisure who enthusiastically take part in
outdoor recreation and who support the preservation of natural landscapes.

12) Many of the stories, literature, oral history, and folklore of the West demonstrate that hundreds of Westerners have been well aware of the intertwined and interconnected trajectories of extraction and recreation. While seeming to rattle and unsettle established thinking about the region, this report actually reaffirms and ratifies what many Westerners, in the past and the present, figured out for themselves.

Perhaps these are uniquely Coloradan perspective? How doe these ideas sound to other Westerners?

Pike-San Isabel Travel Management History and Comment Period Open: Guest Post from Patrick McKay

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The author’s Jeep on a road off Mosquito Pass threatened with closure.
Note from Sharon: as always, different perspectives are welcome in the comments.

Coloradans are blessed with an abundance of public lands in our state, and we enjoy engaging in numerous forms of recreation in our National Forests. From hiking and camping to hunting, fishing, rock climbing, and off-roading, one thing common to all forms of recreation is that they typically involve traveling on Forest Service roads to get there.

While most people give little thought to the roads they travel and consider them an immutable fact of the landscape, few would guess that their very existence is one of the most controversial
arenas of environmental politics. Now we are in the midst of a public process that could have profound implications for every user of public lands in south central Colorado.

On September 19, 2019 the Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the Pike San Isabel (PSI) National Forest Travel Management Analysis was released, commencing a 45 day comment period that runs until November 4. This document represents the culmination of a long and contentious process that will decide whether or not to close hundreds of miles of roads to the public or leave them open for future generations to enjoy.

In 2005, the US Forest Service adopted a new Travel Management Rule which overturned decades of management practice for Forest Service roads. Under the new rule, only routes specifically designated on official Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUMs) would be open to motorized travel by cars, four-wheel-drives, ATVs, dirt bikes, etc. Previously routes had been presumed open unless designated and signed as closed. The new rule was devastating to motorized recreation in National Forests, with some forests closing upwards of 90% of existing routes in the process of implementing it. Between 2007 and 2010, the Pike San Isabel National Forest completed its initial round of route designation and published MVUMs for its six ranger districts.

In 2011, five environmental groups including the Wilderness Society, Quiet Use Coalition, Wild Earth Guardians, Rocky Mountain Wild, and Great Old Broads for Wilderness filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service alleging that the PSI improperly added 500 miles of motorized routes to the MVUMs without conducting a proper environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Many of these routes pre-dated the 1984 Forest Plan or were lawfully created during the time when the Forest was managed as open to cross country travel, and were grandfathered in without specific analysis. If the Plaintiffs’ challenge was upheld, it could have called into question every other travel plan that similarly grandfathered routes.

Motorized advocacy groups including the Colorado OHV Coalition, Trails Preservation Alliance, and Blue Ribbon Coalition intervened in the lawsuit in order to defend off-road vehicle trails that had long been enjoyed by their members. In 2015 the lawsuit ended in a settlement agreement where the Forest Service agreed to conduct a new travel management process and environmental analysis for every motorized route in the PSI. After a scoping period in 2016 and three years of internal analysis, the Forest Service published the DEIS in September. It includes five alternatives labeled A – E, which would close between 3% and 50% of all existing motorized routes in the PSI. The final plan adopted by the Forest Service will be a combination of these alternatives in a modified Alternative C (the Preferred Alternative), with changes made in response to public comments.

While motorized off-highway recreation will be hit hardest by any route closures, every user group will potentially be impacted by them. For example Alternative E would close over 50% of
all motorized routes in the PSI, including numerous major thoroughfares, campgrounds, and hiking trailheads. It would close the only roads accessing all three main trailheads of the Lost
Creek Wilderness as well as those to several popular 14er trailheads. While that is unlikely to happen, the future of where people will be allowed to drive to camp, hike, or engage in off-
highway recreation all depends on the outcome of this process. While Alternative C is fairly reasonable from a motorized perspective, there are still a number of popular 4×4 trails which would be closed and whose loss will be a painful blow to the off-roading community. These include Twin Cones Road above Kenosha Pass and a number of scenic mining roads around Alma and Fairplay, as well as numerous spur roads used for dispersed camping.

The biggest flashpoint will be the roads in Wildcat Canyon (aka “the Gulches”) along the South Platte River north of Lake George. Most of these roads were temporarily closed after the
Hayman Fire in 2002 and underwent a bitterly contested travel management process in 2004. That process ended in the Forest Service agreeing to reopen them in principle but attempting to
turn over management responsibility to the affected counties. Teller County obtained easements and reopened its portion of the roads to the public by 2009. After two of its easement applications were lost by the Forest Service, Park County abandoned the effort to reopen its half of the Gulches trail system and those roads remain closed and in limbo. It will be up to the Forest Service to decide their final status in this process, with motorized users calling for them to be reopened and environmental groups demanding they be permanently closed in order to avoid environmental impacts to the Platte River.

Ultimately, this travel management process will be a bitter clash between those with diametrically opposed views of acceptable uses of public lands. Motorized users trying to defend the limited access they have now against further closures will face off against those who refuse to tolerate any level of motorized access to National Forests and who want almost all Federal lands managed as Wilderness. Forest Service officials are left with the unenviable task of striking some kind of balance between these two positions. The final outcome will almost inevitably be challenged in court, continuing the cycle of endless litigation that has characterized travel planning under the Travel Management Rule since its adoption.

If there is an area of the Pike San Isabel National Forest you care about, you may submit a comment before November 4 on the project website here. There will also be public meetings held in Denver, Colorado Springs, Pueblo, and Salida the week of October 8 – 11. Participation in the comment period is vital to ensure your voice is heard and the areas you love remain open in the future.

Patrick McKay is a Colorado native from the South Denver area who enjoys Jeeping, hiking, camping, and skiing in the Rocky Mountains. He is a former attorney currently working as a software developer and is passionate about preserving access to public lands for all forms of recreation.

CBD Threatens Lawsuit Over Motorcycle On-Trail Sedimentation Impacts to Greenback Cutthroat Trout

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Upper Cap’n Jack’s Trail, Colorado Springs Gazette file photo

This is an interesting story (1) because of the unique history of Greenback Cutthroat Trout and the discovery that they had survived in this particular drainage.

After more than five years of research, Kennedy concluded that Bear Creek was historically fishless. The greenbacks had been stocked sometime after 1874 by a man named Joseph C. Jones. Jones had come to Colorado as a prospector during the gold rush and later built an inn for the hordes of tourists that visited Pike’s Peak. There he built a series of fish ponds for guests, where it is believed he stocked the greenback far outside of its native range.

It was human stocking — the same practice that had killed off or pushed out so many of Colorado’s native trout — that had accidentally preserved the greenback. With only 800 individuals left in the entire subspecies, it would be up to humans again to save it.

Here’s an article in High Country News that tells the whole story. Philosophically, it raises interesting questions. Would ecological integrity requirements include moving the Bear Creek fish out, since they had been originally transplanted? How important is “genetic purity” compared to the ecosystem services provided by genetically motlier populations/subspecies of cutthroat trout?

(2) Here’s the Colorado Springs Gazette story on the potential lawsuit with a link to the CBD letter. It’s got everything.. a collaborative group from previous litigation..design disagreements..and it’s about a trail. Perhaps most interesting that it looks like CBD is distinguishing between impacts of hiking, mountain bikes, and motorcycles.

The Colorado Motorcycle Trail Riders Association sent a statement to The Gazette, criticizing the center’s “incessant zeal.”

“The long, thoughtful process that resulted in the rerouting of several popular trails in Jones Park represents a balance between preserving Bear Creek fish habitat and allowing reasonable recreational outdoor access for all users,” the statement read.

For years during the Forest Service’s analysis and reroute negotiations, motorists were barred from the singletrack closest to town. Now roaming the realigned Trail 667 on the north side of Kineo Mountain, they are “the crux” of the center’s concern, said the organization’s attorney, Margaret Townsend.

“If it was just a footpath or even potentially a mountain bike trail, it could have some impact, but not necessarily the same impact a motorcycle trail is likely to have,” she said in a phone call. “Of course we want folks enjoying the forest, and where the trail was going to be originally, that location wouldn’t have affected the greenback.”

So.. what do others think of the “impact” idea?

“We’ve got some concerns with upkeep; the trail’s not holding up the way it was sort of advertised,” said Cory Sutela, with Medicine Wheel Trail Advocates. “But it’s also pretty far from the creek.”

He’s no biologist, he said. “I’m a mechanical engineer, so I look at it technically, and it looks to me like sediment shouldn’t be able to get from the trail to the creek.”

Tim Volken of El Paso County:

The county “would appreciate reviewing any scientific data generated by the center indicating water quality concerns,” Wolken said. “This will be helpful in determining next steps

But to Allyn Kratz, president of the local chapter of Trout Unlimited, the evidence is “overwhelming,” and not in the favor of conservation.

He said he raised concerns about the trail before it was built, noticing at least eight “ravines” on the mountainside while hiking the flagged route — “ravines created by water,” Kratz said, “and the water obviously went to Bear Creek.”

He said he was told Trails Unlimited would address this. But he was unsatisfied in the end and remains so.

“I would love to see (Trail 667) closed,” Kratz said.

Conceivably after previous litigation, the trail was designed with sedimentation concerns in mind. Does anyone know of studies about different on-trail users having different sedimentation impacts? This may be time for a field trip…

Wilderness Trails and Trammeling: Cindy Chojnacky

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This is a photo I found of a Weminuche trail. but this is rather minimal deadfall compared to what I’ve observed. Other photos invited.

I thought I’d repost Cindy Chojnacky’s comment as I think she made a number of points that added to the original topic here. I would only add that I have also noticed, specifically in the Weminuche Wilderness which was the topic of our early discussions, the phenomenon she describes of “”social trails” around down trees, spaghetti paths through boggy areas and/or trampled mud around broken/unrepaired bog bridges” in areas blocked by deadfall.

Here’s what she wrote:
Ironically I was backpacking in a wilderness study area (Pioneers) this week and missed the post until now. Some good thoughts on wilderness and trails although I am only responding to the original opinion piece from a policy and a visitor (heavy wilderness user) standpoint.

I agree with George Nickas that wilderness is “commitment to humility” and his critique of the Forest Service leaving its wilderness management work to volunteers. However, opposing chainsaws in wilderness to clear trails and—for that matter—much of Wilderness Watch emphasis is based on a wrong policy interpretation of the Wilderness Act that misses the purpose of Wilderness. Let’s look at the 1964 Act policy statement in its entirety:
“In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition, it is hereby declared to be the policy of the Congress to secure for the American people of present and future generations the benefits of an enduring resource of wilderness. For this purpose there is hereby established a National Wilderness Preservation System to be composed of federally owned areas designated by Congress as “wilderness areas”, and these shall be administered for the use and enjoyment of the American people in such manner as will leave them unimpaired for future use and enjoyment as wilderness.”

Wilderness exist for the purpose of public use and enjoyment. Perhaps wilderness should be preserved for its own sake but that is not the purpose of the Wilderness Act. Even the management requirement to leave wilderness unimpaired is for “future use and enjoyment.”

Now, why is the Forest Service proposing to use chainsaws in the Weminuche and South San Juan Wilderness? Nickas doesn’t say but I imagine trails are blocked by deadfall. So the Forest Service wants to restore public access to wilderness. By the way, only the Forest Service rigorously restricts chainsaw use in wilderness; Park Service does not always. This is not law but an agency policy or at best interpretation of law.

With climate change increasing forest health issues and expanding fire size, fewer trails in wilderness are accessible to the public. That channels more people onto fewer trails in already heavily used areas, creating more “trammeling” of wilderness. Here are examples:

Ramsey’s Draft Wilderness, Virginia—Beautiful canyon trail Jerry’s Run used to be green meadow now full of shrubs and down eastern hemlock thanks to exotic hemlock wooly adelgid. Perhaps Forest Service has fixed this now but last time I talked to recreation staff, they could not get certified sawyer to clear trail.

Mazatzal Wilderness, Arizona—Has fairly well-cleared Arizona Trail (by volunteers) on the crest but venture west into large network of rangeland trails no longer maintained by permittees and never restored after 2004 Willow Fire—and you battle miles of desert vegetation, dense woodland regrowth or down trees if you want to visit the state’s largest national forest wilderness.

Sawtooth Wilderness, Idaho—We hiked a lightly used trail (in this heavily used wilderness) connecting popular Hell Roaring and Redfish Lakes that was a mess of down trees —until we left the wilderness near Redfish and found a lovely trail nicely cleared by chainsaw.

Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho—Friends of mine were turned back on epic trip through central Idaho with llamas because deadfall on famous Middle Fork of Salmon trail was not cleared. This trail contours on steep granite slopes high above the river—it would be life threatening to try go around the logs; after several days of hand-sawing they gave up on hiking Middle Fork.

Wilderness Act restrictions are not about banning technology for the sake of banning technology. If so GPS, lightweight backpacking gear, satellite phones, etc. should also be banned. Furthermore—the Wilderness Act allows exemptions for existing uses that includes technologies. In the “Frank”, for instance, fly-in airstrips and lodge in-holdings with hydro-electric power dams were included in its enabling wilderness legislation. In some western wilderness areas, range permittees are allowed to improve water developments with a bulldozer! Many “wilderness” roads are routinely exempted or cherry-stemmed.

Many legacy trails in premier wilderness areas like Zion, Sawtooth, Frank Church were built using dynamite, chainsaws and any other available technology.It seems that in an era where trails will not be cleared and public access lost in many log-jammed areas, that specific exemptions of chainsaws is actually in keeping with Congressional precedent. Good constructed, well maintained trails are probably the “lightest touch” possible for wilderness management. The alternative seems highly eroded overused trails, new game or “social trails” around down trees, spaghetti paths through boggy areas and/or trampled mud around broken/unrepaired bog bridges—a huge problem for dozens of national forest wilderness areas that I’ve visited in last decade since Forest Service stopped supporting routine trail crews.

Nickas rightly notes that the Forest Service (and other wildland fire agencies) can pull together a firefighting force at a moment’s notice—but the agency’s fire focus is driven by politics and money. Hear the local Congressmen, ranchers and small communities start screaming if the feds don’t come to the rescue when wildfire threatens.

Yes, it’s sad that the agency that launched the career of Aldo Leopold, named the first wilderness (Gila) and founded much of the philosophy in the Wilderness Act has so little commitment to wilderness today (except for some very zealous folks at the field level). But I would like to see the Non-Governmental Organization’s wilderness zeal going into creative solutions to disperse visitor use throughout our vast wilderness system and perhaps even pursue a new entity dedicated to wilderness management, rather than fighting the Forest Service in court and tying up what little effort is out there to keep wilderness available for public use and enjoyment.