-We struggled to scramble up near-vertical walls of
loose sand,” writes Mark North in the online magazine Explore.
“Still, the weight of the tent, beer, snowboard and snowboard boots
on my backpack didn’t topple me over … At the summit, we’d swap
snowshoes for snowboards … spray on a coat of Pledge to increase
glide, then ride the slow, mad carve down the hot sand to a cool
drink at the bottom.”
Never heard of
sandboarding? You’re not alone. But adventures like North’s in Park
Service wilderness areas have some wilderness activists
concerned.
“It’s definitely not compatible with
wilderness values,” Scott Silver of the Bend, Ore.-based group Wild
Wilderness says of the fledgling sport. He fears the boarders will
flatten native dune vegetation and disrupt the solitude of other
visitors. Although sandboarding doesn’t use motors, Silver doesn’t
think it qualifies as a “primitive” form of recreation – the only
sort permitted in federal wilderness areas. “Unfortunately, the
language of the Wilderness Act is not unambiguous,” he
says.
Steve Chaney, the superintendent of Great
Sand Dunes National Monument in southern Colorado, says there’s no
reason to worry. “We look at it as kind of a non-issue here,” he
says, and adds that park rangers rarely see more than one
sandboarder per week during the summer season. “Frankly, a board
sliding down a steep dune moves less sand than a hiker running and
jumping down the side of a dune,” he
says.
Rangers do advise sandboarders not to use
furniture polish on their boards, but the park has no official
policy on the sport.
Wilderness areas within
Death Valley National Park are also visited by sandboarders. While
sandboarding is discouraged at sites with sensitive plants, it is
permitted in other areas within the park. Park staffers say they
have no plans to restrict the sport.
Silver isn’t
reassured. “There’s this whole issue of nontraditional uses of
public lands,” he says. “As creative as people are, there are going
to be new things created every year. Sandboarding is just part of
that trend.”
*Michelle
Nijhuis
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Dudes on the dunes.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
