One toy “screams down the trails”
and “tackles mud, rocks, and anything else nature throws its way.”
The other “dances over everything from muddy single track to
boulder fields.” With their grippy rubber treads and bomber
construction, both may sound like fun to outdoorsy gearheads of all
stripes. But the difference between the two underscores the fierce,
slow-motion battle under way over how people play on the West’s
public lands. The first toy is a four-foot-wide offroad vehicle.
The second is a trail running shoe.
By 2009, the Forest
Service expects every national forest to have an updated plan to
manage motorized recreation (11.5 million visits to national
forests each year involve off-road vehicle use, and the number of
off-road vehicles sold per year has tripled since 1995), close
bandit trails, and reduce conflicts between the hikers, bikers,
horseback riders and motorheads currently clogging the same paths.
In many places, the public process has been fraught with bitter
divisions, endless meetings and delays. Only 17 Western forests out
of nearly 100 have completed maps showing where off-road vehicles
are and aren’t allowed to roam. The rest, from Utah’s Dixie to
California’s Inyo, are still chugging away. The Bureau of Land
Management is grinding through a similar effort.
“These
are passionate people. They get loud,” White River National Forest
planner Wendy Haskins says, speaking of public meetings on the
Colorado forest’s developing plans.
And whatever balance
land managers strike isn’t likely to please everybody. “There’s a
limited amount of land out there, and everybody wants a piece of
it,” says Bitterroot National Forest planner Dan Ritter of Montana.
But regardless of what they decide, agencies may
ultimately be hard-pressed to make folks observe new closures and
rules. The Forest Service’s 2009 budget proposes a $16.5 million
cut in law enforcement. The BLM faces a similar plight, with about
one agent available for every 1.2 million acres of land. The key
will be collaborating with local governments and recreation groups
on policing and educating users, says Haskins, provided they’re
willing.
Government landscaping
1. On the Bitterroot National Forest,
where the most recent draft of the travel management plan proposed
closing 364 miles of the forest’s nearly 5,000 miles of roads to
motorized use, passionate may be a bit of an understatement. In
January in Darby, the first public meeting of more than 200 people
turned into an angry confrontation. One man was overheard
suggesting that a woman who advocated for road closures should have
“a bullet in her head,” spurring a police investigation and an
unsuccessful push for prosecution. Forest staffers there have just
finished combing through some 850 letters and thousands of e-mails
in preparation for the next draft plan, expected out this fall.
(USFS photo)
2. The Wallowa Whitman National
Forest’s preliminary proposal last year to close more
than 4,200 miles of unmaintained roads and 1.3 million acres of
open country to motorized travel drew praise from local
environmental groups and a strong backlash from many local
residents. Union County commissioners sent a letter to the local
ranger district accusing the feds of bending to the will of “the
environmental machine that seeks to dismantle our social and
economic western culture.” Since then, three counties (two of which
went through extensive road surveys of their own) have submitted
specific alternative plans to the forest recommending which routes
should remain open and closed within their boundaries. The Hells
Canyon Preservation Council has done the same. (USFS photo)
3. The lines aren’t always quite so clear between
motorized and non-motorized users in the White River
National Forest. On Richmond Ridge outside of Aspen, for
example, backcountry skiers who shuttle by snowmobile have long
pushed for more access to a powder stash currently closed to all
motorized use save the local skiing company’s high-priced snowcat
tours. Local forest staffers have suggested they might open the
whole area to motorized use because of limited staff for
enforcement. Meanwhile, a successful collaboration between local
government, disparate recreation groups and the Forest Service at a
similar area outside of Breckenridge might ease some management
headaches there. (Pictured, backcountry skier on Richmond Ridge,
Catherine Lutz.)
4. This month, the
BLM will for the first time close some 55,000 acres and 89 miles of
routes in the Sonoran Desert National Monument
to offroaders. Staffers say the two-plus year closure will allow
the agency to catch up on restoring routes and revegetating areas
damaged by increasingly heavy offroad use, as well as finish its
own travel management plan, due out next fall. (Pictured, Public
Employees for Environmental Responsibility work to restore ORV
damage, courtesy PEER.)
5. When the BLM indefinitely
closed 31,000 acres of the Clear Creek Management
Area in May as part of a larger planning effort, it was
over concerns about human, not environmental, health. The area,
which has been a favorite of offroaders since the 1940s, is also
home to a large natural deposit of asbestos, and a recent federal
study suggests offroading kicks up dangerous amounts of the stuff.
Over the next few years, says field manager Rick Cooper, the agency
will evaluate whether or not any uses can be allowed, and if so,
under what system. The decision has infuriated offroaders, who have
threatened to sue, and stirred ambivalence even among enviros, who
enjoy hiking and birdwatching in the area. (Pictured, a federal
toxics team member in protective clothing, EPA.)
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Two weeks in the West.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
