Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

In Utah, off-roaders are drawing a line in the sand, pushing for their right to drive all-terrain vehicles on public lands. Washington County resident Dan Jessop was just found guilty of riding his ATV on a closed road. He got six months’ probation and a $300 fine; now he’s planning to appeal the case.

Jessop says that Sawmill Road is county-owned and that the Bureau of Land Management had no business shutting it down. The feds say the road, on BLM land, is under their control. Fellow four-wheelers have raised more than $30,000 to help Jessop fight the fine. (As an interesting aside, a hiker ticketed by the Forest Service for not paying a much-loathed access fee rallied only $4,500 to her defense — see our story “Fed up with paying to play“. Apparently if you’ve got a $5,000 ATV, you’ve also got bucks to burn).

With crackdowns on illegal off-roading all over the West, and with many Utah counties feuding with the feds over control of dozens of dusty backroads, ATVers see Jessop’s case as their chance for a showdown. They’ve already won one round — last fall, the BLM recognized Kane County’s claim to Bald Knoll road, on public land near the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument (see our story “The road more traveled“).
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Francisco Tharp

Tent? Check. S’mores? Check. Helmet? Check.

That’s right, if you plan on doing any camping in lodge pole pine country this summer, you may want to bring a helmet because the Forest Service is concerned that trees weakened by the “catastrophic” pine beetle epidemic threaten to crush campers like bugs under a hiking boot.

You’ll also want to check on whether or not your destination campground is open. In Colorado, Rocky Mountain National Park is delaying the opening of its Timber Creek Campground until it can clear the site of dangerous beetle kill. And the White River National Forest will temporarily close six of its 57 campgrounds in western Colorado. Temporary closures in Colorado’s Arapaho-Roosevelt National Forest and Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest are expected to be announced soon, says Mary Ann Chambers, a spokeswoman for the agency’s Rocky Mountain Region.

Some campgrounds will open mid-summer, while others may not open at all due to the great number of dead trees and insufficient agency resources.

Death by beetle infestation, largely due to climate change, is certainly not unique to Colorado. Nearly every state in the West has a whole mess of the little tree munchers to deal with.

The clearing of trees near campsites may leave some visitors stunned at the lack vegetation, a National Park Service spokesperson told the Rocky Mountain News. Always the optimists, some Colorado realtors have taken the opportunity to soften the blow and create a new euphemism. Now visitors and potential home buyers can enjoy  the “emerging vistas” of decimated forests. So they’ve got that going for them, which is nice.

Ernie Atencio

“Free at last,” says the first line of an article on the front page of yesterday’s Taos News (3/20/08). No, this is not about the passage of landmark civil rights legislation. Not about the release of some unjustly imprisoned activist or Guantanamo enemy combatants.

Taos Ski Valley has opened its slopes to snowboarders.

For some people around here this is earthshaking, the beginning of a new age, a tectonic social shift in the land of gravity-driven recreation. I guess we all need something to feel passionate about, but in a world and a region grappling with some serious issues I’m having a hard time with all the fuss. A couple of friends have looked shocked to hear me say, “What’s the big deal? It’s just a ski area.” I’ve drawn some uncomfortable responses on the ski lift when I suggest that it’s public land and it doesn’t seem right that it’s restricted, much less that it’s obscenely expensive.

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Evelyn Schlatter

In April 1909, explorer and adventurer Matthew Henson arrived at Camp Jesup, roughly three miles from the North Pole. Henson had a phenomenal sense of direction and using dead reckoning, he ended up at that point 45 minutes before his companion, Robert Peary. Henson and Peary had been traveling and working together for over 20 years, since Peary met Henson in Washington DC, where the latter was working as a clerk and furrier, following several years as an able-bodied seaman.

In 1889, Henson accompanied Peary on a survey mission to Nicaragua. In 1891, Peary asked Henson to accompany him to Greenland and thus began the Arctic journeys and long-time partnership and friendship of these two dynamic and dedicated men.

That is, until that April day in 1909, when Henson told Peary that he felt “he was the first man on top of the world.” When he said that, Henson later recalled, Peary “was hopping mad…he didn’t say anything, but I could tell.” And as Henson slept, Peary checked coordinates and slipped out of camp, without alerting Henson, who would later write: “From the time we knew we were at the Pole, Commander Peary scarcely spoke to me … It nearly broke my heart … that he would rise in the morning and slip away on the homeward trail without rapping on the ice for me, as was the established custom.”

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Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Now it’s the U.S. Forest Service that’s under the knife, as the President whacks away at the federal budgets that serve Western constituencies. According to testimony today by USFS Chief Abigail Kimbell, Bush is requesting an 8 percent slash in the agency’s budget, in favor of more military spending around the globe and more funds for homeland security,

Although the proposed budget includes an increase of $148 million for wildfire fighting, it also recommends a cut in funding for fire prevention and preparedness. The cuts could mean the loss of more than 2,700 jobs, about 10 percent of the agency’s workforce.

The USFS manages 193 million acres of national forest, most of it in the Western states. The reduction in funds would affect road and trail maintenance, state assistance, land acquisition and recreation.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) chairman of the House Appropriations Interior Subcommittee, called Bush’s budget “an unmitigated disaster.”

See more about the budget cuts in an AP story.

You can also read the testimony of USFS Chief Kimbell.

In the past few years, the Bush administration has recommended selling off federal lands. See HCN stories here, here and here.

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Former U.S. Forest Service Chief Michael Dombeck on January 22 celebrated ten years of the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects nearly 60 million acres of wilderness but still faces a variety of legal challenges.

Dombeck, architect of the roadless policy, is now a professor of global conservation at the University of Wisconsin. He said the rule has played a key role in protecting wildlife habitat, preserving clean drinking water, providing recreational opportunities and providing a defense against global warming. He said the policy has kept nearly all the land from energy development, mining, logging and roadbuilding.

In 1998, Dombeck proposed a temporary moratorium on road construction in inventoried roadless areas across the National Forest System. The Forest Service adopted an 18-month moratorium in February of the next year, during which 1.7 million public comments were filed, most favoring protection of roadless areas. The Rule was officially issued by the U.S.F.S. in January of 2001. The Bush Adminsitration repealed the Rule in 2005, but a federal district court ordered its reinstatement in September 2006 in response to a suit filed by Earthjustice on behalf of 20 conservation groups.

Environmentalists are now calling on Congress to enact the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2007, to codify the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Bills have been introduced by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA).

Dombeck was part of a panel that met to assess the effect of the Rule. An audio recording of the panel (a teleconference) is available from The Wilderness Society, along with more information.

For background on the Roadless Rule, see this article and others in HCN’s archives.

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Colorado Division of Wildlife and other police officers have been forced to stand by while they watch off-road vehicles violate regulations on federal land, according to Rep. Kathleen Curry (D-Gunnison), as quoted in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel.

To remedy that, Curry and Sen. Lois Tochtrop (D-Thornton), are sponsoring a bill in the Colorado Legislature that would prohibit operating any motor vehicle on state or federal public land unless vehicle use is specifically authorized. A 1976 federal law gives states the authority to impose fines for violations on federal land, but states must affirm this authority with legislation.

In the proposed bill, a violation would be a misdemeanor and carry a fine of $100. If the vehicle is in a federal wilderness area, the fine would be $200.

If hunting is involved in the violation, a hunting license would be given 10 suspension points, or 15 points in a wilderness area.

The Bureau of Land Management was consulted on the wording of the bill.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

For the interesting, entertaining 7-minute video, click here.

For the accompanying NY Times story on the off-road mess around the West, click here.

I recommend the video. It has pretty Utah redrock country, and motorheads versus enviros. It shows the difference between drivers who go slowly and relatively quietly, and drivers who blast through wild land like they would on a racetrack. It’s narrated by reporter Felicity Barringer.

For my post on another outdoorsy video by Felicity Barringer, click here. She’s doing good work.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

Guess this is inevitable. With a half-million-dollar federal grant, an “educational software developer” now encourages us to pretend to howl at the moon. And run after elk. And, I presume — if it’s really realistic — chew into elk and sire pups.

As Steve Karnowski of the AP reports:

The new video game “WolfQuest” allows players to follow the call of the wild in the role of a wolf in Yellowstone National Park.

Players learn quickly, with help from realistic graphics, that wolves do a lot of running — across plains, through forests and up and down steep slopes.

“You have to learn how to hunt, survive, defend your territory and ultimately find a mate and establish your own pack,” said project director Grant Spickelmier …

The first episode, “Amethyst Mountain,” was officially released Dec. 20 as a free download at www.wolfquest.org …

In the first episode, as a solitary wolf roaming Amethyst Mountain in Yellowstone, players chase down elk and hares, relying on their eyes and sense of smell. When the “scent vision” screen toggles on, the background goes black and white and scent trails light up. The screen also shows how old the trails are.

To howl like a wolf, players just hit the “H” key, which in future episodes will help draw in their pack.

(Read on …)

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

A survey by a coalition of retired federal and state law enforcement professionals reveals that off-road vehicle abuse is rampant across federal lands, and worsening. Rangers for Responsible Recreation received 69 responses from a mailing to 300 BLM and Forest Service rangers and supervisors, and more than 90 percent agreed that “off-road vehicles present a significant law enforcement problem” in their jurisdictions.

One BLM ranger wrote, “User attitudes are atrocious. They are the single biggest destruction on public lands these days, far worse than grazing or energy development.”

Jim Furnish, former deputy chief of the Forest Service, called the ORV situation a “runaway crisis.”

Another BLM ranger wrote that “Ninety percent of ORV users cause resource damage every day they ride. Most will violate a rule, regulation or law daily.”

Sixty-five percent of respondents thought current penalties are not tough enough. Some of the suggestions for stiffer consequences included: “Confiscate vehicles of repeat violators or in cases of blatant destruction of resources. Ban minors from riding on forest unless with a parent or other responsible adult” (USFS); “Move/set fines/ citations to at least $1000” (BLM); and “Revoke public land use to multi-violators” (BLM).

Most respondents agreed that federal agencies “need money, staff and implementation” to ensure better enforcement.

Other concerns included damage to habitat and resources, and safety issues, particularly for children. See an article by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility here, including links to the survey.

Marty Durlin

Online Editor

Lake Powell, on the Arizona-Utah border, was created to benefit Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming. Three hundred miles away, on the Arizona-Nevada border, Lake Mead stores Colorado River water for Arizona, California and Nevada.

Both reservoirs have dropped to below half-capacity due to the drought of the past eight years, threatening serious water shortages, along with the loss of hydro-power and damage to riparian habitat and recreation sites.

According to an article in the Arizona Republic, representatives from all seven states have negotiated a drought plan that will balance the needs of users in both the upper and lower basins, avoiding a courtroom dispute. The plan will be ratified this week in Las Vegas, marking the first major agreement among the states since the Colorado River Compact of 1922.

“By managing the two reservoirs together rather than fighting over how much water will be released every year, we’ll help mitigate the probability of Arizona taking shortages,” said Herb Guenther, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources.

“It’s hugely important for us,” said Scott Huntley, a spokesman for the Southern Nevada Water Authority, as quoted in the New York Times. “This really does provide the bridge for us to get into the next decade.”

Jodi Peterson

Associate Editor

Something doesn’t quite add up here. Long-range predictions for the West call for steadily decreasing snowpack levels as the planet heats up. And our national forests are damaged from years of fire suppression, drought, pine beetle proliferation, clearcutting and unregulated OHV use. But Montana developer Tom Maclay wants to build a new ski resort on private land — and expand it into the Lolo and Bitterroot National Forests. The Bitterroot Resort could become the biggest ski area in North America (see our earlier story here).

NewWest.net discusses a new report, commissioned by the Missoula Chamber of Commerce, showing the resort would have a “significant economic impact” on Ravalli and Missoula counties:

The Bitterroot Resort Economic Impact Analysis, conducted by the Portland-based group ECONorthwest … analyzes the potential impact of the larger proposal as well as a smaller resort project that is likely to proceed if Maclay does not receive Forest Service approval. Factoring in tourism, construction jobs, seasonal employment and other ancillary impacts, the report concludes that the total economic output of the larger resort, 10 years from now, would be about 3.2 percent of the total output of the entire two-county economy in 2007.

Given the predictions of global warming’s impact on winter, banking on a new ski resort for economic growth seems, well, just plain dumb. Not to mention the environmental harm it would do to carve a giant ski resort out of Lolo Peak.

Ray Ring

Senior Editor

These are telling details, illustrating a problem for everyone on Western trails — motorized or not. Doesn’t need elaboration from me. Perry Backus at the Missoulian does a good job reporting:

A (Montana) man charged with felony aggravated assault for allegedly popping a wheelie and running his motorcycle over a hiker has agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in Idaho.

The hiker, a federal investigator and groups concerned about illegal motorized recreation aren’t happy about the decision — by Clearwater County, Idaho, prosecutors — to reduce the charge.

… The felony assault charge was originally filed following a lengthy U.S. Forest Service investigation into a July 2006 incident between hikers and a group of motorcyclists on a trail closed to motorized recreation in the proposed Great Burn Wilderness on the Montana-Idaho border …

Bob Clark of the Sierra Club led the hike.

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