BuzzH
Well-known member
Yes, its ridiculous that exceptions are being made to bedrock Acts because congress has failed public lands and the American Public.
Frank Church Wilderness to allow chain saws......
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2rocky
Well-known member
you are not wrong...
But we can stand on principle and watch what we love become inaccessible, or reevaluate what our real goals are and work towards those goals with what we have available and make actual progress.
Many discussions to be had about what Wilderness means and if the Act as written today is delivering the results we want. The tools we use don't define our values. The application of them does.
In regards to trail clearing, it is about like roadside mowing in my home county. if you wait for the Gov't to do it, it isn't going to get done, so you just do it yourself. Outfitters and the Backcountry Horsemen chapters across the
west have picked up the slack and are falling further and further behind. The REI volunteer bunch isn't gonna do anything more than a 150 yards from a road.
Elktrack
Well-known member
I can agree with you on that
BuzzH
Well-known member
So set aside values for convenience...hope you're good with mountain bikes, atvs, and motor bikes in wilderness areas.
I mean its just so inconvenient to walk or ride a horse. That's not progress.
Have you ever read the Wilderness Act?
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Lasiocarpa
Well-known member
“The good of the resource”? That’s a stretch lol. More like for human convenience.
BuzzH
Well-known member
Carl 9.3x62
Well-known member
I blame side by sides for the narrow roads
Just out of curiosity, what’s your profession?
Asking so I can tell you how to best do your job.
I saw some sweet outfitter contracted trail work a few years ago. He claimed to have done roughly 11 miles, reality was he maybe cleared 1/2 a mile so well you could have driven a pickup on it, the rest was brushy enough it was lifting panniers off the horses, we burned through almost all our saw gas on logs, and spent plenty of time in foot searching for trail. I’m sure the outfitter still cashed his contract check though
Here in Southern Oregon, we have a wilderness area called the Kalimopsis Wilderness. The entire wilderness area burned in, I think, 2003 and since it is near the coast it gets lots of rain which makes the brush grows back real fast. Which, along with falling snags, makes trail maintenance a real nightmare. There was never a real high volume of hikers anyway, so the forest Service just gave up on the idea of maintaining the trails. A group of hikers got tired of bitching about the crappy overgrown trails and decided to do something about it. They formed a non-profit to raise money to clear the trails. They put together a crew each year and all the logistics are handled by the non-profit. All the forest service has to do is decide which trails they want maintained each year and make sure all the rules and regulations are adhered to. I don't know how sustainable this system is, but it has been going strong for better than 15 years now.
SAJ-99
Well-known member
Clear trails equals more people. Quickest way for wilderness to cease to be wilderness.
Irrelevant
Well-known member
I'm in buzz's camp on this one. Most of those trails were cleared and built with hand tools. If we can do that, we can clear a few logs each year. If Congress would just invest in maintenance but those red hat voters must not believe in oil changes or hair cuts.
Also another example of pressing the EASY button. Something the HT crowd is generally against
Also another example of pressing the EASY button. Something the HT crowd is generally against
I would bet that many areas in our national forest, especially within Wilderness areas, in no way resembles the time when these trails were built. Especially when taken as a whole. There might be a hundred times as much blowdown in years following a fire than there was in the early 1900s. Labor is also very different.
Not really making an argument one way or the other, just saying that I understand where they are coming from and that I am sure these trails will be cut out with chainsaws eventually. Only question is who is going to do it.
The selfish side of me loves the blown in trails and it pisses me off when they get cut out illegally because it means I will have competition. I understand the slippery slope aspect of allowing it.
Not really making an argument one way or the other, just saying that I understand where they are coming from and that I am sure these trails will be cut out with chainsaws eventually. Only question is who is going to do it.
The selfish side of me loves the blown in trails and it pisses me off when they get cut out illegally because it means I will have competition. I understand the slippery slope aspect of allowing it.
sclancy27
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During college I worked for the Custer National Forest out of Red Lodge as a wilderness ranger and wilderness trails. It was either 2008 or 2009 we tried to get a special exemption for a huge blowdown event to use chainsaws in wilderness. They shut us down. We did end up getting everything cut out with hand tools, but some of the blow down was truly epic.
Do you have any pictures? I think a lot of people can't imagine what is being discussed here. 100,000 trees in 150 miles is a chore with crosscut saws.
sclancy27
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Maybe on my old MacBook. I'll have to resurrect it. There is a picture of a giant brown trout from WY from my fisheries days I need to pull off the same computer.
Gellar
Well-known member
After the 1999 blowdown in the Boundary Waters crews were allowed to use chainsaws on some portage trails and campsites. They had to contain all of the lubricants, fuels and saws in plastic bags if they were not being used. They had a very short window to use the saws.
I think someone could argue with the amount of time it would take for a 2 man hand crew vs the amount of time it would take a 2 man chainsaw crew to complete the same amount of work the ecological impacts would be negligible. We aren't talking about bulldozers and skid steers, we are talking about a chainsaw, a can of gas, and a gallon of lube making two cuts in a log just wide enough for the trail.
We just got done talking about fiscal responsibility with the Forest service. Would it be better to pay some college kid $14/hour to clear 1/2 mile a day with cross cut saws or a 1/2 mile an hour with chainsaws? Clear it once with chain saws and then have enough crews to keep up with it by hand from here on out.
I think someone could argue with the amount of time it would take for a 2 man hand crew vs the amount of time it would take a 2 man chainsaw crew to complete the same amount of work the ecological impacts would be negligible. We aren't talking about bulldozers and skid steers, we are talking about a chainsaw, a can of gas, and a gallon of lube making two cuts in a log just wide enough for the trail.
We just got done talking about fiscal responsibility with the Forest service. Would it be better to pay some college kid $14/hour to clear 1/2 mile a day with cross cut saws or a 1/2 mile an hour with chainsaws? Clear it once with chain saws and then have enough crews to keep up with it by hand from here on out.
When budgets get slashed and the work that should be done doesn't get done, people tend to gravitate towards reducing the restrictions that keep places whole.
Personally, I'm fine with the use of saws for clearing trails, and the wilderness act provides for emergency declarations like this. I'd say our public lands are currently in an emergency state, especially given the events of the last 18 months or so. States drop fish from helo's into wilderness areas. The act provides for flexibility for management, and I think that traditionally, that's been very conservatively used for good reason - once you start it's hard to put the motor back in the bottle.
These kinds of things should be rare, and only when other methods won't work. For the most part, I still think that organizations like state conservation corps do a great job on stuff like this. We got the procurement act changes done in MT a few sessions ago so that kids with handsaws and Pulaski's didn't have red tape hanging over them for specific projects.
Chainsaws and all the support needs that come with it have a lot more weight. When you're packing in, 10 crosscut saws with 10 healthy humans to run them can do some good work. That doesn't mean both options should be off the table, especially when congress ignores the needs of the public and our public lands.
Personally, I'm fine with the use of saws for clearing trails, and the wilderness act provides for emergency declarations like this. I'd say our public lands are currently in an emergency state, especially given the events of the last 18 months or so. States drop fish from helo's into wilderness areas. The act provides for flexibility for management, and I think that traditionally, that's been very conservatively used for good reason - once you start it's hard to put the motor back in the bottle.
These kinds of things should be rare, and only when other methods won't work. For the most part, I still think that organizations like state conservation corps do a great job on stuff like this. We got the procurement act changes done in MT a few sessions ago so that kids with handsaws and Pulaski's didn't have red tape hanging over them for specific projects.
Chainsaws and all the support needs that come with it have a lot more weight. When you're packing in, 10 crosscut saws with 10 healthy humans to run them can do some good work. That doesn't mean both options should be off the table, especially when congress ignores the needs of the public and our public lands.
WyoCoalMiner
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I'm assuming by hand tools you mean non-motorized stuff. But is this accurate, where all the trails in FC built and maintained prior to 1980 without the use of a chainsaw? FC became Wilderness in 1980. How many new miles of trail were built in the FC after it became Wilderness? I couldn't find that info on a search, curious if anyone knows.
sclancy27
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You'd be surprised how fast cross-cut saws can be. The biggest efficiency factor is 2 human (realistically 3) vs 1 human operation in the cross-cut vs chainsaw debate. Usually, we would have 2 people running the cross-cut, then someone with an axe limbing out in front. With a chainsaw you can do everything.
I'm curious of all the people in here how many have a lot of experience in both methods?
