SaskHunter
Well-known member
Debate aside, that's awesome! My wife is happy to stay home when I go out and hike 112.6 km in a week (or 70 miles for y'all).
S. 1695: Human Powered Travel in Wilderness Act
- Thread starter Nameless Range
- Start date
Debate aside, that's awesome! My wife is happy to stay home when I go out and hike 112.6 km in a week (or 70 miles for y'all).
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
Yep, debate aside it's the ties to these places that form the attitudes as well. When my mother-in-law Lucille was 20 yrs old back in 1941, she, her girlfriend, and her brother rode horses through what was then a Primitive Area before Wilderness designation. She wrote a journal Ah, Wilderness, with black and white photos which my wife discovered and we backpacked the same route and took color photos of each place they stopped. We presented her our journal for her 97th birthday, just months prior to her death, so what a timely trek!
As I approached the Chinese Wall up Moose Creek near Larch Hill Pass, I hollered out "Lucy was here!" The echo came back so strong it stopped us in our tracks! Emotional, yeah.
Nameless Range
Well-known member
In my opinion, some of the discussions having to do with bikes in Wilderness that have the least utility are those that compare the effects of horses on the landscape with that of bikes. Bikes and horses do have some things in common, and do leave an imprint on the landscape in larger ways than feet. And one could argue one has more adverse effects than the other, and be perfectly rational in that 'one' being either.
I think if we lived in a world where horseback riding had just become a thing in the last few decades, and we were starting fresh with Wilderness and the rules that revolved around it, we may very well omit horses from the landscape. The fact is though, one of the layered complexities of land management is that traditional use matters and has more influence than contemporary uses new on the scene. And if I can be purposefully vague, another reason I would prefer bikes be omitted from Wilderness is the unintended consequences of allowing a contemporary mode of transportation to gain hold in such a way that it could be considered a traditional use on the landscape. We really need to be cognizant and careful when it comes to piling on pressures on the landscape.
I think if we lived in a world where horseback riding had just become a thing in the last few decades, and we were starting fresh with Wilderness and the rules that revolved around it, we may very well omit horses from the landscape. The fact is though, one of the layered complexities of land management is that traditional use matters and has more influence than contemporary uses new on the scene. And if I can be purposefully vague, another reason I would prefer bikes be omitted from Wilderness is the unintended consequences of allowing a contemporary mode of transportation to gain hold in such a way that it could be considered a traditional use on the landscape. We really need to be cognizant and careful when it comes to piling on pressures on the landscape.
jumping into this a little late, but agree with the main sentiment. Bikes can make it into some amazing locations if you give them the chance. The wilderness was and should be one place with no mechanical advantage use. I have no issue on trails outside the wilderness based on the local district ranger decision on what trails can be used with tires in mind. I feel local knowledge of trails being kept in mind for erosion, usage, usage type and public input. The same way road management plans are used. With the increased popularity in bike packing and gravel riding increasing I feel we need to protect some areas. Not that there is anything wrong with these sports I highly enjoy one on dirt roads and would like to get into the other.
D
Deleted member 28227
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I have the same mindset, but you don’t learn much if you do question your own thinking from time to time.
Personally I always struggle with the horse via bike question. I typically arrive at the @neffa3 argument. Add to that anyone who is going to bike in pack raft out could easily hike it, bikes save you time but not really effort in this context.
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
You sell me short. At past mid seventies now, I have always questioned my own sometimes skewed thinking. But on this issue my attitude is firmly entrenched. Bike versus horse does not even matter. It's a "protect and preserve wilderness" attitude that has evolved over my lifetime in Montana.
There is not much wilderness, but there are a helluva lot of other places for mechanized convenience and self gratification, so why spoil the wilderness? You answer that question.
Sytes
Well-known member
Sytes
Well-known member
Above quote by the late Senator Frank Church - Sponsor of our initial wonderful Wilderness Act.
BTW, kayaks = "mechanical" instrument for transit excused as cycles w/ electric motors are excused as "non motorized"... I believe there is a place for various human means of routing our great outdoors, wilderness as clearly exemplified in various Wilderness Study Areas and peer reviewed studies of erosion via hoof and cycle tire.
Some that wear boots may claim cycles have broad access - yet those boots who claim such have access to all the cycle areas and much more. There are no "only" locations unless you care to cycle or walk your Frogger bum across the Autobahn.
BTW, kayaks = "mechanical" instrument for transit excused as cycles w/ electric motors are excused as "non motorized"... I believe there is a place for various human means of routing our great outdoors, wilderness as clearly exemplified in various Wilderness Study Areas and peer reviewed studies of erosion via hoof and cycle tire.
Some that wear boots may claim cycles have broad access - yet those boots who claim such have access to all the cycle areas and much more. There are no "only" locations unless you care to cycle or walk your Frogger bum across the Autobahn.
That's really no different than a well used horse trail or even some heavily used hiking trails.
Mtnhunter1
Well-known member
I have a few family and friends from Oregon and Washington that are huge advocates for gaining wilderness bike access. My argument is always the same, "Fairness and equality" of access has nothing to do with not allowing wheels in the wilderness. Our wilderness areas do not need the additional stress that would occur with the added biker crowd. No doubt, there are portions of any wilderness trail system that could accommodate bike travel, but why? Most, if not all these bikers could easily travel these same trails via hiking vs biking. But, some people or groups just want to push the envelope and advocate for change on the basis of "Fairness or Equality". I always ask my friends where this argument will end? If bikes are allowed in the wilderness areas, why not allow E-bikes? If E-bikes are allowed, why not motorcycles.....and the rabbit hole seems never ending!
The bottom line, if wheels are allowed in an area, that area no longer has the "Wilderness" designation....or the protections that are suppose to be adhered to with that designation.
The bottom line, if wheels are allowed in an area, that area no longer has the "Wilderness" designation....or the protections that are suppose to be adhered to with that designation.
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
So, Sytes, what the "wide spectrum of Americans" implies then is that if mountain bikes, other mechanization, or even motorized vehicles are not allowed in Wilderness, then that is discrimination such as is protected by the Bill of Rights? I'm not buying that.
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Deleted member 28227
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Selling you short was not my intent, "you don’t learn much if you do question your own thinking from time to time" was entirely self directed.
I'm 32, raised in CO lived for a bit in MT, those experiences have engendered the same "protect and preserve wilderness attitude". I certainly come to HT to bs and share memes, though why I have stayed around is my interactions with others on various public land topics that have expanded my thinking.
To that end, part of me kinda wants to put wilderness in a box and lock it away, that mentality is probably most evident from my posts sparing with bambistew about pebble mine.
Yet, this is true as well:
@Sytes
"It was not the intent of Congress that wilderness be administered in so pure a fashion as to needlessly restrict its customary public use and enjoyment. Quite the contrary, Congress fully intended that wilderness should be managed to allow its use by a wide spectrum of Americans."
I agree with @Nameless Range that if horses were contemporary with bikes, or perhaps currently as popular with users this would be a vary different conversation. I hiked in 14 miles with llamas this year into a wilderness area... HOLY F@$%XX, I watched 3 guides with a string of 20 horses pack in 4 dudes. There is not even a comparison. You know what a parking lot with 20 people thru-biking looks like; 4 subarus, 2 tacomas, and a 4runner. 20 people going on a pack trip of the same distance; that parking looks like mobilization for a war. What 60 head of stock, dozens of trailers, it would be absolute mayhem. The trailhead we were at was totally maxed out and there were 2 guys with 6 mules, 1 group of 8 dudes from Texas with 12 stock, 4 guys in a drop camp and us with llamas. It was a pretty massive trailhead and you couldn't have shoe horned in another rig with a trailer.
I 100% would have a torch and a pitch fork in my hands about banning horses, if it wasn't very much a declining user group.
Anyway, thru-biking, you aren't doing it with kids you aren't doing it unless your in great shape, 40lbs of camping gear riding up steep single track is tough, in a lot of place I'd rather walk. Is our only argument, that we must preserve some wild spots...
@Straight Arrow I'm going off on tangents and asking questions, because I have my convictions but haven't quite sorted out all of the inconvenient nuance.
This planet is going to continue to get more crowded. Hopefully people like you, can help prepare people like me with arguments for wild places that will hold up to arguments against them in the future.
If I push back on arguments for wilderness, guns, hunting, and the like it's simply to find answers that will inform my own rhetoric. Trite answers aren't going to cut it 5 years down the road let alone 30.
D
Deleted member 28227
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My only answers would be tongue in check or would shy away from the real question and say bikes don't cause that much impact.
Irrelevant
Well-known member
How many dudes could bike across the Bob in a day? We both know the answer is >0 and increasing annually. So adding bikes is simply adding more people. I'm against that. So much so that I've been advocating for limited permits in high use wilderness areas.
I get the idea of challenging your own beliefs, but at what point do we simply except some truths? We don't need more access to wilderness.
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Deleted member 28227
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Probably as many as could run across it...
Straight Arrow
Well-known member
That's not true. If you have ever hiked, especially with a full backpack, on a trail rutted with narrow bottom such as shown in that photo you would know the difference. Your boots don't even fit in the bottom of the rut, so it requires straddling the trail and other very awkward, risky maneuvers to hike such vee-shaped trails.
Nameless Range
Well-known member
So much of my perspective on bikes comes from the explosion of their popularity in the neck of the woods I grew up in.
Helena sells itself as one of the best biking towns in America. Trails I hunted and didn't see a soul on only 20 years ago are now part of a trail system of a mountain biking destination. My anecdotes are one thing, but Strava and Trailforks don't lie - if anything they understate. There are rogue built trails in the northern Elkhorns destined to be codified by the USFS. They're everywhere. I find elk trails with bike tracks on them frequently, and there is nothing administratively wrong with that. In a legal sense, there is no such thing as off trail when it comes to bikes. There's YouTube videos of people riding from the top of Casey Peak to the meadows below in fractions of the time it takes any other legal mode of transportation. Of course the crowds aren't limited to bikes, and all users have their effects, but there is a phenomenon with bikes in this social-media-internet driven world, where when something gets popular in the mtn biking community, it gets popular fast. It's true that it takes fit people to ride bikes into the backcountry, but for one they are out there, and for two, the amount of ground they cover per-unit-time expands their influence beyond their numbers.
I'm just thinking out loud, and am not trying to mount a logical case. Maybe that's lazy. But if there is another premise that I believe is true that I think we should all be very wary of it is that current use is not indicative of future use.
I'm watching it happen, and could imagine trails that only see a few users a day becoming trails tied to loops, tied to a destination, where use would be multiplied many many times the current, until it got to a point when we would wonder why the hell we did this in the first place. Maybe that's coming anyway for Wilderness and a lot of country. In fact has already arrived in some places. Bikes will only exacerbate the issue.
Helena sells itself as one of the best biking towns in America. Trails I hunted and didn't see a soul on only 20 years ago are now part of a trail system of a mountain biking destination. My anecdotes are one thing, but Strava and Trailforks don't lie - if anything they understate. There are rogue built trails in the northern Elkhorns destined to be codified by the USFS. They're everywhere. I find elk trails with bike tracks on them frequently, and there is nothing administratively wrong with that. In a legal sense, there is no such thing as off trail when it comes to bikes. There's YouTube videos of people riding from the top of Casey Peak to the meadows below in fractions of the time it takes any other legal mode of transportation. Of course the crowds aren't limited to bikes, and all users have their effects, but there is a phenomenon with bikes in this social-media-internet driven world, where when something gets popular in the mtn biking community, it gets popular fast. It's true that it takes fit people to ride bikes into the backcountry, but for one they are out there, and for two, the amount of ground they cover per-unit-time expands their influence beyond their numbers.
I'm just thinking out loud, and am not trying to mount a logical case. Maybe that's lazy. But if there is another premise that I believe is true that I think we should all be very wary of it is that current use is not indicative of future use.
I'm watching it happen, and could imagine trails that only see a few users a day becoming trails tied to loops, tied to a destination, where use would be multiplied many many times the current, until it got to a point when we would wonder why the hell we did this in the first place. Maybe that's coming anyway for Wilderness and a lot of country. In fact has already arrived in some places. Bikes will only exacerbate the issue.
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Nameless Range
Well-known member
There is an annual event called the Bob Marshall Wilderness Open. They don't do it in a day, and they take different routes, but it is interesting anyway. Tough participants. You can see the results of previous opens here:
The Bob Open
The 2026 Open will start at 0800 MDT on May 2nd at the Monture Creek TH, and end at the Pishkun Canal road bridge over the Sun River. -This is not a race. -You must be entirely self-supported and s…
bedrockandparadox.com
Irrelevant
Well-known member
I know at three dudes in my 15 person office that could. There are dudes that look at 20k vert on their bikes like I look at a 2 hr chukar hunt.
sapperJ24
Well-known member
@wllm1313 I don't know if this group is still doing it, http://www.montanatrailcrew.com/2015/08/ratbob-2015-by-steve-brown.html
"Anyway, thru-biking, you aren't doing it with kids you aren't doing it unless your in great shape, 40lbs of camping gear riding up steep single track is tough, in a lot of place I'd rather walk."
To that point, the trails people are using are not steep single track. The trails bikers would need to get there are like the main East Side Trail from Meadow Cr to Big Prairie, just shy of 30 miles and around 3300' gain and 4 to 6 feet wide. Come in from the south end at North Fork of the Blackfoot to the confluence, 31 miles and 2300" gain.
Benchmark to the Chinese Wall and Larch Hill Pass along the designated CDT, 19.5 miles and 2600' gain to the Wall and 25 miles and 4600' gain to the divide at Larch Hill. Silvertip TH to Spotted Bear Pass, 20 miles and 3700 gain.
Of course it is still a long ride with gear, and yeah some of the creek crossings might be steep, but seems pretty doable in a day.
These trails already see too much use, but this is the way to access the Bob. Want to get way back in there and avoid people, generally have to start somewhere.
"Anyway, thru-biking, you aren't doing it with kids you aren't doing it unless your in great shape, 40lbs of camping gear riding up steep single track is tough, in a lot of place I'd rather walk."
To that point, the trails people are using are not steep single track. The trails bikers would need to get there are like the main East Side Trail from Meadow Cr to Big Prairie, just shy of 30 miles and around 3300' gain and 4 to 6 feet wide. Come in from the south end at North Fork of the Blackfoot to the confluence, 31 miles and 2300" gain.
Benchmark to the Chinese Wall and Larch Hill Pass along the designated CDT, 19.5 miles and 2600' gain to the Wall and 25 miles and 4600' gain to the divide at Larch Hill. Silvertip TH to Spotted Bear Pass, 20 miles and 3700 gain.
Of course it is still a long ride with gear, and yeah some of the creek crossings might be steep, but seems pretty doable in a day.
These trails already see too much use, but this is the way to access the Bob. Want to get way back in there and avoid people, generally have to start somewhere.
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