Wilderness?

[Big Sky]

Count me as one of the old, fat, and lazy, but I'm all for more wilderness. I don't own a horse, ATV, or a helicopter. As long as my legs still work, I wouldn't want to bet against me finding a way to enjoy the wilderness areas.

 

[BillyGoat]

There aren't many wilderness areas that you can't hike all the way across in 10 miles.

Take a look at Selway-Bitteroot, Bob Marshall, Frank Church, Hells Canyon, and Eagle Cap, to name just a few...

Some folks just don't get it. Tom, holy shit are you for real?

He's really from Texas. Do they even have any wilderness in that country?

Every place there's no road, its roadless, way more than 50%.

Miller, you can add that one to your list of classic Tom-isms.

 

[elk_hunter]

elk hunter - you say to drive into your campsite. Vast areas of wilderness means you walk or ride a horse into your campsite. To me, having wilderness areas hundreds of miles long by hundreds of miles wide with no access other than on foot or horseback is making it inaccessible. I am not saying make every piece of ground accessible to the weak, old or infirm. There should be land available for all, however - but that does not mean all land is available to all.

I don't want to have to buy a horse, feed and medicate it all year for huting season. I don't even like horses. I don't even think they should be allowed in wilderness areas. They crap all over, people build "temproary" corrals for them, they eat vegetation that could be feeding wildlife, make erosive trails and for what? So people can pack in and create "tent cities" with all the comforts of home, and call it a "back country" experience?

This can turn into a pissing contest real easy - "I can walk ten miles and stay for ten days." "Well, I can walk 20 miles and stay for a month."

Pointer - I have no definitive answer about "how much" or "how far." There are wilderness areas in the desert around here that, if you have enough water, are flat enough that I could easily walk 30 miles in a day, and I'm 55 and sit at a desk all day. There are other areas like the San Gorgonio wilderness (where I have been on top of every peak over 10,000 feet, by the way, and have spent weeks at a time in) where 10 or 15 miles is a good day's work.

My point is not to create a challenge to the studs on this board, but to say that there needs to be both - wilderness for the die-hards and "less wild(?)" places where a person can drive to a primitive campground (no water, etc.) and hike a few miles each day to hunt. This does not mean a network of roads making every speck of public land accessible to everyone. I would ban all off-road use of ATVs on public land.

Cali, I think you're missing my point. I'm all for increasing the amount of wilderness to get rid of motorized vehicle access. In terms of campsites, of course there will be non-wilderness areas where the majority of people can park/camp but would then have to hike/horse in to wherever. All I'm saying is it would be nice to clamp down on the roads. Shut a lot of them down. Really restrict access in that regard. Make it so no motorized vehicles can access the increased wilderness designated lands.

 

[BillyGoat]

Relax Buzz. For the record, I'm all for more wilderness with or without mountain bike access. 50% sounds a little extreme but I'm not gonna argue with that. My point was just that bikes are less harmful than horses and make relatively little noise unlike ATV's.

Playing devil's advocate, what about this...

Wilderness takes a toll on wildlife too. State game agencies, the ones responsible for the care of wildlife, are prohibited from conducting the most basic of wildlife management practices in Wilderness areas. For example, officials are barred from providing supplemental water sources during droughts; cutting decadent brush and overly dense stands of trees to provide new and plentiful food sources; using aircraft to conduct population surveys and recover disease-killed animals for timely analysis; and engaging in activities necessary to reintroduce species.

Arizona's big horn sheep population has been an unfortunate victim. An historic drought in the naturally arid state is partially responsible for precipitous population declines. Recognizing the problem, game department officials installed water tanks painted to match the surrounding landscape. Citing the Wilderness Act, the federal government required the removal of the water. The result was that the sheep still able to walk the many miles to the nearest natural water source were exposed to increased cougar predation as they were forced to lower ground.

 

[BuzzH]

BillyGoat,

I'm totally relaxed, just dont think your mountain bike complaint in existing wilderness has any merit. The law is pretty clear.

It doesnt matter if bikes are more or less harmful than horses. Horses are allowed, some airstrips are grandfathered, some boat access is grandfathered.

Mountain bikes and game carts are mechanized vehicles...not allowed.

It is what it is and has no point in the discussion of whether or not there is enough wilderness.

But, like I said, I'd be all for negotiating Mountain bike uses on designated routes within any NEW wilderness. So, I sort of agree with you on the mountain bike issue.

On your other issue, the answer is the wording in the act:

"Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable;"

 

[280]

Every place there's no road, its roadless, way more than 50%. I've heard of road hogs, but what we really have is roadless hogs. How far do you have to be from a road to be roadless? I don't want 50% covered by roads, its sure not that way down here.
__________________

Me thinks Tom is confused, or drunk.

 

[A-con]

I never ask anybody to BUILD a new road for me.
Anywhere we can find scenic backcountry and useful eco systems, by all means find a way to protect them from development. I question if a “wilderness” designation is the only way.
There are many areas that simply have too many roads. The Kaibab in Arizona and the Northern part of New Mexico’s Gila are prime examples. You can hardly leave a road and walk three miles without running into another road. These areas need to have many of these roads shut down, gated off and reserved for foot/horse traffic only. The problem with shutting down all roads as in “Wilderness” is you remove access to 90% of the people who would use it. Not only hunters and fishermen but family campers, day trippers and site seers. When they can’t drive to a “jump off point” even most backpackers find the ability to utilize “wilderness” areas restricted. This hampers recruitment of all outdoors people, not just hunters. When families can’t take their kids for a picnic in the woods, those kids don’t grow up loving the outdoors. They don’t vote to protect it and don’t teach their kids about it.
Another result of large “wilderness” areas is the concentration of people in the remaining non wilderness areas. When you have a thousand square miles being used by a thousand people, and suddenly ½ of it is wilderness, the result is 990 of those people are now squeezed into the remaining half. This increases pollution, noise and the overall quality of the experience. Once again, recruitment suffers. When people can’t go to the mountains to “get away” they stop going.
There are simple solutions, but environmental extremist rail against them. Focus on smaller wilderness areas or large wilderness areas with boundaries “gerrymandered” to allow a limited numbers of roads to penetrate the interior and provide access.
Develop a new designation to stop all future development of large tracks of N.F. & BLM. Existing roads and trails can stay, but no new ones. Very limited and controlled extraction in environmentally friendly ways only. All ATVs must stay on existing roads and trails, no cross country.

The current wilderness system divides all outdoor recreational users into two groups;

Hardcore backcountry hunters, backpackers and environmental extremist
vs
everybody else.
Everybody else outnumbers the first group a hundred to one. Guess who is going to win the political battles of the future ?

 

[shoots-straight]

"Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable;"

Back in 1977 I worked trail crew for the Forest Circus, we dynomited and cleared trail big enough for pack trains to skirt around cliffs comfortably, that's going against the wilderness act as it reads.

 

[BillyGoat]

On your other issue, the answer is the wording in the act:

Yeah Buzz, I read the wording. Obviously that's why the water was removed. But like Acon brought up, do we really want more of this "wilderness" or do we want more of some other kind of protection that still allows for effective wildlife management, reasonable access (whatever that is), etc, etc?

 

[BuzzH]

A-con,

You said, "There are many areas that simply have too many roads. The Kaibab in Arizona and the Northern part of New Mexico’s Gila are prime examples. You can hardly leave a road and walk three miles without running into another road. These areas need to have many of these roads shut down, gated off and reserved for foot/horse traffic only."

But then follow it with, "Existing roads and trails can stay, but no new ones."

So, the 380,000 miles of existing roads are OK with you? Sweet.

I think thats way too many miles of roads on NF lands personally.

BTW, how do you propose to secure the future of roadless lands without wilderness designation? No way to do it without more legislation. You just going to trust Dubya to provide protection to primitive/roadless country?

I guess you must want more laws and regulations...sound like a democrap.

BillyGoat,

Go ahead and try to define "reasonable" access and bring that up in a federal scoping meeting. You'll have 6,000 definitions by 6,000 people of what "reasonable" access is. Ask a fat-assed atver what he thinks "reasonable access" is. They'll want a road every 10 feet. Ask a hiker...no roads. Ask horse owners, no roads, all trails. The list goes on and on. I contend there is NO easy way, including legislatively, to seek what you're after. Dont get me wrong, I understand what you're after here (and I agree), but I'm telling you its nearly impossible to attain.

You'll have a great time getting anyone to agree. Too many interests and too many opinions.

Using existing legislation (Wilderness Act) is the easiest, quickest, and most efficient.

I have troubles with parts of the WA, just like everyone else, but its the best tool we have available.

 

[TheTone]

Theres a whole bunch of roads in this world and they aren't creating anymore areas without them. I'm all for wilderness and more of it. I can readily admit I haven't spent a great deal of time hunting, fishing, or hiking declared wilderness areas. Knowing its there is good enough for me. The thought there are areas that don't know mans impact and may rarely, if ever get seen is cool by me.

Just classic Tom, thanks. I nearly had a stroke reading that.

 

[A-con]

Buzz, you left out two and a half paragraphs in between, didn’t you ? My answers to every point you try to make are in my post #47. Its funny how you can’t seem to challenge anything I say without misrepresenting what I posted and taking things out of context. Maybe you need to go find that literate friend of yours now.

 

[BuzzH]

A-con,

I left out two paragraphs of non-sense. You dont understand the process and your "easy solution" with gerrymeandering is such a fargin joke its hilarious. Almost as funny as your idea of a new designation of an area that "has roads to the interior of it" and "Very limited and controlled extraction in environmentally friendly ways only. All ATVs must stay on existing roads and trails, no cross country."

For Christ sake, thats what we ALREADY have with the current NF thats open and not in Wilderness, we dont need another designation for that. We need to utilize the Wilderness Act, its already in place. It will secure roadless country as good as it can be secured. No need for new designation. Your new designation will cloud the issue and not protect anything. Read what you wrote...its nothing more than the "status quo" on NF lands. ATV's are supposed to stay on roads and trails. There isnt supposed to be any cross country travel. Extractive uses are supposed to be environmentally friendly and limited. WTF is different with your new plan? You havent solved shit. The roadless lands would be no more secure under your solution than they are NOW!

Wilderness designation is the "easy solution".

You want to keep existing roads...except in the Kaibab and Gila. You want "wilderness" except that we should still have gerrymeandering roads all through it...and extract resources from it...and allow atvs as long as they stay on the gerrymeandering roads...

I dont know, last I checked those things arent in alignment with "roadless/wilderness" values...but hey, thats just me.

You should be a politician.

 

[The Hedgehog]

The more wilderness that is set aside, the less we'll have to rely on private property to sustain wildlife in the future, the longer we will have numerous high-quality hunting opportunites, and the longer it will take before only the rich will be able to hunt. Here's a fact that clearly illustrates this:

Texas is made up of 268,820 square miles, yet only has about 60 square miles of "wilderness." That's 0.02%
Montana is made of 147,165 square miles, and has 5,100 square miles of "wilderness." A whopping 3.46%

As a hunter, which model is best to follow?

 

[BuzzH]

Greenhorn,

If A-con has his way, we should punch a few "gerrymeandering" roads through that 60 square miles so that atv's will then stay on them and give more access to people to use that area. The other 268,760 square miles just isnt enough.

 

[mtmiller]

Texas is made up of 268,820 square miles, yet only has about 60 square miles of "wilderness." That's 0.02%
Montana is made of 147,165 square miles, and has 5,100 square miles of "wilderness." A whopping 3.46%

As a hunter, which model is best to follow?

Shit, I didn't know there would be a test. Can I call a friend? Tom, could you PM me please.

 

[JoseCuervo]

Btw, is it legal to take one of those game carts into wilderness? How about your kid in a stroller?

Nope. Nope....

 

[ELKCHSR]

This is a subject that has sprouted up here quite often over the years and there are two distinct sides with few in the middle which is also quite obvious

There’s a bigger picture which a number of individuals here seem continually miss

Especially those who are against the extraction industries

Most if not all who are against these industries, whine (even if not heard by others) about the rising costs of every thing these days

Unfortunately, this is because we are far too dependent on other countries to meet our needs and in the end are held hostage to the price whims for us to have those services or products

Until I see any here doing with out to ensure the stability of the nation so they can have the luxuries of mass non used land, then they are just talking out both sides of their mouths and are an evil to what makes this country great or even keeps us from being taken over by a country that wouldn’t have any problem utilizing every thing

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Each state should be required to supply (percentage of landmass per state) the same amount of wilderness as any other state

Example:

If Montana, Alaska, Colorado, Wyoming, etc... have 5% (give or take) of it's land tied up in "Wilderness" or like designations, all the rest needs to follow suit before more is "TAKEN" away from those states who have quite a bit sitting fallow in such designations

Heck, there are a number of states that don’t have wilderness designations at all, and I’m betting they were very wild at one time

:Connecticut, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, and Rhode Island:

Here’s one from New York

State acres: 30,223,000

Acres of wilderness: 1,363

Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune

Wildernesses: 1

For the people who’d be voting the hardest for these designations, sure don’t want to utilize much of their own state for such hands off type use

New Jersey has 2 wilderness areas comprising of a little over 10K acres with an overall state land mass of almost 4 ¾ million acres

There are 702 actual wilderness areas in the U.S., how many of you have visited 1/10th or even 1/100th of them for that matter?

There’s a total of 107,436,608 actual acres, if you were to visit one acre per minute it would take 3.4 years non stop travel to see it all...


For those of you who want more...

Use what you have first then come back with a larger request

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There’ve been 12 new wilderness areas created since 2006, how many of you “proponents for wilderness” visited since inception?

They are:
Bald Mountain Wilderness, Becky Peak Wilderness, Bristlecone Wilderness, Goshute Canyon Wilderness, Government Peak Wilderness, High Schells Wilderness, Highland Ridge Wilderness, Mount Grafton Wilderness, Red Mountain Wilderness, Shellback Wilderness, South Egan Range Wilderness, White Pine Range Wilderness

Most wilderness areas have places that see little or no passage by man

Any of you who only sees throngs of people are going to the wrong places to visit, plain and simple...

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Fortunately, for all in the U.S. the radical voices of this board are miniscule to the larger picture and what gets passed as National policy...

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50%???

How silly is that!!!

50% of the usable forests utilized by maybe ½ % of the population if not less...

That is the epitome of elitists, especially since non of them or even the group as a whole is willing to fork over the $$$ to make up the difference of what would be lost...

Just my 2 cents as usual for now...

 

[JoseCuervo]

Playing devil's advocate, what about this...


Wilderness takes a toll on wildlife too. State game agencies, the ones responsible for the care of wildlife, are prohibited from conducting the most basic of wildlife management practices in Wilderness areas. For example, officials are barred from providing supplemental water sources during droughts; cutting decadent brush and overly dense stands of trees to provide new and plentiful food sources; using aircraft to conduct population surveys and recover disease-killed animals for timely analysis; and engaging in activities necessary to reintroduce species.

Arizona's big horn sheep population has been an unfortunate victim. An historic drought in the naturally arid state is partially responsible for precipitous population declines. Recognizing the problem, game department officials installed water tanks painted to match the surrounding landscape. Citing the Wilderness Act, the federal government required the removal of the water. The result was that the sheep still able to walk the many miles to the nearest natural water source were exposed to increased cougar predation as they were forced to lower ground.

Too bad that man thinks they need to interfere with Mother Nature. Droughts happen, heavy snows happen. fires happen. Man doesn't always have to step in and "control" what happens.

How many thousands of square miles of the Frank Church does not have Salmon and Steelhead in it because of man thinking they needed to "control" nature?

 

[BillyGoat]

Too bad that man thinks they need to interfere with Mother Nature. Droughts happen, heavy snows happen. fires happen. Man doesn't always have to step in and "control" what happens.

Yet this is one of the most often cited defenses of hunting -- an important tool for wildlife management -- is it not?

Wilderness takes a toll on wildlife too.

That statement by itself does make me laugh. Sounds like something Tom would say.