23 to 24 million more acres of wilderness proposed in five western states

[CleElum Sledhead]

Thats great, we can still ride butt, no logging, mining or oil and gas. Most of the west will go out of work, just a few ranchers and tourist wathing wolves left anyway.

Even the act of nominating an area to become wilderness makes it a defacto wilderness until congress votes on it It is called "wilderness study area". The trick is that no congress ever wants to vote"against wilderness" so they never vote on the area and it stays "wilderness study area" forever

in 2002 there was a bill in congress that if an area was nominated wilderness but not voted on for 10 years it went off the "wilderness study area" list. this did not pass.

There are many like that. There is a Wilderness study area like that here in wyoming and many all over. The "fortification creek wilderness study area" was nominated in in the mid 1980's it is completely land locked by private land, there is no way possible for the public to access the area. In 1987 the BLM itself recommended to congress that the area not be made wilderness because it did not meet the criterea. Yet to this day it is still designeated "wilderness study area" because congress never voted on it up or down.

If it gets designated as wilderness, there will be no such thing as "we can still ride butt". Or I should clarify and state "we can still ride butt illegally".

Regarding Wilderness Study Areas, requesting that a certain area become a wilderness area through a bill (that has not yet passed in Congress does NOT automatically make it a WSA. They would need to pass a bill that asks the Forest Service or BLM to study a certain area for inclusion in the wilderness preservation system and report back to Congress. If the WSA bill passed Congress, then in some cases yes, they are designated as WSA and in many cases treated as defacto wilderness for many, many years. Not all WSA are treated as wilderness. We are still allowed (for now) to snowmobile in the I-90 Wilderness Study area here in WA State around Lake Ann and Vann Epps Pass.

And the third scenario is that the Forest Service (or BLM) does a Forest Plan Revision and determines that certain areas should become Recommended Wilderness Areas. These RWAs in some regions (R1 - MT) are treated as defacto wilderness and closed to mechanical means of transports (Mtn bikes included), until they may some day be designated as wilderness through Congress. Other regions (R6 - WA and OR), RWAs are still open for many forms of mechanical use (at least for now).

The FS and BLM can not designate any area as wilderness, but they can sure lock an area up and manage it exactly as if it were wilderness as you state, but not quite how you indicated.

 

[Zachcreek]

Browns Canyon wilderness study area in Colorado is the same as wilderness. Foot travel and horseback only. No Motorized travel permitted.

 

[Ex-Member]

NREPA now has a bill number (HR980) and already has 50 sponsors in just a couple days since it was introduced.

Any of these folks your representative?

Okay, WTH. None of them live in teh areas affected by this bill? No wonder they're pushing it.

Called congressmna already. This is bullsh*t.

 

[Dogmeat]

Yup, complete and total bull****.

And what's sad is it's probably going to pass too

Like I said, I'm gonna ride wherever I damn well please.

They can shoot me if they wanna stop me.

 

[mtbarr64]

Thanks for the red reputation guys.

I take my red status with pride. It means I am not lockstep in sync with everyone else on here! It means we all get to benefit from healthy discussions.

Funny how the "know it alls" on here think they are the only one's that get the right of free speech and try to manipulate everyone to rally behind the action they want.

Luckily some of us think for ourselves, research the real facts for ourselves, think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions.

It is obvious the old methods are not working anymore because we are losing riding areas. So go ahead and shoot down my ideas, it only hurts us all. Too bad you can't think outside the box and take a different tact.

 

[snowcattinfool]

just wrote my representative

 

[Dogmeat]

Thanks for the red reputation guys.

I take my red status with pride. It means I am not lockstep in sync with everyone else on here! It means we all get to benefit from healthy discussions.

Funny how the "know it alls" on here think they are the only one's that get the right of free speech and try to manipulate everyone to rally behind the action they want.

Luckily some of us think for ourselves, research the real facts for ourselves, think for ourselves and come to our own conclusions.

It is obvious the old methods are not working anymore because we are losing riding areas. So go ahead and shoot down my ideas, it only hurts us all. Too bad you can't think outside the box and take a different tact.

I must have missed something here. What are you trying to say here?

 

[FastM8]

Plain and simple.....if you are a member on this site and like to ride.....write you rep....right now!

 

[Mtn. missle]

Hr 980

Should I be concerned if I start to agree w/Dogmeat I guess a man can only be pushed so far. We write, we call, we e-mail and sometimes they back down.....but then here they come again, change the wording or mix things up a bit and sneek it back in. I suppose I will contact my representative and see if he can influence those numbsculls do drop this land grab.

 

[catspaw900mc]

It looks like we are our last defence. I hope that everyone can see we have to fight for any peace of dirt left before they get it all. No logging means big big fires. No roads means no way to stop them once they start. No jobs for logging drilling or anything else. This can only be dream up in Washington by people that don't really have to make a living. Stopping us from sledding sucks, not feeding your family is worse! So even if your not riding your still going to feel this. It's not just about us but we need stand and fight!

James

Former Cal. L.T.O.

 

[donbrown]

This will happen untill the people are on our side.

And it seems to me we aren't convincing the masses.

 

[Scott]

I haven't received a SAWS email in over a year. Hook me back up.

 

[modsledr]

Here is my letter to Representatives...copy it, change it, use it if you want:

I'm writing in regards to the proposed Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act. I strongly oppose this legislation. 20.5 million more acres of wilderness would shut down a good portion of the areas that we currently are allowed to recreate on. The proposed lands do not meet the criteria of the 1964 Wilderness Act as being "roadless" or "primitive".

Additionally, the resulting loss of access and reduction in visitor traffic to our national forests would no doubt end in countless loss of jobs caused by numerous businesses going under, devastating local communities near these new proposed wilderness areas.

I find this legislation extremely irresponsible in these troubling economic times. This legislation will not create jobs, it will eliminate them.

In closing, I urge you to oppose this troubling legislation.

Thank You,
Brent Anderson,
Registered Voter and Outdoor Enthusiast.

 

[CleElum Sledhead]

I haven't received a SAWS email in over a year. Hook me back up.

Our SAWS listserver will drop emails addresses from the list if the address bounces three times. The bounce can occur for many reasons (SPAM filters, ISP is down, Inbox is full, you change your ISP or email address, etc), but the bottom line is that for some reason the email does not go through. And once the email has not gone through a couple times, the email address is removed from the listserver.

The easiest way to have it added back in it just to go back to our "Join SAWS" web page ( http://www.snowmobile-alliance.org/join.asp) and re-enter your contact info with your old or new email address. Mention in the comment field that you are an existing member and that you are updating your email address or that you were dropped from the listserver. That way we will not list you as a new member, we will just update your existing membership info.

You can also contact your SAWS rep and they can do this for you. Scott, in case you have forgot, your MT SAWS rep is Janine. She can be contacted at JanineS-MT@Snowmobile-Alliance.org.

I should also add that if you do not receive an email from SAWS in about a two month period, then you have most likely been dropped or your ISP/email is blocking our emails. We usually send at least one email a month, if not several, so this should be a clue that there is a problem.

Scott, you said you haven't received an email from SAWS in over a year. Didn't you think maybe there was a problem with the email delivery?

Good letter Brent! FYI - They have actually bumped the acreage from 20.5 million acres to somewhere between 23 and 24 million acres this year.

 

[student driver]

If this passes, it will be your obligation to ride in wilderness as a show of peaceful resistance to injustices. At least that's what MKL, Gandhi, and probably Jesus would have done. So, yes. We want to sit at the front of the bus, and the have a seat at the lunch counter.

This passes,
I'm right beside you

 

[snowmobiler]

its easy to say youll ride in the wildernes.but when it comes down to a 5000 fine,jail time and your sled impounded.wonder how many will.

 

[WFO or go home]

They want to close the land because the chinese don't want us on their collateral.

 

[hilinerider]

sent a letter to rehberg,baucus,tester,

everyone needs to do the same

 

[Dogmeat]

its easy to say youll ride in the wildernes.but when it comes down to a 5000 fine,jail time and your sled impounded.wonder how many will.

Since we won't have anywhere to ride anyway, what good will our sleds do?

Go ahead and impound the thing and arrest me. If they try that with 5,000 of us maybe we'll get some publicity.

 

[CleElum Sledhead]

Since we won't have anywhere to ride anyway, what good will our sleds do?

Go ahead and impound the thing and arrest me. If they try that with 5,000 of us maybe we'll get some publicity.

I have read some decent posts from you in the past Dogmeat - posts where it seemed you were at least willing to try and win this fight by being involved before some particular closure may occur - but in this thread it seems you are advacating that we snowmobilers should all no longer even try to stop these closures. Do nothing about them, and just give up and ride them once they are closed.

Am I missing something, or is that what it has come down to for you and many others? Because if that is where you and most other snowmobilers are now at, then I am certainly wasting my free time on land access, and I guess I also should just give up and let the government do what ever it wants to do without any flack from the snowmobile crowd.

It seems some go down fighting, and some just go down without a fight. I prefer to be in the group that fights this crap until the end.