The level of ignorance in this post is staggering! What kind of bubble do you live in?
Illegal riding isn't causing the loss of riding areas but people who drive a hybrid car are?
And you've decided that you'll continue to ride illegally regardless of what your fellow citizens decide on?
You've decided that this land should be available for you to tear up, pollute and abuse and no one else gets a say in whether or not we save a little bit of it for future generations?
Yep...this is all someone else's fault. You're not contributing to the problem. Nope...not at all.
I'm sure that land use managers NEVER read forums like this
'Merica!
Surprised we haven't seen more trolls on this thread yet. Welcome.
Yes, there is a ton of ignorance being shown in this thread, but it isn't quite as simple as you would portray it either. The land use decisions being made for these areas are heavily influenced by folks who have never set foot in them. The current forest plan got 27,274 comments. 26,385 of them were only 13 different form letters from environmental groups across the country. You know, mass emails to all there members to 'please comment on this forest plan. Here's the form you can cut and paste. We'll tell you what to say...'.
Here's a summary of the comments. Rather comical.
http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5369047.pdf
These areas aren't being abused or polluted by snowmobiles. I spend a great deal of time in the Teanaway and Salmon La Sac area in the summer. The alpine areas that are used by snowmobiles show drastically greater impact from hiker use than from winter motorized use. Let's compare Spectacle Lake, Park Lakes, or Tuck and Robin Lakes with a heavily used snowmobile area like Gallagher Head Lake. Those popular hiking areas are hammered. Way trails are spider-webbed throughout the heather, mid-summer there is sh*t and TP behind every other tree, there are illegal fire pits at half of the campsites. If you go to Gallagher Head in the summer, you'll find a few broken sled parts on the flanks of Hawkins and a couple nicks on trees at 8-10' above ground; you know, nicks that look a lot like a blaze on every single hiking trail.... Last summer I found a broken belt, part of a hood, and a couple lugs from a track; so I strapped them on my pack and hauled them out. End of story.
I also happen to be an environmental professional. I'm very familiar with surface water quality impacts. I'd love to see data supporting pollution by snowmobiles in these alpine areas. These are very healthy watersheds. Benthic-invertebrate populations are thriving. I'll be happy to split analytical costs with you if you'd like to go up and collect some samples with me. Then we can head up to some of those heavily used alpine lakes and see which ones you want to drink from unfiltered...
I guess if we want to 'protect for future generations' we should probably close off the Alpine Lakes Wilderness to hikers. Seems as though that would be more effective at preventing 'abuse' in these areas...
All this being said,
snowmobilers have got to stay out of Wilderness. Lushbomb is completely wrong. We can't act teenagers and pretend like this is everyone else's fault. The conspiracy theory stuff get's old. Snowmobiles in Wilderness have given these groups the ammunition they need to force the USFS into action. Trust me, the USFS would rather do nothing. They are understaffed and want the path of least resistance. There job will be much, much easier if we continue to police ourselves and respect the existing boundaries. They know that they will have a nightmare on their hands if they take away some of this prime, popular snowmobiling terrain. They don't have the ability to enforce what they have now.
I have a lot of respect for Kosovojoe for starting this thread. Wilderness poaching is the single biggest reason we are in the situation we are in. It's drastically improved from where it was 10 years ago, but the few folks that still choose to poach need to know that we are serious about policing ourselves.
Welcome to the party, Maggot. Say hi to WMC for us.
till Fall.
