Loss in the Boulder-White Clouds

It is a tragic time for the Boulder-White Clouds.

Yesterday, the Wilderness bill which will close Castle Divide, Ants Basin and other mountain bike trails passed the Senate. Having already passed the House, once President Obama signs the bill into law, riders will lose access to prime trails forever.

It is tragic because we had a better option. I support existing and future Wilderness designations, with the ban on bikes. The experience of a place really does change once bikes are allowed, and I for one appreciate places like the Sawtooths where we cannot ride. The integrity of our bedrock environmental laws, like the Wilderness Act, needs to be vigorously defended. But this Wilderness bill is not the best option for this place. The National Monument was superior for so many reasons – for the amount of land protected, for the fish habitat in the East Fork Salmon, for the flexibility and continuity of land management, and for continued mountain bike access. The Boulder-White Clouds was the perfect place to showcase new ways to protect both the landscape and our access. Instead, this Wilderness bill is not about what’s best for the place and all those that love it; it’s about politics and creating bike-free areas where they have never existed.

It is tragic because it is a step backwards in the evolution of public land management. Much of the support that got the Wilderness bill passed is more accurately called opposition to the Monument. The final Wilderness boundaries were contorted beyond all recognition in order to keep all existing motorized access open. We had a historic agreement worked out with Wilderness advocates to support the Monument and bike access together. Then in the end, mountain bikers were marginalized. Now we are left with the realization that our support for the Monument actually paved the way for the Wilderness. And we are left wondering whether our support was used with Wilderness as the ultimate goal. Future land management decisions and worthy Wilderness designations across the nation will require bigger coalitions and strong, new constituencies for conservation. This process was not a step in that direction.

Most of all, it is tragic because we will never be able to ride these trails again. My heart breaks for current and future mountain bikers that will never get the chance to ride Castle Divide, or to have their breath taken away when they pedal to the ridge overlooking Ants Basin. These rides have a near-mythical status for Idaho mountain bikers, inspiring us to explore and care for big, wild landscapes. We mourn their loss.

Despite the fact that we had a better option and despite the missed opportunities, now we have to respect the designation, learn from the process, and work harder towards permanent protection coupled with maintained access for everywhere else that we care about.

Recreation vs. Conservation?

A delayed but still relevant personal response to a flurry of anti-recreation articles this spring.

I spent the summer of 2010 living in the home of Mardy Murie, an adventurer and conservationist known widely as the “grandmother” of the conservation movement. I was fortunate to live as a guest of the Muries (at least in spirit) under the shadow of the Grand Teton. My guest room door opened to the porch where the conservation movement was built in the middle of the last century, and it looked out over the legacy of permanently protected, accessible public lands we enjoy today.

As an intern for both the Murie Center and the Jackson office of the backcountry skiing advocacy group Winter Wildlands Alliance, I spent the summer working at the intersection of conservation and outdoor recreation – learning about the Muries and helping at the Ranch, while advocating for Wilderness protection and backcountry skiing. I also enjoyed the outdoors every day, exploring on on foot, on bike and on the end of a climbing rope, fishing the Snake, and listening to the elk bugle in the nearby field. My time there instilled in me a conservation ethic I will never forget.

As a member of Generation Y and a professional advocate for conservation and human powered recreation, I read with interest a couple of articles in the last few months that contend that recreation and environmental protection are at odds. These views don’t match up with my experience or with the approach to conservation I see the recreation community taking.

Experiencing the outdoors has been essential to the conservation ethic since the birth of the conservation movement. John Muir, Bob Marshall, Teddy Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold, Olaus and Mardy Murie came to love wildlife and wild places, and dedicated their lives to their conservation, as a result of exploring and adventuring. The conservation legacy we cherish today was born out of these greats exploring and recreating outdoors.

To claim that the way people experience the outdoors today does not lead to “transformational” experiences is to misunderstand both the past and the present. Aldo Leopold wrote that our appreciation of nature and wildlife is in direct proportion to the energy we expend. Tail running, mountain biking and backcountry skiing—really all activities that could be deemed “too fast” —demand a lot of energy. When you are slumped over your bike gasping for air at the top of a trail, you have certainly worked hard enough to really appreciate the view and the pica calling from the talus.

Perhaps that is why the recreation community is doing so much for wildlife and landscape protection. We voluntarily close climbing areas for nesting raptors - and enforce the closure as a community, without any draconian laws. We identify almost a million acres of land in Colorado, valuable for both conservation and recreation, and successfully advocate for it to get the highest level of protection under the Roadless Rule. We organize locally as bikers, climbers, hikers, paddlers and skiers, and advocate for balanced land management and Wilderness.

The activities we use to get there may be different, but the conservation ethic of current generations is the same. As our lives become faster and our attention spans shorter, it is harder to connect people with the outdoors. In order to maintain—not to mention build—the constituency for conservation, we need to think differently about how to get young, diverse populations to experience the outdoors meaningfully. To do this, we need to foster close-to-home as well as backcountry recreation opportunities. Most of us would trade a trail run after work for a 10-day backpacking trip, but that daily dose of the outdoors will build potential new conservationists who will advocate for outdoor places. Not everyone will make this leap, but many will.

As an avid mountain biker and backcountry skier, I reject the notion that recreation and conservation are at odds. The very existence of the thriving recreation-based conservation movement is testament to my community’s recognition of its own impacts and its dedication to protecting wild places.

Outdoor recreation and conservation are mutually reinforcing. Our public lands and the movement to protect them deserve collaboration between old and new voices, not division.

Forest Service Photo Permit Brouhaha

Don’t believe everything you read on the internet. And yes, this includes Senator’s Twitter feeds. This week, there was a media feeding frenzy after the Oregonian broke a story alleging that the Forest Service wants to charge you $1500 to take a photo of the Wilderness - and ignore the right to free speech while they’re at it. Outside Magazine, Adventure Journal and other news outlets ran with the article, and a couple of elected officials in Oregon even piled on, slamming the Forest Service.

Thing is, they don't have it quite right.

If you actually read the rule the Forest Service plans to institute, it will not affect your ability to Instagram from the Wilderness. The heart of the matter is the permits the agency requires for filming that has any commercial component – meaning it is used as an ad or sold at some point. With the proposed new rule, they are adding new criteria to get a permit for such use in designated Wilderness. Importantly, these permits only apply to things “other than noncommercial still photography.” So you can keep snapping photos, and so can the press. Not only is still photography exempt, these rules for commercial filming permits have been in place for a long time, and the Wilderness specific rules have actually been in effect for the last 4 years. All without much fuss.

Now, could the Forest Service have done a better job explaining all this and avoiding the blowback? Yes. Are there ways the existing and new permitting rules could be improved? Sure. And is it worth considering the heavy burden the permits may place on near-amateur filmmakers, whose work can help draw more people into the outdoors? Absolutely.

But before any news outlet jumps to conclusions and waves the First Amendment flag – or reposts others that have done just that – they should crack open the Federal Register and take a closer look. The Forest Service has since responded, saying they have no intention of limiting free speech.