ACTION ALERT
Three Things Climbers Need to Know About National Forest Service Roads
The Access Fund and a number of Local Climbing Organizations around the country have been watching three important U.S. Forest Service (USFS) road issues that could affect your local climbing experience.
Many of the places we climb are on National Forest Service land. A Congressional proposal now seeks to permanently protect these undeveloped areas.
At other areas climbers rely on roads for access to their favorite crags. The Forest Service spends $1200 a year per mile maintaining roads to crags, lakes, hunting areas, mines, logging areas, yet many of these roads are redundant or unused while others are relied upon to get into the backcountry. The Forest Service is considering closing access routes—like California’s Shuteye Ridge—because they are losing the necessary maintenance dollars from Congress to keep them open.
Climbers have an interest in preserving their unspoiled climbing environments and access into those areas. The following Congressional bills and Forest Service plans are all occurring simultaneously making it difficult to understand how climbers are affected and what they can do about it. Here’s a summary:
1. The Roadless Area Conservation Act: Initially a Clinton-era executive order in the 1990s, this new congressional proposal would protect undeveloped land in the National Forest System from new road construction, essentially preventing mining; logging; and out-of-control, off-road motorized uses. The Access Fund, along with our Outdoor Alliance partners www.outdooralliance.net, supports the Roadless Area Conservation Act because our mission seeks to preserve the existing climbing environment in all settings––from urban sport crags to pristine backcountry.
INFO: www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h110-2516 and www.roadless.fs.fed.us/maps/usmap2.shtml.
ACTION: Take a look at these bills and map, proposals and contact your congressional representatives if you support proposals to protect backcountry climbing areas from extractive industry and unchecked motorized activity. To find your reps, see www.congress.org.
2. “Legacy Roads and Trails Remediation Initiative:” As Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) said at a hearing in May, “If we do not fix our roads, we will have to drink our roads—after they slide into our streams.” Nationwide, there are roughly 380,000 miles of roads in the National Forest System. The Forest Service estimates that there is a $4 billion maintenance backlog on these roads. At the same time, the Bush Administration’s budget proposes a 31% cut in the Forest Service’s road maintenance budget. For many decades, most USFS roads were built and maintained with money generated by timber sales. But as logging continues to decline, so does available funding. Solution? Get rid of the USFS’s many unused and redundant roads and divert the cash used to maintain them to roads critical for recreational access and habitat restoration.
Congressman Dicks has proposed in the current Interior Appropriations bill the “Legacy Roads Initiative,” which would allocate $65 million to audit all existing USFS roads with the intent to reduce redundant roads, save taxpayers’ money, and reduce the impact of motorized vehicles. Now it’s up to recreational users—like climbers—to ensure that our access roads receive funding when the many redundant and un-used roads are decommissioned. Climbers should contact their local Forest Service offices for more information about the assessment process of local roads and to determine whether local climbing access roads are threatened by decommission or lack of funding.
INFO: Forest Service seeks closure of worn-out roads at www.missoulian.com/articles/2007/06/21/news/mtregional/news08.txt.
ACTION: Contact your Congressional representatives www.congress.org and urge support for the “Legacy Roads Initiative” and the diversion of road funding to valuable recreational climbing access roads.
3. Designated Motorized Vehicle Routes. National Forest Service Off-Highway Vehicle Route Designation Plans are being developed across the country to fulfill regulations that limit all off-highway travel on USFS lands to designated routes. One place where this issue is critical to climbing access is Shuteye Ridge in the Sierra National Forest of California www.fs.fed.us/r5/sierra/projects/ohv/index.shtml. To manage increased motorized use, the Sierra National Forest intends to a have a system of mapped designated motorized vehicle routes in place by 2008. This system will provide the public motorized opportunities while protecting other forest resources. Some roads, like the road to Shuteye Ridge, may be closed and violators will be ticketed. Tell the Forest Service to keep your roads open!
INFO: While the Access Fund supports the reasonable management of off-highway vehicle use www.accessfund.org/pdf/AFCOMTMP.pdf, we urge the Forest Service to prioritize valuable recreational access roads and to include these routes in all Forest Service Off-Highway Vehicle Route Designation Plans.
ACTION: Contact your local USFS office to see what roads are at risk in your local National Forest. Make sure the Forest Service hears from you about what’s important for your climbing access; other interests groups are looking out for themselves and it’s up to climbers to let the policy makers know what we care about. See www.fs.fed.us/contactus/regions.shtml for information on how to contact your local Forest Service office.
Where is your favorite crag? Do you know what kind of land it is on? (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, National Park Service, state, private?) Understanding these issues is critical to maintaining climbing access. If you have questions, look up your Local Climbing Organization or Regional Coordinator on our website: www.accessfund.org/partners/affiliates.php and www.accessfund.org/about/rc.php.