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Conservationists are asking why the Bridger-Teton National Forest has permitted construction and maintenance of mountain bike trails in the Palisades Wilderness Study Area south of Teton Pass, contending the work is illegal.
Popular mountain bike routes such as Lithium, Triple Direct, Fuzzy Bunny, Black Canyon and possibly Powerline Jumps are among the trails in question. All have been cut through Forest Service lands that three decades ago were nominated as wilderness, a class of land where cycling is illegal.
The area in question is not officially wilderness — Congress would have to designate it as such — but it is supposed to be managed so as not to diminish its wilderness character. The distinction is at the center of the debate.
“This is not wilderness, and so mountain bikes are legally allowed in the [Wilderness Study Area],” said Linda Merigliano, recreation wilderness program manager at the Bridger-Teton. “The forest plan says that very specifically.”
Biking would be illegal in the 180,000-acre Palisades if Congress were to act and make it wilderness.
“What would happen is that there wouldn’t be mountain bike use on those trails anymore,” Merigliano said. “It would be prohibited.”
Harvey said criticizing mountain bikers is not the objective.“This [issue] has us in a tricky position, because the last thing we want is to make enemies with the mountain biking community,” Harvey said. “We’re not trying to create an anti-wilderness constituency.”
Read the full article here: http://www.jhnewsandguide.com/article.php?art_id=10418
In response to the last quotation, it seems to me that this is EXACTLY what these conservation groups are doing.
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We just went through this with proposed Wilderness in MT and a federal judge sided with the Sierra Club, et al, in saying that the presence of bicycles in the Wilderness Study Area does not adequately protect the "wilderness character" of the area.
Here’s the interesting dilemma:
By law, only congress can designate Wilderness through legislative action.However,
The USFS nominates an area as a Wilderness Study Area, and then a judge rules that you can’t do anything in the WSA that you couldn’t do in a legislatively designated Wilderness Area. This IS the creation of de facto Wilderness. For all intents and purposes, the are IS WILDERNESS, as it is administered as such. So anytime someone wants new Wilderness, they need not go through the legislative process as designed–just declare a WSA and get a friendly judge and . . . TaDaaahh . . . instant Wilderness 😏In Montana, this has led to the banning of bikes on trails they have traditionally used (and maintained) for decades. 😈
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It all comes down to lobbying power, in my opinion. Sierra Club, etc., have much more than our community. It seems like that is how politics are run these days.
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I’m not sure how well I could honor a no biking in proposed wilderness sanction. Seems like a bogus way around their own rules.
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