I'M READY FOR SOMEBODY TO DO SOMETHING NOW

Hikers, Mountain Bikers and Wilderness, Afterthoughts

We've probably just witnessed the best online discussion ever on this controversial and difficult-to-contain issue, but will it lead to positive change? Will Wilderness groups give it more priority? Will IMBA choose the right trail?

Comment By Hiker, 5-21-09

Well done Bill.

#5 got my interest most. While I love mountain biking, I love backpacking and the idea of wilderness even more. But I got to thinking about how many mountain bikers might actually use a backcountry area. I don't think it's all that many to ruin an experience. Motorized use can and will ruin it.

If IMBA extracts head from anus, sides with the non-motorized crowd, and comes to the table with viable solutions, they can have my support and my money.

The same with hikers. We need to think hard about what's going to happen in the near future if motorized users become too influential. To steal a phrase from Backcountry Hunters and Anglers, using the quads God gave you doesn't lock anyone out of land, but it does cut down on the number of users as it makes you actually work to get into some areas. I don't hike where motorized users ride, and they shouldn't ride where I hike. Their activity kicks me out if areas. It's just not safe for me to be there. In essence, their presence locks me out. It does need to be an us vs them discussion. Us being human quad-powered and them being motorized.

Comment By Don Crowell, 5-21-09

Great follow up on an important issue. I have to disagree with point #5. Do you have any legitimate data to support your theory regarding Mountain Bikers favoring the hiker side over ATV. Conversations within a sphere of influence isn't necessarily an effective way to form an opinion. I participate in all three of the activities and I disagree with your assessment regarding shared trail use. In Boise we do it and I think we do it very well. The lower trails are closed to ATV and motorcycles but about half way up in the Boise foothills, the trails become open to everyone. I am sure some conflicts have happened but our biggest problem on the trails these days is centered around dogs on leashes.
Granted this is not an area deemed "Wilderness" but we all share and seem to respect the needs of each user group.

Thanks Bill for a great story.

Don Crowell

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-21-09

Thanks for these reflections, Bill. I offer a few quibbles, which should not be read as diminishing my appreciation for the thoughtfulness of your comments.

1. I'm only an IMBA member and can't speak for the organization, but as a member, I perceive IMBA to hew invariably to the nonmotorized side.

I have the impression that IMBA has been courted many times by motorized access advocacy groups and has regularly spurned those overtures. An IMBA subgroup in California signed on to a narrowly drafted document in which all user groups, including motorized users, hikers, equestrians, and cyclists acknowledged one another's de facto presence on trails (without either endorsing or condeming such presences) and agreed to basic principles of etiquette and safety considerations.

It's quite incorrect, as far as I know, to say that IMBA is trying to have it both ways vis-à-vis its alliances. I haven't seen it do anything but try to work with the nonmotorized coalition, even though its efforts are sometimes received with indifference, rudeness, or arrogance.

If I were on the IMBA board, I would encourage tactical alliances with motorized advocacy groups. But I bet I would be in a minority of one if I were on the board and took that stance. So, in sum, I think your fifth point misunderstands IMBA's philosophy.

2. The 1964 Wilderness Act grandfathered in existing property rights but not preexisting uses, unless there's a provision of it that I've forgotten or overlooked.

Comment By Bill Schneider, 5-21-09

Agreed, Ted. Pre-existing uses are listed in the Act, but I believe protecting them was important in lobbying it through Congress and if the ACt had disallowed horse use, it likely wouldn't have passed. I'm just saying that we should have the same attitude toward mountain biking now.....Bill

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-21-09

Bill, great summary to a good series, but your bias comes through ....

I quote;' "The ATV groups want you in their fold to keep you out of a natural alliance of non-motorized groups..."
1. a survey of the posts on your two articles and a couple of closely related NEW WEST stories points to a more natural alliance between the members of Order of the Wheels be they man or machine powered. Far more compatible goals between MTB & ORV than ever producing any joint purpose effort from MTBers and the devotees of the Scared Foot Order of the Holy Forest Path. The Purist Hiker ilk [Mike Vanderman, et al] would remove all wheeled machines to fire roads, next to the freeway in their plans. There is no compromise to the Scared Forest Purist that Sierra Clubbers represent, that's why SC can't make alliances with the NRA or I. Walton League. Those groups know they'll be had if they play into the Purist's game.

2. 2nd quote: "and it’s working. You’ve been had."

MTBer's will not truly know the pleasure of being bent over and seriously HAD until they lay down with the likes of the Sierra Club. Wreakreationalists, us of the Church of Thrillcraft, will not be coming back to take away riding areas in a decade. There's a history of that happening to ORV land users already. Just a month ago in the new Wilderness Bill areas that previously had been given designation as open riding are closed.

If IMBA or any organization that wants wilderness access thinks that Purist Hikers are trustworthy in deals for public land use just look at their history. Sure they want to join with you, look at the words the Purists use to describe both MTB and ORV - Thrillcraft, Wreakreationalist [I do LOVE that one, FYI], they SEE no difference. It's the WHEEL that's the villain.

So, Bill I must say again, to all the readers and fans out there... If your want to ride a MTB then your ONLY friends are the other brethren of the Wheel. Otherwise you will have complete full access like everyone else, on foot.

Comment By Mike Petersen, 5-21-09

I think what is missing in Bill's article is context. Mountain bikers and ATV'ers currently have access to the vast majority of our lower 48 public lands - tens of thousands of miles of roads and trails. All those motorized roads and trails sacrifice quiet and solitude for both humans and other critters. Bicycles travel through the forest much faster than feet or hooves. The Wilderness system wasn't designed for high speed travel, it was set up to permanently protect the few remaining wild places - wheeled sports make them less wild. There is a recent article in the Missoulian that explains why letting in mountain bikes is a very bad precedent: http://www.missoulian.com/articles/2009/05/20/opinion/opinion61.txt

The fact that IMBA is anti-wilderness is a shame and I appreciate that Bill took them to task.

Comment By Two Tired, 5-21-09

The Missoulian OPINION piece is a shame.

The comments that followed spoke more eloquently of how cyclists can and do support Wilderness when they are part of the dialog and solution. The cycling community is a key component in future protection of our roadless lands including new socially responsible Wilderness Areas.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-21-09

Bill: "Every time bicycles are viewed as OHVs, we take a step backwards in efforts to resolve this conflict and form a natural alliance between hikers and bikers."

Mountain bikes ARE OHVs. That's exactly the point. As street bicyclists are wont to point out, bicycles are VEHICLES! You can't have it both ways. You either are a vehicle, or you aren't. The difference between mountain bikes and motorcycles is only one of degree -- how fast you want the natural world to be destroyed. And mountain bikers make up for their lower horsepower in the numbers of people doing it.

Comment By the real mike, 5-21-09

I am an advocate of NREPA and of preserving the lands, all the lands, that it would protect. And, the speed of MTBs truly does constitute a very different impact on wildness than hiking or horse travel. And, just personally, I find the punk attitude of MTBers hard to get past. But, grandfathering pre-existing uses was a major element of the original Act and the idea of updating the Act to reflect today's "compatible" pre-existing uses has come up, even with the current NREPA incarnation. Ultimately, however, we're still just talking, talking generalities, talking concepts, talking abstractions. This kind of discussion could go on forever; it's a settled outcome that always speaks the loudest and ends all the other talk. Similarly, if the MTBers join the thrillcrafters to simply stop NREPA, either by blocking it outright or poisoning it with either shrinkage or significant motorized use inclusions; nothing really gets decided. The argument simply stays open until the next round with the next version of NREPA. But, if the MTBers were somehow able to go ahead, take the lead, and push forward an intact NREPA, simply amended to include NONMOTORIZED two-wheeled MTBs as a modern "compatible" pre-existing use; then they would certainly have the ball, would end the debate, and the rest of the "greens," big and otherwise, would fall in behind them. If this new kind of NREPA were to actually pass into law and these lands were to be designated Wilderness ...forever, through the rallying actions and leadership of the MTBers; then an outcome like that would speak with deafening authority and the game and the role and positional power of the MTBers in the game would truly be changed ...forever. Much has been said about it being time for a changing of the guard and for MTBers to be allowed to come to the front. Well, nobody "allowed" us to come to the front way back when we the ones changing the guard. We just did it; the outcomes did the talking and the allowing. Nobody has a lock on the door. Come on, quit talking and lead, follow, or get the...

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-22-09

Quote #1. Mike V... "You either are a vehicle, or you aren't. The difference between mountain bikes and motorcycles is only one of degree"
If you think the sort of folk holding this opinion will ever allow a MTB access you are seriously delusional.

Quote #2. The Real Mike ... "Similarly, if the MTBers join the thrillcrafters to simply stop NREPA, either by blocking it outright or poisoning it with either shrinkage or significant motorized use inclusions; nothing really gets decided. The argument simply stays open until the next round with the next version of NREPA."
[NOTE, thrillcraft is used to describe MTBers often]
Both these statements prove my point that if you want to put a WHEEL in the wilderness, then MTB's only friends are motorized advocates for CHOICE in recreational use of public land.

In quote 2, the writer basically admits that if the Hiker Purists make a deal with the motorized clans, they will be back to try to change it again. Next round, next version, next opportunity to close more lands. Fact is MTB riders are all punks and ORV owners are all rednecks, didn't y'all know that? I thinks it's page 122 of the Sierra Club rule book.
These posts are clear warning messages. Hope you won't be fooled and end up regulated to private MTB tracks and illegal outlaw riding.

Comment By problembear, 5-22-09

we all get together at a great microbrew in helena....now what was the name?....blackfoot something? start the meeting at 3:00....several growlers and tankards should be consumed to break the ice.....brawling starts promptly at 5:00 then break for first aid and dinner break.....resume talks satisfied and tired at 6:00 after proprietor duct tapes chairs and windows back to serviceability then imbibe until closing where we stroll out arm in arm singing at the top of our lungs all united on a plan for coming together to save some important wild lands for future generations....i am game...

sure worth a try....

Comment By John Gatchell, 5-22-09

In the beginning nearly all western national forest trails were quiet trails, --designed for traditional non-motorized travel, primarily foot and packstock. There were also thousands of miles more backcountry trails before the advent of USFS road building boom 1950s-1990.

In Montana forest road miles more than quadrupled while trails--thousands of miles-- were bulldozed over and lost--including many fine foothills trails. Estimated trail miles on Montana national forests was about 23,000 miles in 1950, reduced by roads to 14,000 trail miles or so today.

The next huge loss of traditional forest (single track) trails occurred as a result of a decision by the Washington Office -U S Forest Service to remove the long standing "40 inch rule" which blocked ATVs from driving on ALL national forest trails. This rule was removed June 25, 1990 at the behest of ATV manufacturers who wanted to market ATVs as "trail vehicles."

If you check most pre-1990 national forest visitor maps you will see this rule displayed. For example the Gallatin Forest visitor maps prior to 1990 stated it was "prohibited" to drive a vehicle wider than 40 inches on ALL forest trails (single track trails are typically 12- 24 inches wide tread). Following the rule change the maps merely suggested you don’t drive an ATV on narrow forest trails. mistake!

ATVs began to drive and widen trail after trail, the FS was reconstructing single track into 6-8 foot wide ATV ways (troads) –even in wilderness study areas.

Thousands of miles of single track trails were damaged and widened into wide rutted ATV roads -- wherever enforcement lagged --which was most everywhere

Hiker, biker, hunter horsemen, its impossible to ignore the damage and abuse from unmanaged OHV traffic which has become so common. Nearly all private landowners who allow public access for hunting or other uses prohibit OHVs.

Only a few areas are actually recommended for wilderness by the U S Forest Service (at least in Montana) Not even 15 % of qualifying roadless lands are recommended for wilderness.

So it only make sense for quiet recreationists to work together and develop agreements to protect as much as possible of wild Montana before it vanishes.

I dont expect national groups to do this work for us -- after all we live here. Although it would be helpful if they realized the value of working together to protect wild lands and actively supported local agreements like Montana High Divide Trails.

I think the IMBA trail Care Crew learned this last september when they joined us for a ride up Thunderbolt Creek and new trail project bordering the Electric Peak Recommended Wilderness.

Join us this August 8-9 when we go back to complete the new 7.5 mile trail, creating a new 14 + mile loop.

learn more -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FR7VPth8f2s



Inside beltway job? When Montana Wilderness Association sued the Forest Service to obtain the records for the removal of the forty inch trail rule --there were only two letters of support for this national rule change--both from off road vehicle lobbyists in Washington DC.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 5-23-09

Bill, you stated, "If you choose motorized, I can stop trying to get hikers and mountain bikers to join forces, and I’ll consider IMBA an enemy instead of an ally in efforts to protect roadless lands."

This reads like a threat, and smacks of the "all or nothing, no compromise spirit" that has stymied progress so far. When talking about conserving wild Montana lands, realize that each area has a unique quality, wildlife habitat, geology, and social structure. Almost all of Montana's Forest Service WSA has some sort of motorized component on it. Some of the recommended wilderness areas do as well. Learning the details of a Forest Plan and a district travel plan is a necessary step that all of us need to take before spouting off about imposing further restrictions.

IMBA recognizes that we must all listen to each other. Without making threats or sending up ultimatums as you did in point #5.

I understand all your other points, but am squirming uncomfortably when you talk about ATV sacrifice areas (# 4).

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-23-09

Greg Beardslee: "I understand all your other points, but am squirming uncomfortably when you talk about ATV sacrifice areas".

There are NUMEROUS reasons not to support motorized access to wilderness -- global warming, air pollution, water pollution, erosion, destruction of streams, noise pollution, wasting limited resources for frivolous activities, bad role modelling for young people, ozone depletion, killing animals & plants, ruining the health of people who refuse to walk, etc. In fact, there isn't even ONE good reason to support recreational ORVs. ORV arguments are dead in the water.

Comment By Bill Schneider, 5-23-09

Not a threat, Greg, only an admission that if IMBA persists in trying to be "half-motorized" there is no chance the group can become an ally in efforts to protect roadless land, including, sadly, efforts to have a new Wilderness Lite alternative that would ban motorized use........Bill

P.S. As far as ATV Sacrifice Areas," I support it as long as we put them somewhere in the two-thirds of our public lands that is already full of roads instead of devoting roadless lands to this legitimate use.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-23-09

Mike V - I would respond to your long list of crap but I'm on my way to go riding, kill a few fish and eat THEM

But I'll be back tomorrow

Comment By cyclist, 5-23-09

I hope that the self-righteous Mikes of the world WALK to the trailhead. The hypocrisy of many hikers is astounding: they drive huge SUV's to the trailhead and then get pissed when they encounter bikers who rode their bikes from home to get to the same place. Then they make wild speculations about how bicycles destroy the planet. I like to hike too: but I don't freak out when I encounter people who are not part of my religion.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-23-09

Of course I walk, but you are just trying to change the subject and avoid telling the truth. That is the worst hypocrisy. When you were going through school, did you refuse to learn from any teacher you didn't like? That is the height of ignorance. I listen to, and learn from, everyone. For example, I learn that mountain bikers and ORV users are willfully ignorant and dishonest to the core. The only way they can defend their disgusting habits is through LYING and DECEIPT.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-23-09

Quoting from John Gatchell's post: "it only make sense for quiet recreationists to work together and develop agreements to protect as much as possible of wild Montana before it vanishes."

I'd agree, but I'd urge mountain bikers to be careful when forming alliances, given the recent track record of Mr. Gatchell's organization. Here's what I mean specifically:

Mr. Gatchell is, according to the Montana Wilderness Association's website, its conservation director.

The Montana Wilderness Association filed suit against the Forest Service not long ago. The suit challenged the Forest Service's plans for mountain biking in Wilderness Study Areas in Montana. The suit lumped mountain biking in with motorized recreation. Basically, it alleged that mountain biking is just as bad in a Wilderness Study Area as is motorized recreation.

In this lawsuit, the Montana Wilderness Assocation was represented by "Earthjustice," which is the ineffably self-righteous and pompous name for the successor organization to the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. (It appears, however, that Earthjustice is independent from the Sierra Club in a formal sense.)

The activities of "Earthjustice" are, it may be assumed, funded by well-meaning, well-heeled, and yet clueless urban or suburban dwellers in places like Marin County, Calif. (which is the birthplace of mountain biking but which also sees the daftest and most quixotic opposition to people riding a bicycle on a trail), and Westchester County, N.Y. I bet many of these people, if they ever visit a Wilderness area someday, will soon be wondering why it lacks flush toilets, hot water, lodges with maid service, and cell-phone access.

But I digress . . . .

The Montana Wilderness Association's lawsuit alleged, among other things, as follows:

"Mountain bikes, which did not exist in 1977, now abound in the WSA. Both . . . motorized and mechanized activities have therefore increased . . . over the levels existing in 1977 . . . . These new activities . . . disturb and displace wildlife . . . ."

"The Travel Plan also authorizes mountain bike use on these same WSA trails. Mountain biking is a mechanized activity that is inconsistent with wilderness character, and that did not occur in the WSA in 1977. The Forest Service did not address the aggregated mountain bike-motorcycle impacts on wilderness character, despite evidence of intensified motorcycle use and greatly increased mountain bike activity since 1977."

"The Forest Service's decision to allow increased summertime motorized and mechanized transport in the Hyalite-Porcupine-Buffalo Horn WSA in the form of aggregated mountain bike and motorcycle use violates the Montana Wilderness Study Act because it does not 'maintain [the] presently existing wilderness character' of the WSA as of 1977, when the Act was passed."

"[T]he [Final Environmental Impact Statement] fails to disclose and analyze adverse impacts on the WSA's wilderness character due to increased levels and spatial extent of: (1) summertime motorcycle and mountain bike activity; and (2) wintertime snowmobile activity. The agency decision is thus arbitrary, capricious, and not in accordance with the law, and must be set aside."

(Italics added.)

Alas, the lawsuit persuaded a United States magistrate judge, who last September issued a ruling imperiling mountain biking in Montana. Quoting from the magistrate judge's ruling: the "Forest Service has in fact increased the number of miles actually subject to regular mountain bike use. And in doing so, the Forest Service neglected to address the intensity with which mountain bikes will be used on the trails open to that use under the summer travel plan. For these reasons, the [Record of Decision] and [Final Environmental Impact Statement] violate the MWSA insofar as they pertain to mountain bike use." (See http://www.earthjustice.org/library/legal_docs/findings-and-recs-of-judge-in-gallatin-orv-travel-plan.pdf.)

How does the Montana Wilderness Association expect mountain bikers to work with it after it sued to oust us from traditional riding places in Montana? How do we know that, flush with success in booting us off those trails, it won't continue in the same vein?

Earlier in this thread, Max Frisson wrote, "If you think the sort of folk holding this opinion will ever allow a MTB access you are seriously delusional." I think he's probably right in the case of the Montana Wilderness Association. What can Mr. Gatchell or anyone else say to prove him wrong and show your bona fides?

Comment By Wheelie of Death, 5-23-09

Just like in the Wizard of Oz, ignore the Ph.D. behind the curtain.

Comment By Binky Griptight, 5-23-09

Since this seems to be the manner of his digressions ... it would seem that Ted Stroll, a lawyer, feels so obviously superior living in Oakland, CA.

Do you, sir, have much knowledge of the travel planning process that the US Forest Service conducted prior to the lawsuit? I'm sure John Gatchell does. Does he gain superiority having walked the trails?

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-23-09

Do I have much knowledge of the travel planning process that led to the MWA lawsuit? No. But do you doubt that the quotations from the MWA lawsuit are accurate? They speak for themselves: mountain biking, motorcycles, and ATVs are similar and they're all bad.

Hey, what's wrong with Oakland? It's hardly the embodiment of urban snootiness. Check out the Raiders' cheering sections the next time they're on national TV.

Comment By Todd, 5-23-09

One thing none of you are mentioning as you talk about who is going to be allowed to use our public lands. Who is going to pay for taking out roads, building trails, hauling out trash, etc? The folks who are being shut out by chance?????? It seems to me that some of the same people who are insisting they are the only ones special enough to use the forests are also the same ones crying and moaning about having to pay anything to use forests. It seems there is a constant push to keep others from sharing the forests, the attempts to shut everyone except the hikers increases year by year. There is never enough for them, they constantly beat the drum for more and more.
Millions of people want to be able to drive to a creek or picnic area for a day because that is all of the time and money they have. The hikers feel other people should not be allowed because it is disturbing to their reverie.

Comment By Acrorseedgete, 5-24-09

Только что выглянул в окно, а там уже почти лето! Неужели все этого не замечают???

Comment By ItertyLyday, 5-24-09

Что за движек у сайта?

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-24-09

cyclist: most of the gearheads I see at trailheads show up in enormous SUVs with bikes, boats, and whatever other crap they feel they need strapped to the vehicle. Wilderness in the USA has been thoroughly commodified--whether by bikers or boaters or climbers whining about some non-existent persecution, or by guidebook writers and bloggers who fancy themselves arbiters a 'new' style of wilderness. The Wilderness Act is the only accessible, readable piece of legislation which specifically sets the statutes for creating new wilderness. Mountian biking--like four-wheelers--is another aspect of the outdoor recreation industry backed by huge corporate interests and its NRA-style "public" interest group, the IMBA.
When gearheads like mountain bikers and boaters (and four-wheeler drivers) can stop claiming persecution, maybe then they can be a part of the "conversation". Until then everyone can follow the law as it is very simply written.

Comment By Area 51, 5-24-09

"Mountian [sic] biking—like four-wheelers—is another aspect of the outdoor recreation industry backed by huge corporate interests and its NRA-style 'public' interest group, the IMBA."

It's true! First there was Big Tobacco, then Big Oil. Now there's Big Mountain Bike.

The same shadowy forces that are foisting those enormous SUVs on an unwilling public are the ones pushing the mountain bike invasion that is ruining our few acres of pristine remaining wildlands. Thank God for the crusaders who are risking their very lives to expose and confront the masters of deceit.

Informed sources believe that the shadowy forces are probably a combination of the Trilateral Commission, the Mossad, the National Security Agency, the Illuminati, Opus Dei, and the New York State Thruway Authority. Never heard of any of them? That's just the way they want it.

Only a few are insightful enough to perceive and unravel these schemes. Most people still believe that planes actually flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon! And most believe the moon landings were real, when in fact they were filmed in a warehouse in Albuquerque, N.M. (Think it's a coincidence that Albuquerque is close to Roswell, site of the alien spaceship crash?)

Thank heavens there are a few out there who know the truth and dare to expose it.

I cannot reveal my true name lest I become a target. I salute the courage of those who are openly and courageously working to stop Big Mountain Bike.

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-24-09

I forgot to mention that the Wilderness Act prohibits wheeled vehicles, so I'm not sure Schneider's 'pre-existing' idea will fly. Also, if different kind of 'wilderness' is set up for mountain bikers, then it makes perfect sense to create a new kind of 'wilderness' or 'backcountry' for snowmobilers, then another type ATV drivers, etc. I'm just not convinced that a consumer interest group like the IMBA or mountain bikers and the corporations that back them (because let's face it; mountain bikers are consumers, and the makers of the goods bikers consume has a vested interest in the 'needs' of these consumers) really deserve a 'voice in the conversation' or a specially designed public sphere in which to enjoy their consumerism.

Its too bad area 51 doesn't understand the corporate interests which influence consumer interest groups like the IMBA.

Comment By cyclist, 5-24-09

Cort- the bicycle industry makes in a year what the greeting card industry makes on valentines day. It is very small. Yes we can live with the law as it's written... and there will be no new wilderness created. That's fine by me. I just hope that those of you who claim to care about the environment practice what you preach in ALL aspect of your life.

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-24-09

cyclist--my point is, if mountain bikes are included then it ain't wilderness--Schneider even has that much figured out. I don't agree with creating consumer-based public land policy, though, like Schneider is advocating. Plus it isn't just the manufacturers of bikes, but also other outdoor gear & equipment--like Polaris--who want these special designations as a "compromise". And why would we ever compromise on Wilderness? Because a relative handful of gear-heads who spend lots of cash on these products are whining about being excluded.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-24-09

Cort Felts: "Because a relative handful of gear-heads who spend lots of cash on these products are whining about being excluded"

CORRECTION: LYING about being excluded. They are just too lazy to walk, as Larry Kralj noted.

Comment By cyclist, 5-24-09

I think Cort and Mike "Kaczynski" Vandeman Phd. should firebomb IMBA headquarters. Or better yet, WALK to IMBA and stomp them with your hiking boots! That'll stop the evil marauding nature hating corporate-backed bicyclists! "Too lazy to walk"?!!- You obviously don't know WTF you are talking about. Mountain biking is much harder than hiking in many ways.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-24-09

cyclist: "Mountain biking is much harder than hiking in many ways."

According to a Scientific American article, the bicycle is the most energy-efficient form of transportation known. So for any given complete round-trip, it takes a lot less energy to ride a bike that to walk (assuming that the bike + biker has the same weight as the hiker + backpack). On a bike, the downhill portion obviously takes essentially no energy, and the level portion takes hardly any energy. That leaves only the uphill portion for most of the energy use. Walking the same route, carrying the same total weight, takes a lot more energy, as well as a lot more time. That's exactly why virtually all mountain bikers refuse to walk.

Ironically, hikers have a much better experience, because they can pay attention to everything, and don't have to concentrate on controlling a bike. A mountain biker misses most of the sights, smells, sounds, and touch. What a collossal waste of time and money! That would be like a dancer claiming that he is superior, because he can get across the dance floor faster! Speed isn't everything!

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-24-09

The posts from Mr. Felts show that people continue not to understand what is and what isn't in the Wilderness Act of 1964. Let me clarify.

The Wilderness Act of 1964 doesn't specifically authorize or forbid mountain biking. It's silent on the subject. Nor does it say anything about "wheels." Instead, it bans "mechanical transport," which the agencies later misread as a ban on mountain biking. It also bans, in a separate but related clause, any motorized vehicle or equipment.

The kind of "mechanical transport" Congress meant to prohibit, it turns out, was the kind that used some other power source to move human beings or cargo along. By contrast, Congress wanted to encourage human-powered travel in Wilderness. There's little doubt that if mountain biking had been around in 1964, members of Congress would have made nice statements about allowing bicycling in Wilderness on the House and Senate floors. But because it wasn't, the Wilderness Act refers only to the desirability of "a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." In the debates leading up to the enactment of the Act, it emerged that "primitive" meant "it just simply means that there will
not be any manmade structures," according to an authoritative statement on the House floor. In 1980, moreover, in another Wilderness-creating statute, Congress made clear that "primitive" recreation in that Wilderness included bicycling.

It took me hundreds of hours of research into dusty old documents and microfiches to discover this long-forgotten fact: human-powered transport was not only to be tolerated, but encouraged, in Wilderness. The Forest Service, however, must have known about this state of affairs in 1966, because its original legislation prohibited only "mechanical transport" that was powered by a "nonliving power source," just as Congress intended. The regulation is 36 CFR § 293.6(a). It is still on the books! It is, however, not enforced for the benefit of mountain biking.

For these reasons, and except between 1977 and 1981, until 1984 bicycling was allowed either totally or to some degree in National Forest Wilderness areas. Starting in 1984, alas, the Forest Service conclusively adopted a no-bikes plan for Wilderness, forgetting its original correct understanding of the 1964 Wilderness Act and misconstruing the scope of the Act's "mechanical transport" ban to include a prohibition on travel by bicycle. The other agencies followed along.

The agencies have been inconsistent in what they've excluded in interpreting the "mechanical transport" ban. You can power your own vertical transport in Wilderness with all the rock-climbing cams and pulleys you want. But you can't power yourself horizontally on wheels on a bicycle.

This is all laid out in my 2004 law review article on the subject. It's available on the Internet at http://www.imba.com/resources/land_protection/stroll.pdf. (Its presence on the IMBA website should not be interpreted as if IMBA necessarily endorses everything I wrote. It's there for research purposes.)

It's too bad that mountain bikers don't have the same number of lawyers employed by "Earthjustice," i.e., more than 50 attorneys in eight offices, to work on this issue. If we did, I bet the Wilderness ban would have fallen by the wayside earlier this decade and we'd have legal access to some (not all) trails. Ironically, the prime beneficiaries of such a ruling would be none other than the Wilderness purists. For the tiny price of seeing an occasional mountain bike on a subset of Wilderness trails only during the dry parts of summer, they'd likely have gained many more acres of Wilderness designation. It would be the opposite of a Pyrrhic victory—a fabulous and profitable defeat that any pragmatic person would greet with a sigh of relief.

Thus do ideology and a kind of quasireligious fervor overpower the kind of pragmatism that ultimately would make both the Wilderness enthusiasts and us mountain bikers (most of whom are also Wilderness enthusiasts) happier. Amazing.

For the foregoing reasons, people who wants to see more Wilderness areas established ought to write their senators and members of Congress asking them to ask the federal agencies, particularly the Forest Service, to reconsider their erroneous no-bikes-in-Wilderness rules. This includes Wilderness traditionalists and mountain bikers who don't want to ride in Wilderness themselves but like Wilderness as an idea. By contrast, the people who want to see continued fierce resistance to new Wilderness, from mountain bikers as well as motorcyclists and soon snow-kiters as well, should insist that the current no-bikes rules remain in place, even if they are invalid under the Wilderness Act of 1964 as properly interpreted.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-24-09

Someone in this thread just derided mountain bikers as too lazy to walk. Actually, we real mountain bikers tend to find walking (i.e., hiking) too easy and, partly for that reason, boring. The only hiking I find interesting is going straight up at high altitude. The rest is somnorific in terms of exercise, though it may lead to picturesque locations.

I just got back from a mountain bike ride in which I climbed a 20 to 25% dirt road grade for 750 feet. Of that, about 100 feet is 30% or over. In 10.8 miles, the trail climbed and descended 2210 feet, meaning there was 2210 feet of vertical ascent in about five or six miles.

The other day I rode up a narrow rutted trail that climbs 1,000 feet in about a mile, for an average grade of slightly less than 20%. There's a wall-like section in the middle that is at the limits of human endurance. But I cleaned it.

I challenge any hiking-only person on this thread to jump on a mountain bike and try anything similar. Good luck. Frankly, I suspect that the only people as physically fit as we mountain bikers are the trail motorcyclists. It's very unlikely that most hikers would be; and as for equestrians, as the French say, it is to laugh.

Comment By Bob Allen, 5-24-09

Cort – save the sanctimonious consumerism and corporate fear mongering crap. I’ve seen as many Patagonia and REI outfitted recreationalists using the latest in stoves, tents, GPS, three layered Gortex and fancy hiking boots while talking on their cell phones in Wilderness as any motorized or mechanized trail head. We as a society have dragged the modern technology into the most remote corners of our backcountry areas. So unless you are venturing out in a loincloth and moccasins you made by hand from the deer you killed with a bow – drop it.

Bill’s article isn’t about getting bikes into existing Wilderness areas but challenges us all to come up with a solution as to how best protect roadless lands where bicycles have ridden for decades. Just saying no to bicycles in the backcountry isn’t presenting a solution. Nor is suggesting ditching the bikes to hike the trails we use to ride. All you are doing is identifying your problem and not realistically coming up with answers that will work for our PUBLIC lands.

Your question of “why would we ever compromise on Wilderness?” How about that there has been no new Wilderness in Montana for 25 years? And it is precisely this Wilderness-or-nothing attitude from the Wilderness Machine that has prevented any new Wilderness. So cling to your Wilderness-only mentality and watch as the remaining roadless lands languish unprotected.

Using a blended protection package that includes companion designations (Backcountry) with Wilderness is the future of our roadless lands. Bring the cycling community into the fold, view us as partners and we can help protect these roadless lands including new socially responsible Wilderness areas.

So what are you going to do?

Comment By Wheelie of Death, 5-24-09

Polyester Ph.D. - "Ironically, hikers have a much better experience..." What a LIE!

Please use that brain to be part of the solution or get back in your closet to silently wallow in your ignorance and judgmentalism.

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-24-09

Ted Stroll: mechanized transport has always been defined as including wheeled vehicles, including bicycles.

Bob Allen: You are presenting a staw man argument that 1) does not address the all the points I raised--just the one that annoyed you; 2) does address that Bill's proposal results in dismantling the Wilderness Act--creating new definitions of "existing use" which will open a whole can worms with other consumer interest groups. "Blended protection package" sounds like something Max Baucus would come up with; 3) IMBA and individuals have long clamored to be allowed into existing wilderness--that is a valid concern of not just the Wilderness Machine (who is this? You sound like you're from the Blue Ribbon Coalition...) but land managers, trail crews and other, actual pre-existing users.

It is interesting that mountain bikers not only self-victimize about being "shut-out" but now claim that is is wilderness "purists" who keep new wilderness from being created. The Act applies to both Forest Service and NPS, any new 'blended protection' legislation would have to include, or any changes to the existing Act would have to consider the disastrous consequences of allowing mountain bikes in the backcountry of a National Park like Yellowstone. A foot in the door--no matter whose foot it is--will minimize the efficacy and essence of the current Act.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-24-09

Ted Stroll: "I challenge any hiking-only person on this thread to jump on a mountain bike and try anything similar."

You missed the point, as usual. If a hiker did that same trip, with the same weight, it would require a lot more time & energy. You are clearly lazy to use a bike, when you could walk. Why didn't you hike that route?

Besides that, and more important, you missed most of the experience that a hiker would get on the same route. You wasted the experience. You use nature as your private gymnasium. That's not what it's for.

And if you really think that bikes aren't mechanized transport, you need to have your head examined! Only a lawyer could make a claim like that. That's why the words "liar" and "lawyer" are so hard to distinguish.

Comment By Bob Allen, 5-24-09

Cort - okay, you eloquently and 'logically' just said NO to bikes in the backcountry - that can of worms thing.

So how do you propose to protect these roadless lands in the political realities of 2009? NREPA?

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-24-09

Query: "You missed the point, as usual. If a hiker did that same trip, with the same weight, it would require a lot more time & energy. You are clearly lazy to use a bike, when you could walk. Why didn't you hike that route?"

Answer: to walk it would have been, for me, too slow and too easy. It wouldn't have given me the same vigorous exercise that the ride did. And, even though easier aerobically and anaerobically, it would have been harder on my knees to walk down the steep hills.

There's nothing wrong with anyone using a natural setting for a workout. Should we all confine ourselves to running stairs? Also, I ride not just for the exercise, but to appreciate the beauty of the nature preserves with which the Bay Area is so advantaged. Of course I could do that by hiking, too, but I wouldn't see as much of nature as I can on my mountain bike.

I think one difference between the cyclists and anticyclists on this thread and others is that we've all hiked at some point. I backpacked half of the Pacific Crest Trail in Oregon. By contrast, I suspect very few of the antibike types have ever tried to ride a bike on a fun trail (and by a fun trail, I don't mean a gently sloped dirt road that you'd be sharing with sedentary families on ATVs). If you did, a few of you might change your views. There's a fine outfit, Western Spirit, that does multiday mountain biking trips. For some of them, little experience is required. You might want to give it a try and see if your stereotypes are confirmed or, instead, debunked wholly or in part during the trip. See http://www.westernspirit.com.

Comment By Dave Skinner, 5-24-09

Ted,
The Wilderness Act didn't HAVE to specify. The phrasing, "mechanical transport," was intended to have an effect on any future inventions. The specific language, in fuller context, is "no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area."
Mechanical is pretty much anything wheeled. That includes carts. I think it would even include those pole-and-wheel rigs, or gigs, or whatever they are, for horses. I even think wheelbarrows are prohibited, although they would be terrific for select trail maintenance chores.
It's a broad prohibition, which is appropriate for "wilderness" if the intent is a primitive, pre-20th-Century experience and environment. Or even further than that. The Indians never developed wheeled conveyance.
I feel some wilderness with a big W is a good deal. There needs to be places like that. We have 104 million acres of it, which in states like Montana, Alaska and Idaho, is way plenty -- yet that's not enough for the wilderniks.
Then there is Bill's basic premise here, that mountain bikers should ally with the non-economic, non petroleum crowd. Wilderness, for all practical purposes, except for a small cadre of iron quadded, iron-lunged wheelers -- which of course can be picked off and isolated at a later, more-politically-convenient time. I think you are learning that the non-crowd is pretty quick to condemn uses that aren't "theirs" and theirs only. You should be looking to people who truly respect and support your uses alongside theirs for support.

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-24-09

Bob-
Force a change in the way the USFS develops travel plans for starters. The system is outdated and wholly dependent on the personalities of supervisors, et. al. Enough pressure by any one group can and often does sway the process.

I think it would be better to adjust management of roadless areas than water down the Wilderness Act or create "new types" of Wilderness. The trouble with this is that it takes more than a handful of volunteer hours on trails etc or legislative "victories" (any group can call legislation passed a victory whether it really is or not). It takes actual involvement, year-round, on the ground (Yeah! I'm gonna copywrite that!) involvement and constant pressure on land managers to respond to the interests of citizens and not just interest groups. We --and I do mean "we"--can create all sorts of new management programs and initiatives--let the legislation follow.

Maybe this is too Utopian but if we stopped thinking about ourselves and started with, say, watersheds, and examined each aspect of a watershed--erosion, water quality, biodiversity, name a few more---and then worked our back to "us" using the tools provided by the watershed itself, we as citizens and users could be a part of the management. The Forest Service would hate this and so would many other interest groups, but maybe we could start to recognize that, in this day and age-- more than any previous, Congressional compromises on Wilderness designation might not truly benefit any of us as citizens.

And just to be clear on the other lines of snark on this thread: I could care less about whether biking is harder than hiking. I'd rather take my time off-trail anyway.

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-24-09

Dave Skinner-
I rarely of ever agree with you--and I don't about the need for more wilderness, but your first paragraph is well phrased and to the point.

Bob-
I meant to add that we also need to seriously consider any new Wilderness designation in terms of precedent for the wildly different management universes of the NPS and USFS.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, Ph.D., 5-24-09

Ted Stroll: "to walk it would have been, for me, too slow and too easy". Then walk faster! But it's physically impossible to experience as much when you travel fast, as when you travel slowly. "Too slow" for WHAT?

"I suspect very few of the antibike types have ever tried to ride a bike on a fun trail". I did it. I have never had such an unpleasant and boring time in nature as I did on a bike. I had to pay attention to controlling the bike, when I would rather have paid attention to nature. I can't imagine mountain biking ever being fun.

Many years ago, before mountain biking had ever been invented, I was hiking along a relatively boring section of trail. The thought came to me that maybe if I had a bike, I could get past the boring part & to the interesting part much faster. But about 2 seconds later, I realized that if I could get there faster, so could everyone else, and the place would be ruined. So much for my mountain biking career -- 2 seconds long.

With your attitude, you probably think that "faster is better" is also true of other areas, such as sex. Maybe your women friends could explain to you why faster is NOT always better.

Or if you prefer another area, how about eating? With your attitude, you probably like to wolf down your food, and therefore not savor it. Are you beginning to get the picture, Mr. Faster-Is-Better?

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-25-09

Mike, PhD
Ironically, hikers have a much better experience, because they can pay attention to everything, and don't have to concentrate on controlling a bike. A mountain biker misses most of the sights, smells, sounds, and touch. What a collossal waste of time and money! That would be like a dancer claiming that he is superior, because he can get across the dance floor faster!

Value judgment - this is all that crap is, I could stand to walk for maybe half an hour - the sights, smells, blah, blah, blah are just NOT of any real interest, The challenge of the unknown trail is.

Why in the world are you the sole decider of appropriate recreational behavior?

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-25-09

As for SPEED - MikeV I doubt you have ever been over 100 mph on land, so I say you have no knowledge of that which you speak when you say "Speed isn't everything!" On the other hand my doctoral work in Speed Appreciation was done at Pocono Raceway where I was awarded a 206 mph timing slip for a 1 mile run on a specially prepared motorcycle to gain admission to The 200 MPH Club in 1997. For my master's I topped 120 in the desert on a 500cc 2-stroke desert racer in the 80s [across sand that's incredibly fast, far scarier than 200 on pavement for a few seconds], no Mike you have no idea where speed can take you or what that feeling like but there sure as shit isn't any trail side furry creature that will ever thrill me so.

You speak of lazy and are so critical of the Brethren of the Wheel, I think you are just a whimpy chicken, afraid of falling down at speed. Are you the clumsy type? Not very coordinated? Walking and chewing gum a challenge in your world? HUH? Inquiring minds want to know. Sure sounds like it.

Point is my nirvana is my business. Your bliss is your problem. You and the Scared Order of the Holy Forest Foot have over 100 MILLION acres already and enough is enough.
Oh and a love of Speed has nothing to do with rate a which one consumes food or sex partners. You ask partners of racers what post Adrenalin sex is like. Knowing very high speed actually slows many things down but you would never appreciate it.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-25-09

Mike - To me your "pay attention to nature" in akin to the thrill of watching grass grow. I see as much as I want on my Yamaha and if I wanna see more, to your surprise I am sure, my bike has brakes and can stop to observe if I so desire.

Comment By Cort Felts, 5-25-09

God i hope I never encounter Max Frisson on a trail--sounds like it would be really, really unpleasant.

Comment By the real mike, 5-25-09

Cort, if he's still the same as I recall seeing him, you'd actually be perhaps amused, so to speak. Frisson talks a macho tough guy line; many of them do; but, in person and when I last saw him, you could see the truth from a hundred yards away. He really seems to love prancing about in those skintight motorcycle pants, the clinging jacket, the big manly boots, and only the right tasteful amount of shiny accessories to complete the look. I have to believe that his real passion can't be off-road, although he may be enamored with being among the crowd it attracts. I have a hunch his real passion must be foreign bullet bikes, what used to be called cafe racers. I don't know where he's actually from; but, he seems much more of an urban cowboy type. The kind of guy who goes for bullet bikes; you know, those high frequency vibes under him and the way those bikes tremble and scream with delight when he grabs their throttle. It's a funny world, sometimes funny one way and other times funny...

Comment By Dave Skinner, 5-25-09

Mike,
I'm amazed at how many people you claim to know, yet you still won't let your passive-aggressive real self out of the closet.
As for the bike thing, it's OKAY to go both ways. The skills learned on the street and road course translate pretty well to dirt and vice versa. And the same goes for using the two-piston muscle motor versus the metal kind...gear selection, ideal RPMs, traction control, situational awareness...it's OKAY to like MTB's and like motorcycles. Let's show a little TOLERANCE for DIVERSITY here.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, 5-25-09

Max Frisson: "I could stand to walk for maybe half an hour - the sights, smells, blah, blah, blah are just NOT of any real interest, The challenge of the unknown trail is."

You can't have it both ways. Mountain bikers claim they are just like hikers, interested in experiencing nature. Thanks for demonstrating that it's total BS.

Dave Skinner: "Let's show a little TOLERANCE for DIVERSITY here"

As I have said many times, hikers have no problem sharing trails or anything else with mountain bikers. MACHINES don't care whether we tolerate them, and tolerance for abusive MACHINERY isn't on ANYONE'S human-rights agenda (of course! bikes aren't human!).

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-25-09

Dave (Dave Skinner),

Thanks for your thoughtful post of yesterday. I hope we meet sometime on a trail, you on your dirt bike and me on my sturdy velocipede.

Let me say I agree there should be some big-W Wilderness. Almost certainly some of it shouldn't have any trails in it. Perhaps some of it should be legally accessible only by permit.

I also agree with your skepticism about the viability of mountain bikers' efforts to unite with the traditional environmentalists. Such efforts have a lackluster track record so far and even if they appeared to succeed, serious problems would loom.

There would be the problem you mention, i.e., that the environmentalist crusaders could form an alliance of convenience with mountain bikers only to try to heave us over the cliff later (metaphorically speaking, I would hope, though in reading some of these posts I wonder if they'd stop there). The Montana Wilderness Association's lawsuit against Montana mountain biking (Montana Wilderness Association v. McAllister) already gives us ample warning of the risks. Maybe it's not too late for the MWA to drop this challenge. Hello, MWA?

And beyond that, I'm troubled about the idea of us following the tack of the apartheid-minded subset of hikers and equestrians (i.e., people similar to those who are prominent on this thread) and announcing that wild areas are suited only for our preferred travel mode and ought to be cut off from other current users whom we find not to our taste. You can see how the environmental temperance crusade has made itself despised among tens of millions of Americans with just such an ethos. I don't want to embrace an ethic of exclusion, privilege, myopia, and selfishness.

On the other hand, though, I'd like to be able to go places where I won't hear motors and have to breathe a lot of dust. No offense. I don't detect that you disagree with that concept.

I'm going to addresss your other point about the Wilderness Act of 1964 and its mechanical transport prohibition in another post.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-25-09

Dave,

You raised this point, and I'm eager to respond to it:

The Wilderness Act didn't HAVE to specify. The phrasing, "mechanical transport," was intended to have an effect on any future inventions. The specific language, in fuller context, is "no use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft, no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation within any such area."

Mechanical is pretty much anything wheeled. That includes carts. I think it would even include those pole-and-wheel rigs, or gigs, or whatever they are, for horses. I even think wheelbarrows are prohibited, although they would be terrific for select trail maintenance chores.

It's a broad prohibition, which is appropriate for "wilderness" if the intent is a primitive, pre-20th-Century experience and environment. Or even further than that. The Indians never developed wheeled conveyance.

I know that people often find lawyers extremely irritating because of our perceived ability to explain why up is down and vice-versa. But searching past apparently obvious wording to understand it at a deep level is part of what we do, and sometimes it results in surprises. This is such a case.

On the surface, most people's immediate reaction to bicycles and "mechanical transport" is that the former is obviously a kind of the latter. That's not so, however, as far as the Wilderness Act of 1964 is concerned, no matter how commonsensical it may first appear.

The prohibition is, to quote it precisely, a ban on "mechanical transport."

Reading the two-word clause broadly, you couldn't use a fishing reel in a Wilderness area because it's a mechanical device for transporting fish out of the water and into your basket. Yet the Congressional Record shows that Congress meant to allow fishing and hunting in Wilderness. In other words, the scope of the prohibition is ambiguous.

When a statute is ambiguous, research attorneys delve into its legislative history to find out what Congress meant. The Wilderness Act of 1964 has about a decade of legislative history, consisting of many hundreds of pages of committee hearings and reports, statements by members of Congress in the Congressional Record about what they meant by the language in the bills they were considering, and so forth.

I was the first person to undertake the long hours of research necessary, using two of the best public law libraries in the country, to figure out what the no "mechanical transport" clause was meant to prohibit.

And it turned out that Congress meant to disallow having people or goods (i.e., passengers or cargo) carried around by any mechanical means powered by a nonliving power source. When I found the deeply buried and obscure legislative history documents that revealed this theretofore unknown information, I felt a bit like Howard Carter on discovering the tomb of Tutankhamen in 1922.

To be precise, the prohibition on "mechanical transport" was defined in the legislative history, both in the Senate and the House of Representatives, as follows: there should be no "use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or motorboats, or landing of aircraft, nor any other mechanical transport or delivery of persons or supplies, nor any temporary road, nor any structure or installation, in excess of the minimum required. . . ."

"Transport or delivery of persons or supplies"! In other words, the carrying of human beings as passengers, or the conveyance of supplies as cargo, on a road in a mechanical conveyance like a wagon or by water on a barge. Congress intended to prohibit the passive transport of passengers. It did not intend to prohibit simple forms of human-powered transport, such as bicycles, snowshoes, skis, kayaks, rowboats, or climbing equipment, that can be used quietly on narrow trails or natural features.

So how did we get from that language to the current no-mechanical-transport language? Following subcommittee and committee hearings in June 1964, the House of Representatives reduced "nor any other mechanical transport or delivery of persons or supplies" to "no other form of mechanical transport," the language now found in 16 U.S.C. § 1133(c). But this amendment did not widen the prohibition. Rather, the intent of the original "transport or delivery of persons or supplies" language remained following the simplification. The historical record establishes this point: a member of Congress explained to the House Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs that the clause was being amended "solely for the purpose of clarification. The substance and intent of the original language and of the substitute language are the same." Voilà.

Now, a perceptive reader may ask: "Right, but the same sentence also prohibits motor vehicles, motorized equipment, aircraft, and motorboats. If Congress didn't mean bicycles and other things with wheels, the 'mechanical transport' language wouldn't be necessary, because once you've banned all motors, what's left except bicycles and the like?"

That would be a good question. But 45-year-old legislation often does not make perfect sense when we read it today. Congress could have been thinking of ore carts powered by mules, for example. They're not motorized but they enable the passive movement of minerals out of mines. Mining figured prominently in the debate surrounding the Wilderness Act.

What's clear from the whole legislative history—again, many hundreds of pages of it—is that Congress wanted human-powered travel on Wilderness trails. Such rugged, self-reliant overland travel is identified as the very signature of the Wilderness experience Congress was thinking of. This explains the Act's specification that Wilderness is to provide "a primitive and unconfined type of recreation" along with opportunities for solitude.

By the way, even without resort to all of the foregoing, the very words of the prohibition contain a clue to the narrowness of what it prohibits. The prohibition has two words: "mechanical" and "transport." People tend to focus on the first word: "mechanical." They think less deeply about the second: "transport." But notice that Congress did not prohibit, as it could have, "mechanical propulsion," "mechanized transportation," "mechanical devices," or "mechanized travel." It prohibited only "mechanical transport." In American English (as opposed to British), the noun "transport" has a rather passive connotation. In fact it's not that common a noun in American English, except in episodes of Star Trek, where the transporter room was a place of central importance for the passive relocation of crew members from the ship to the planet below. The legislative history establishes beyond all reasonable doubt that "transport" did not mean "travel," and that's what counts for our purposes.

People who find this kind of stuff interesting should read the U.S. Supreme Court's recent decision untangling the meaning of the Second Amendment, District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. ___ (2008). The language of the Second Amendment, just like the Wilderness Act's no-mechanical-transport clause, is famously obscure: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." It's fascinating to read the Heller decision and see how the majority opinion dissected that difficult sentence. This is some of the most interesting work research lawyers do.

Comment By Mike Vandeman, 5-25-09

Ted Stroll: "there should be no 'use of motor vehicles, motorized equipment, or motorboats, or landing of aircraft, nor any other mechanical transport or delivery of persons or supplies, or any temporary road, nor any structure or installation, in excess of the minimum required. . . .'"

Note that it says "transport OR delivery". Delivery may be passive, but "transport" is synonymous with "transportation", and includes the use of a bicycle. As road bicyclists are in the habit of repeating endlessly, bicycles are vehicles, and are involved in transportation. The language in no way excludes bicycles from the prohibition. If they wanted to allow bicycles, they could easily have mentioned them, but they didn't. You have no case whatsoever. But I know that reality won't stop you from repeating your nonsense endlessly anyway. You are fooling no one.

Comment By George Vincent, 5-25-09

Bill,

Aren't you disappointed? You try to get people thinking, and all that follows -- I exaggerate -- what follows for the most part is all heat and no light. The same old same old, even including Stroll again trying to snooker the uninformed (or bolster the wishful-thinking) with his pseudo-"legal" misinterpretation of "mechanical transport."

This is why, I fear, your Wilderness Lite crusade might not get the hearing it deserves. I suggest you try a different, serious forum. Not sure what that would be, but life is too short to be reading here over an over again.

Good luck.

Comment By gw, 5-25-09

I suppose in this era of audacious spin one might expect those who will wrangle and twist legal language to suit their own purposes. However it remains clear that the "spirit of the law" attempts to define wilderness areas as land purchased for the public to be set aside for conservation reasons.

It is just silly to argue about REI camp stoves, unless they physically damage the environment the way mountain bikes damage terrain. What the mountain bikers don't seem to understand is that land managers have an obligation to the public, first and foremost, to provide responsible stewardship that conserves and protects the public's property from damage and defacement.

The vast majority of taxpayers in this country are not mountain bikers, and not all mountain bikers even demand to bike wilderness areas. These lands belong to all Americans and we have every reason to expect land managers to protect them by enforcing the spirit of the law in which they were preserved.

Comment By Greg Beardslee, 5-25-09

One huge question remains. Who will bring forth the idea of wilderness lite to what receptive congressman? Will this be done in Montana? Idaho? Colorado? Nevada? Any congressman in any state could carry this torch. Who would benifet? bicyclists for sure, but no one else.

Who wouldn't like it? Everyone else, both wildernuts and motorheads. Has the time come? yes, the time has come. Would it have a branding or image problem? Yes, I believe so. It would be as hard to grasp for some people as the policies of IMBA are.

Wilderness Lite is of course not wilderness. Some readers here do not distinguish the difference. It could work. Like Wilderness, it would not solve every issue. I do know a lot of places where it would work quite well though.

Bill, you have a great idea. When you have become a part time mountain bike rider you will probably understand IMBA's policies. Until then it IMBA's policies may continue in your mind as an identity crises, or as you said, riding in no man's land.

I bet enviros will not take the idea and run with it, as they are content with promoting wilderness. But if a wilderness group wanted to introduce a wilderness lite bill to congress, they would have the backing of IMBA, and many local and regional cycling clubs. Would they want that backing?

If a cycling club were to find a sponsor to introduce a wilderness lite bill to congress, I also bet wilderness organizations would be sure to oppose it. Probably with national email campaigns. If we (Montana bicyclists) weren't so busy trying to retain the few trails in Montana that we find important, we would be taking your idea as far as possible.

What this comes back to is the power of the wilderness organizations, and how they still are driving the bus. One of them could take the step here, but who of them are inclined to?

Comment By gw, 5-25-09

Personally the term "wilderness lite" makes me about as nauseous as warm Bud Lite. The "wilderness" definition has legitimate integrity, "wilderness lite" cheapens the whole concept. Call what you're looking for an Outdoor Recreation Area or something.

Comment By Mike, 5-25-09

You nailed it, Bill. Get in bed with the likes of low class groups like the Blue Ribbon Coalition, and there is no room to work things out.

Comment By Bill Schneider, 5-26-09

To answer several questions from several commenters....

George--I'm a bit disappointed that some comments tend to go back to the same unfruitful ground we've been plowing for decades, but also glad to see many commenters trying to work towards a real solution, including in some cases my Backcountry (aka Wilderness Lite) idea.

Greg--I really don't think me getting out on some single-track with my old Gary Fisher rigid with street tires would change my views on IMBA. IMBA might be the biggest barrier we have, even more than the non-responsive, egotistical wilderness groups, who refuse to even acknowledge the problem. If IMBA became a truly non-motorized lobby and started really representing the majority of mountain bikers, including many if not most who want to protect key roadless lands, we could move forward. And yes, I agree, wilderness groups would oppose the Wilderness Lite concept, and a sad state of affairs that is. Somebody--bike club or wilderness group--need to pick up the Backcountry ball and run with it and force the "other side's" hand.

gw--As I've noted in the second column in this series, I agree. It should be called "Wilderness Lite," but it needs to be a good brand, which I propose be Backcountry.

Mike--Thanks, and I obviously agree that IMBA should become a non-motorized-only organization, but I aslo think BRC members has a legitimate stake in our public lands. It's just how to do it, and we can mix motorized and non-motorized on the same trail. Motorheads should have their own areas, sliced out of the two-thirds of our pulbic land that's already roaded, and in these areas motorized recreation should be the primary if not exclusive outdoor activity.

Bill

Comment By Dave Skinner, 5-26-09

Ted,
I'm going to have to, (gulp), agree with our house PhD on ethnic food preferences when it comes to mechanical transport. I grew up near the Bob Marshall and my Dad was a hardcore hunter and pilot. So I got lots of exposure to the wilderness idea during my upbringing. There were lots of nights at the Schaefer camp where we talked about trail upkeep, the rules and regulations, the intent...and ya know, I was cool with the package.
But I also grew up with the idea of multiple use. The countryside wasn't just for play, you had to have something to pay the bills.
For us in Northwest Montana before Al Gore invented the Internet, it was logging, smelting, farming, grazing, and railroading the associated products to market. Oh, and some skiers would come in on the streamliner from Minneapolis and Seattle, and they would hike in Glacier in the summer.
And incidentally, Glacier was pretty much an exclusive enclave for rich, railroad-and-horse-borne tourists until the Sun Highway was built. Roads pretty much "democratized" the Park and the "park concept," opened it to the commoners who, while unable to afford a Pullman, could scrape together gas for the flivver (which Henry Ford deliberately priced for the masses) and road-camp it.
What I'm trying to tell you, Ted, is that Bill Schneider's model of building a slightly-larger "alliance" in order to remove yet more land from the fine, democratic framework of multiple economic and recreational use, flies in the very face of the concept of shared public assets.
Greg raises the big question. Who would sponsor? Well, that's Bill's intent here, is to raise a "coalition" to encourage a sponsor. And to be honest, it makes me sick and sad to realize that as citizens become less and less connected to the landscape and the realities thereon, they will become more and more susceptible to semantic bullshyte such as "wilderness lite."

Comment By gw, 5-26-09

Bill, I appreciate your voice of calm reason and respect in trying to mediate a seemingly intractable issue. I would agree, there certainly could be public land of lesser ecological value that could be set aside in the future for recreational sport use by mountain bikers and ATV users. But you do your cause a broad disservice by continuing use of the misnomer "wilderness lite." I suggest you abandon the term immediately.

The term "wilderness lite" will only succeed in creating a visceral reaction of repulsion from the vast majority of environmentalists, that is, the thousands that you can expect to respond to the big enviro org action alerts. The term sends a message of downgrading and cheapening the "wilderness" designation, which the public takes for valuable land set aside for conservation, being threatened by damaging recreational use.

And in fact, "wilderness lite" isn't descriptively accurate anyway. I can't emphasize this enough: The purpose of the Wilderness designation is conservation. The purpose of the "wilderness lite" designation you speak of is recreation. There is a HUGE difference in philosophy, goal and intent, not to mention the actual impact on the land. Environmentalist do NOT want to see their interests combined, water-down or confused with those who consider publicly owned Wilderness just so much "dirt".....as posted by a mountain biker in another NewWest forum.

And by the way.....environmentalists take offense at the idea of "multiple economic and recreational uses" because that is not what the Wilderness designation is supposed to be about. It's supposed to be about conservation to preserve and protect the land for the future and for benefit of every American. Not exploitation, profiteering and defacement by a few in the present.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-26-09

Dave,

Thanks. I understand your views about mechanical transport. In my posts over the weekend I was laying out the legal background but not trying to resolve the policy issues. They seem to be intractable!

Don't you think right now it's a stalemate? I do. No bikes in Wilderness, but also no more Wilderness, at least in Montana.

I do see Bill's "Wilderness Lite" concept as being problematic, but at least he's trying to negotiate something among mutually hostile factions, for which he should be applauded. From the perspective of the agencies and our elected officials, however, I bet we all seem like a bunch of ants scurrying around. I think it will require a politician or bureaucrat with real authority to hammer out a compromise (or impose a solution that isn't a compromise), and so far no one seems inclined to do so. Maybe Bill could interview Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) for a column and see what he thinks.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-26-09

FYI: THE REAL MIKE... - doubt you know me as max frisson is a noms de plume I use because I'm a very visible part of the powersports industry and I have a habit of generating controversy.

I work now primarily in the Adventure Touring/Dual Sport niche of the industry. That's dirt-oriented for those that don't know. I did work in road racing for many years, Oh yes I do have a european-made, extremely fast sportbike [your bullet bike], it sits next to my 2 off-road bikes. I did have a chopper too but sold it. Point I ride everything - I don't specialize. Right now, this year I'll get more seat time on the Dual Sports than the MV. I have a long off-road history starting in the 60s learn to ride of trails then as a MXer, [Bultacos in the 70s], a desert racer,[Honda in the 80s] dual-sport touring[BMWs in the 90s] and very very soon a new KTM for a new form of off-road rally competition that I should still be competitive in even if I'm nearly 60 years old.

FYI: It's a boom biz....
http://tinyurl.com/LAtimesADV
I do wear "All the Gear, All the Time" as the safety slogan goes so when I'm on my Enduro I have by MX Boots and gear and when I ride the MV I wear roadrace leathers. I was really into MTBs in the mid90s [my company made Ti parts for Trek, Specialized, Merlin as a side to our MC race parts] as an alternative to dirt bikes and I wore shorts and a bike helmet when I rode - WOW appropriate gear for activity - so shameful.

I dropped away from peddle bikes when I saw the same reaction from the forest purists, the hate and the closures, I stuck with the motorized versions.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-26-09

Cort, my favorite TRAIL bike for mixed use is a Gas-Gas Trials bike. it's makes little noise and the point is precision, difficulty but not speed.
Meeting me is not that scary. My high speed stuff has all been achieved in competition. I don't compete on a Trail ride. That's for fun. You'll find that most people who have raced competitively know how to separate the appropriate and inappropriate occasions for speed.

No my SPEED point was just a goad at MikeV, PhDDDD

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-26-09

Ted, Dave, Bill and of course the Mike and real Mike

There's a idea of a slogan in one of the above posts that I could support
NO WHEELS IN WILDERNESS for NO NEW WILDERNESS.

I would support the 104 MILLION acres of current wilderness areas being off-limits and keeping it so if I could get a binding irrevocable restraint of new additions, reductions of existing areas and no backdoor actions such as the Montana suit to close out users after the deal was done. What a dream, huh? What have I been smokin'
I think that the attitude demonstrated by the members of Loyal Order of the Scared Foot in Forest shows that no matter what the deal, the access will always be threatened.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-26-09

"There's a idea of a slogan in one of the above posts that I could support

"NO WHEELS IN WILDERNESS for NO NEW WILDERNESS."

I could live with that.

Comment By Corvus Strang, 5-26-09

Max,


I would support it, if it also had this provision:

"a binding irrevocable restraint of new" postings from Mike V.


Corvus

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-26-09

corvus, you have it.

who's says we can't work together!!

Comment By Dave Skinner, 5-26-09

Ted,
No more wilderness in Montana, or anywhere for that matter, until one condition is met, one which was intended in the original Wilderness Act. In short, This and No More.
The ONLY additional wilderness I will ever support are ONLY the recommended wildernesses from the first round of forest plans in the middle 1980s, based on the RARE 1 process, which in turn was based on the original intent of the Wilderness Act. That was conducted before the Greens started second-guessing everything and before the agencies were cleared out of common sense managers.
I would support designation of those lands as wilderness, mostly, but I would make designation contingent on successful multiple-use programs resuming on the REST of the national forests. In short, I would want ten years of happy loggers, happy miners, happy hunters, happy campers, happy motorheads, happy gearheads, happy foresters, free from litigational paralysis induced by idiot Greens.
As a final step, after ten years of no litigation monkeywrenching the uses of the "other 98 percent" on the non-wilderness land, each national forest would give the green light to final wilderness designation by having a general election vote in the counties containing each national forest, a yay or a nay on whether the multiple use plan has been successfully implemented.
A no vote resets the clock for another ten years, a yes vote designates the wilderness with a permanent ban on any future designations.

Comment By the rel mike, 5-26-09

Are you reading this pompous garbage, guys, neighbors? Isn't it exactly what I told you? It's just a small town and he's just a piker. Like I said, the sooner we can run this puke out of business locally, the sooner his pompous strutting will be over and the sooner we'll be better off regionally and nationally. Don't read it and weep; read it and act.

Comment By Mike, 5-26-09

Bill while I agree with you most of the time, the BRC is actually for reverting protected wilderness to roaded, motorized and mining lands. They don't want to keep something for themselves, but rather to simply end the wilderness act, and take away wilderness for all users.

Also, motorized activity is already the highest use of our national forest lands by default.

Comment By Mike, 5-26-09

Dave Skinner:

You say we should "tolerate" diversity on national forest lands, yet you work for a group (the Blue Ribbon Coalition) which actively seeks to remove roadless and wilderness areas in the the roaded and motorized category. The BRC actively seeks to remove widlerness study areas as well.

The BRc has no use for rare wildlife. They have no use for quiet recreation. Who funds the BRC? Take a look:

Boise Cascade, Potlatch, U.S. Forest Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, the Western States Petroleum Association, Chevron, and Exxon,The Idaho Montana, Nevada and Colorado Mining Associations Crown Butte Mines, Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Polaris and Ski-Doo.

The truth is that the Blue Ribbon Coalition is an industry funded anti-conservation group with the main goal of ending wilderness.

There's no honor at all to be had. They simply don't want that kind of outdoor experience to exist in this world. Their mentality is that it's "useless" land.

Comment By Arne P. Ryason, 5-26-09

It should be noted that Mike Vandeman advocates human-free wilderness areas: http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/overview . Note that hiking boots are in the same column as bikes, cars and mining equipment. This is also part of United Nations Agenda 21. All trails damage the environment, causing compaction of soil, etc. and must be eliminated. The ultimate goal of Agenda 21, NREPA, etc. is to get humans out of the wilderness.

In Idaho we have the largest Wilderness in the lower 48 States, the Frank Church. Most hikers are effectively locked out of the interior due to the sheer size of the place. Unless you can afford an equestrian outfitter, an airplane ride or a rafting outfitter, the average hiker cannot physically carry enough to hike through the whole thing unsupported in a reasonable length of time. This area would be a perfect candidate for Mike Vandeman's people-free Wilderness. All you'd have to do is buy some private in-holdings, tear up a few landing strips and buy out some outfitters. The introduced Canadian wolves will scare away the rest of the people.

Bicyclists are able to travel farther per day than hikers, therefore bicycles must be banned in order to further the goals of the environmentalist agenda. Mountain bikers are all, without exception, narcissistic liars: http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/mtb17 .

Humans are not part of nature, having been planted here by aliens, and seek to destroy the environment for their own selfish interests. We should all kill ourselves: http://www.vhemt.org/ ;-)

Comment By Corvus Strang, 5-26-09

Arne,

Mike V is insane. You don't need to refute his diatribes. Also, reading his pacbell musings has been proven to lower your IQ by a dozen points or more.

He's actually a spinstress living in Kansas City. He cares not at all about bikes and even less about wilderness.

Corvus

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-27-09

GW; - "I could entrust them to Mike Vandeman, who after 10 years would return them to me in pristine condition."

No, point is he wouldn't return them - unless you are reincarnated as a chipmunk! MikeV would like to keep all humans out.

Comment By gw, 5-27-09

It is true, Mike Vandeman would like to see some human-free zones. But he certainly doesn't advocate for all ALL public lands to be human-free zones. And in any case, either way, land entrusted to him would be respected rather than ravaged, exploited, raped, pillaged, plundered and bespoiled.

Let's put it in the form of a metaphor. Which is indicative of sincere love? To love someone because of who they are? Or to love someone because of the ways you can use them?

Mike V loves the land for what it is, the geology, wildlife, ecology, all the things that actually comprise the land in its natural state, with or without his own presence.

You guys only care about what you can use. And from the attitude I'm reading here, as an American taxpayer I'd hesitate to entrust you guys with an anthill.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-27-09

And you call Mike Vandeman insane? -- no I'll let him do his own work.
From the estimed mind of Doc V,
"Cold" Fusion and the Destruction of Life on the Earth"
and I quote....
"....Adding oxygen to the atmosphere may seem like a good thing, but I am told that if the concentration of oxygen reaches a certain level, all of the world's forests will spontaneously combust!"

OK, I had some extra time this morning, so I went to Doc V's web site [if this guy was my IT guy I would fire him - what a crap site] and I read a few of the MTB rants, some of his anti-car drivel and then I stumble upon that gem of a "science" article on Cold Fusion.
He can't decide if it's a threat because it will use up all the water in the world [not supportable by any thing closely resembling a FACT] or if the whole world will spontaneously explode in flames. [spark that sets the world ablaze will be caused by MTBer , in case you didn't know]. This is so far from possible as to be unlikely even as a plot for some B-grade Sci-Fi movie much less environmental science.

But wait, that's not all....

He would have garbage either not picked up in East Bay parks and rely on an "education campaign" or he would hire the homeless to peddle bicycles towing carts to haul trash.

He would close all parks and make access nearly impossible
QUOTE...."But managing parks as they should be managed -- as wildlife habitat, with an absolute minimum of human access (e.g. a road to the edge of the park, with no parking lot)"

He's
Anti-Private Property [wonder if he owns a home or is a 50 year old renter]
QUOTE.....This absurdity is what underlies the "Private Property" myth...

Anti- Mapping [this one is funny, really - you can't tell me where not to ride if you don't have a map of where I not supposed to be, can you?]
QUOTE....We don't need more maps, we need to start de-mapping the scanty scraps of viable habitat that remain on the Earth

Anti-DOG, as companion animal [does he suggest that we release all canines in Wilderness??]
QUOTE....From Mike V's anti Dog Park letters to Ed. in 1993, "dogs should not be allowed in the city: there is no place for them to run free and have a satisfying life as a dog. I think it is cruel to raise a dog (and therefore probably people as well) in this concrete desert"
and just Anti-capitalism, ant-car, anti-THE POPE [look it up] and anti-MAN as far as I can tell

If you have a hour or two to waste, say around 4:20 one afternoon you ought to cruise Doc. V's site - you will know the definition of the following.
Self-Righteousness - the repeated EQUAL ACCESS, where we all have access if we walk like MikeV.

Sanctamoneous - LAZY, that's one of his favorites, you have never done any MTBing if you think it's a LAZY Man's pursuit. Walking is lazy.

Repetitive [I found the same phrases and stories used repeatedly, like the "Boring Trail, wanted a bike for 2 seconds" one]

Delusional - see cold fusion, trash pick up, no roads, no maps . I actually am surprised Doc V has a computer. [a Tandy I hope] as he is a bit of a Luddite

I expect a sad, bitter and lonely sort of angry curmudgeon before his time - I really would love to meet his guy. I'll be in the Bay Area for a race next month. 60,000 of us will be drive wildlife crazy at Laguna Seca

OK, phones ringing - work day begins

Comment By gw, 5-27-09

You try to make your own stance more amenable by insulting a convenient scapegoat. Who cares what Mike V. thinks about cold fusion? The topic is use/abuse of taxpayer land. Apparently you want to distract the reader by bringing up irrelevent side issues.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-27-09

GW - You supported his sanity - I responded to show a misguided, out of touch, wacko, typifying what I view as a threat to my personal nirvana. The Land-based Wheeled Vehicle, in it's many forms, represents my God and my Scared Art.

He [& you] champions a view of public land access to which I am diametrically opposed. It's all good as long as you walk like Doc V.

Matter of fact, if you were trying to find two absolute opposites in world perspectives among men, I image Mike and Max would be near perfect polar opposites.

I do hope Mike V hates BBQ too!

Comment By Dave Skinner, 5-27-09

Wow, this thread would make a great movie:
THE THREAD THAT WOULD NOT DIE.
Popcorn, anyone?

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-27-09

NewWest should up their web banner rates - traffic must be up 200%

Comment By Arne P. Ryason, 5-27-09

Please remember, folks like Mike Vandeman are very important. Without outspoken opponents of mountain biking, cyclists would not be inspired to become politically active. I remember a guy named Mel Beck who used to write anti-bicycle diatribes in Marin County newspapers many years ago. He is the one who inspired me to do a little activism in Marin, which ultimately led to the formation of the Bicycle Trails Council, etc. For this reason I have nominated Mr. Vandeman to the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. I hope others who are members of this organization would second my nomination: http://www.mtnbikehalloffame.com/ . I'm serious. Without outspoken critics, mountain bikers might sit idly by and watch trails quietly close. Mike Vandeman should be an inspiration to all mountain bikers.

Mike has a really important point that I agree with. It is something that I also thought of long ago. If we can close areas to logging, mining, motorized uses and others, why stop there? Why do equestrians and hikers have special privileges? Why not close an area to all human entry? If that's too much, why not close an area to all but those humans who will stick to stone age methods? No nylon clothes or Vibram soles. You could only enter wearing animal skins, moccasins on your feet, carry a stone knife, supplies of pemmican and the like. It would be interesting to observe a true human-free wilderness for a few hundred years.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-27-09

Luddites, beware of what you wish for! You might just get it.

Here's what I mean. Following up on Arne Ryason's post, let me quote from the Nova Scotia (Canada) Wilderness Areas Protection Act (N.S. Stats. 1988, ch. 27, § 1, as amended, N.S. Stats. 2005, ch. 56, § 18):

"Prohibitions

"17 . . . (2) Except as provided in this Act or the regulations, within a wilderness area no person shall

"(d) create, construct, maintain or operate a trail, road, railway, aircraft landing strip or helicopter pad;

"(e) use or operate a vehicle or bicycle;

"(f) camp, tent or occupy the land;

". . .

"(l) light or maintain a fire;

". . .

"Offence

"30 (1) Every person who contravenes this Act or the regulations is guilty of an offence and is liable, on summary conviction

". . . (b) in the case of an individual, to a fine not exceeding five hundred thousand dollars or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or to both."

(Italics added.)

How would the antibike types on this thread who are so sure that their uses of Wilderness are sacrosanct and pure like it if the U.S. Wilderness Act of 1964 had those prohibitions?

Comment By gw, 5-27-09

I don't care if Mike V. wears a tin foil hat and sleeps in a bathtub.
If I owned land that I cared about and wanted responsible stewardship, I'd choose him over you guys. Why? Because I know he would protect my investment.

Ooops, wait a minute. I do own land that I care about. I'm an American taxpayer.

Comment By Ted Stroll, 5-27-09

And here's something else that the Nova Scotia Wilderness Areas Protection Act provides for. It's along the lines of what Bill and others on this thread and the prior threads have been suggesting (but—I'm sorry Bill—it appears to allow for motorized too):

"Certain Recreational Uses

23

. . .

"(5) The Minister may issue a licence permitting the holder of the licence to use a vehicle or bicycle on a trail or route within a wilderness area to enable access for wilderness recreation, sport fishing or traditional patterns of hunting or trapping if

"(a) the wilderness area is included in a Schedule to this Act and the trail or route existed before February 9, 1993; or

"(b) in any other wilderness area, the trail or route existed before the area was designated as a wilderness area,

"and, in the opinion of the Minister

"(c) the continued use will have a minimal environmental impact on the wilderness area; and

"(d) no reasonable alternative exists to enable the access.

"(6) The Minister may require a trail or route in a wilderness area to be realigned or re-routed as necessary to minimize the environmental impact on the wilderness area.

"(7) A licence issued pursuant to this Section shall designate specific routes for use within the wilderness area and may contain such other terms and conditions as are considered necessary, in the opinion of the Minister, for the protection of the wilderness area."

(Italics added.)

Sounds like a template for an accommodation in this country, eh?

Comment By Corvus Strang, 5-27-09

gw,

"responsible stewardship" is a loaded term and subject to interpretation.

You don't own the land. You are 1 of 300 million (and counting) shareholders of the land. You certainly have a stake, and a voice.

Despite it's shortcomings, our democracy is a democracy. (Though in more cynical moods I think of it as a Theocratic Plutocracy (ever met a politician who didn't espouse a devote religious belief and benefit from a 7 figure bank account? (I digress.)))

Point is: Mike V. does not accept that there are a myriad of folks with an interest in the protection and use of wild places; and more importantly - some of those folks want to kill and eat things in those wild places, ride the bicycles in those places and otherwise recreate in a way that gives them a sense of pleasure and nirvana.

I'm not arguing for a wide-open, do-as-you-please attitude. I believe that there are ways to accommodate most folks, most of the time and protect what little seems to be left of the wide open spaces, flora, and fauna that make up the iconoclastic American West.

Mike V. does not believe people should ride bikes on public lands. That is not a democratic view. It's either Fascist or Socialist - depending on the way he intends to enforce it.

Whether he's insane or not is, of course, complete conjecture on my part. But the "sky is falling" routine about bicycles is tiring - and there's the notion that continuing to do (or say) the same thing, with the expectation of different results might be a definition of insanity.

Of course, I keep pouring rye into a glass with an ice cube expecting to become rich and powerful, but time and again, it doesn't happen . . .

cs

Comment By Todd, 5-27-09

gw, I am so glad to finally find the owner of the federal land in the vicinity. It is BLM land, and raw, untouched. It is also covered with weeds that dry and blow into my yeard and others. Please come at the earliest possible date and clean up the weeds and burn them so they do not go to see and reseed the entire area again and again and again. If you cannot, let us know your address and we'll have someone send you, the owner, the bill.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-27-09

... who cares, it's post-4:20 and I just read the one where the Doc writes REI and tells them to stop selling hiking boots! Seriously this guy tells REI they need to stop with hiking boots
So you hike barefoot? In Indian moccasins? Better yet, he tells Sierra Club they should stop promoting wilderness recreation. Just amazing stuff.

Yeah maybe the thread has deteriorated but just getting to know one Michael J. Vandeman, PhD has been a hoot. I've read his book reviews, his letters to editors, politicians, bureaucrats, other environmentalists and there is just this "I know the ONE TRUE WAY" that is consistent through all. He has been given a clarity of truth and purpose that is astounding, truly amazing, certainly beyond mere mortals. If he were President, all Transportation, Environmental, Population and Economic problems would be solved with just a blink and the wiggle of his so-wise nose. I mean it really would be funny if there weren't people who took him seriously

But you know what's not funny? I found a bunch of different posts about the deaths of mountain bike riders that seem gleeful in nature, sort of a "see I told you so" attitude, as if their fate was deserved from Mike V, PhD. That's not amusing and really sick behavior.
-30-
......and with that we return to our regularly scheduled programming

Comment By gw, 5-27-09

Todd.....please identify "weeds." A course in Field Biology might help. Might also help in appreciation and respect for natural communities in general.

CS.....of course I am only one of many taxpayers who are stakeholders in the well-being of public lands. And the vast majority of us are NOT mountain bikers, ATV enthusiasts, miners, loggers or others who seem to think they should have free reign in defacing our mutual property.

Funny how if you vandalize a building, you're a criminal. But if you vandalize nature, it's just the American Way, huh?

Comment By Arne P. Ryason, 5-27-09

Note to "gw": The so-called "public lands" are really owned by the federal government. Entry into a designated Wilderness is by permit only and can be revoked at any time. When one fills out a Wilderness Permit, he or she signs on a line, agreeing to obey the rules, that says "Visitor's signature." I always cross out "Visitor," which probably has a legal definition somewhere, and write in "Citizen." I can agree to obey the rules on federally designated Wilderness lands, but I will not agree to alter my citizenship status to that of "Visitor." Your federal income tax dollars go to nothing more than servicing the interest on the national debt. The so-called "public" lands are probably owned by those we are indebted to, thanks to our wonderful politicians. I suppose we'll see Chinese logging crews soon.

Ted - Your above criteria should be applied to the former dairy ranches in the Philip Burton Wilderness in Point Reyes National Seashore. I'd go one step further and challenge the designation of that area as Wilderness, because it was not "roadless" to begin with and not "primeval" in any way. Supposedly some of the ranchers logged their properties before the feds took possession. My friends and I had been riding our sturdy old 10 speed bikes on those roads long before there were so-called "mountain bikes." It used to be legal, even after it was designated as Wilderness. Park Rangers occasionally drive their trucks and ATVs on these former ranch roads, now referred to as "trails," which is allowed, in case of emergency, under the 1964 Wilderness Act. It's a place I like to refer to as a "Wildernessland." In a real wilderness, if you make a mistake you might end up as scavenger food.

Comment By Max Frisson, 5-27-09

Actually GW, the combined constituency of wheeled recreation and commercial users of public lands is a FAR larger group than the few, very few, Americans that will ever strap on a backpack and venture anywhere near a Wilderness.

Most Americans care very little one way or the other

Comment By gw, 5-27-09

American's don't actually have to use the wilderness to care about it's integrity, and want to see their investment protected for generations to come.

Comment By Arne P. Ryason, 5-27-09

GW - If a tree falls in the wilderness and nobody hears it, is our investment protected? The average person who cares about wilderness ought to visit it once in a while to make sure it is not being exploited. I do not trust the government to keep track of things so I visit and "inspect" occasionally. Here's an inspection report from last year: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzO1xBiVtqc . Located in the Frank Church Wilderness.

Comment By gw, 5-27-09

Arne.....that is an incredibly gorgeous place, and very well-done video. Thank you so much for sharing it! I think it's the only post here that has actually made my blood pressure go DOWN.

Comment By Arne P. Ryason, 5-28-09

Thanks, GW, I like to go to places like that to lower my blood pressure as well. I'll be going on another "inspection" tour as soon as the streams and rivers are a little lower. Ah, summer in Idaho ...

Comment By Todd, 5-28-09

gw, the weeds are mostly tumbleweeds, kochia weed, crab grass, some russian thistle. Were you looking for the scientific names instead of the common names?

Comment By gw, 5-28-09

You might want to find out which are native grasses and which are not. The non-native grasses, if invasive, could be a habitat problem that should be addressed. But given triage, the park service may not have the money or man-power to do much about it.

Comment By Canonrad, 6-02-09

I'm a new visitor to the site and I have been amazed by the anti bike virulence. I have for the most part been most comfortable having tree hugging, granola eating dirtbags as friends, and we all thought we were pretty dedicated green environmentalists. But never did it occur to us that trail riding made us destroyers of the universe. Sometimes we walk and enjoy small treasures only visible at the slower pace, other times we ride fast and enjoy the thrill. It was never that contemplation was superior to speed. They are different equally rewarding, equally valid experiences. Some times you need to dance and sometimes you need to sprint.
Before I moved the Bitterroot Valley in western Montana from Colorado, I was baffled by how anyone could oppose adding more Wilderness. Then I moved here and gained an appreciation for the local viewpoint. When I see how much more Wilderness the NREPA would add locally I was amazed. Many of the trails I currently ride would be closed. Between the private land on the valley floor and the Wilderness added, there would be little room left locally for mountain biking. I don't want to have to drive and increase my carbon footprint for the privilege of riding. I want to live and play locally.
One of our concerns with increasing trail closures is the increased potential for user conflicts on the few remaining trails. At least still where I ride, trail use by everyone is low enough there are few encounters. That could change as we are forced into smaller and smaller areas
As a pragmatist and a cyclist, I think Bill is on the right path. As currently implemented the Wilderness Act is a bludgeon as one of our only tools to protect ecosystems, create wildlife corridors, and ensure the quality of the watersheds. We need a buffer zone, call it Backcountry Areas or Primitive Areas around the core Wilderness that can provide the protections that we all desire and still support non motorized recreational use. Whether we hike, ride a horse, ski, bike, or go looking for enlightenment, it is all recreation.
Just a few more comments. Local input is critical. Rules and regulations that fit busier Primitive Areas close to urban cities, may not be appropriate for lower density rural Backcountry Areas. I remember when I first moved here, one of the few mountain biking Bitterroot natives told me that the Sierra Club would be after bikes next and we had a lot arguments over beer about that. I would argue that MTBs are a low impact, earth friendly, human powered way to get close to nature. Who would ever want to ban them? we are a natural member of the quiet use coalition. He would say, "First they closed the mines, then banned the logging, then went after OHVs. Mountain Bikes will be next." After reading the comments I'm not so sure that he was wrong.

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