From Mary West in the Auburn Journal: The Northernmost segment of the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) was my first hike of the fall season. The 165-mile trail meanders around beautiful Lake Tahoe. You can break the TRT down to 14 day hikes outlined on the TRT web site (tahoerimtrail.org). I jumped on the TRT at the Brockway Summit trailhead. This segment of the TRT leads 20.2 miles at the northernmost portion of the trail to the Mt. Rose Trailhead to the east and south.

If 20 miles is more than enough trail for you, consider a very pleasant 1.5 mile trek up to the peak of Brockway Mountain to Picnic Rock. The three-mile round trip hike starts at the parking area across Highway 267 near Kings Beach.

The trail is moderate up to the peak. The well-defined path leads you up a series of switchbacks to lava rock formations at the top. The flat topped rocks provide great seating to take in the view of Lake Tahoe, enjoy a picnic lunch, and your companions; people and pups. The trail is well marked so no worries about getting lost. With Tahoe being a popular world-class destination expect plenty of other hikers, bicycles and equestrians on the multi-use trail.

The hike down is easy with gravity on your side. I enjoyed the peek-a-boo views of Lake Tahoe between the towering pines the length of the trail. Some recent clearing of timber, lower down near the road, made for a cluttered and messy looking start to the trail but quickly clears to the alpine trail I look forward to when hiking at this elevation (7,009 feet).

Other hikes from this point include Brockway to Martis Peak at 4.3 miles and Brockway to Mt. Rose wilderness at 7.6 miles.
To get there from Auburn head east on Interstate 80 to Highway 267 toward Tahoe. The parking area is on the roadside just South of Brockway Summit between Truckee and Kings Beach.

The temps are generally cooler. Consider taking an extra layer to stay warm. Weather this time of year changes quickly. Be prepared.

I want to add a note about the care and devotion that was obvious to me on this trail. I usually pack out a trash bag of empty water and juice containers, granola bar wrappers, etc. No trash was to be found on this trail. The signage was above average. The blue arrows marking the TRT were numerous. It is good to know you are on the right path when following a new trail.

CLICK HERE to see the original article and Mary's photos in The Auburn Journal newspaper.

"...we feel it is unwise to amend the Wilderness Act—one of the nation’s most important conservation laws.."

The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) is the leading mountain bike advocacy organization in the United States. This is their written statement to Tom McClintock, Chairman, Subcommittee on Federal Lands, House Natural Resources Committee.
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STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL MOUNTAIN BICYCLING ASSOCIATION HEARING ON HR.1349 – TO AMEND THE WILDERNESS ACT TO ENSURE THAT THE USE OF BICYCLES, WHEELCHAIRS, STROLLERS, AND GAME CARTS IS NOT PROHIBITED IN WILDERNESS AREAS, AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES
SUBMITTED TO THE HOUSE SUBCOMMITTEE ON FEDERAL LAND

DECEMBER 6,2017

The Honorable Tom McClintock, Chairman,
Subcommittee on Federal Lands
House Natural Resources Committee
U.S. House of Representatives

Dear Chairman McClintock,
The International Mountain Bicycling Association (“IMBA”) is honored to provide written testimony regarding HR 1349, a bill that directly impacts the mountain bicycling community.Founded in 1988, IMBA is the leading mountain bike advocacy organization in the United States, and anon-profit 501(c)(3) educational association. Our mission is to create, enhance and protect great places to ride mountain bikes. In pursuing our mission, we are a catalyst for putting trails on the ground all across the country and positioning mountain biking and trails as a tool communities can use to solve many challenges; including economic development, public health and wellness, and youth engagement in the outdoors. IMBA’s 35,000 passionate members and more than 400 local chapters and clubs ride on and help maintain tens of thousands of miles of trails on public lands across the country, contributing more than $2.8 million in-kind volunteer labor annually. IMBA’s network also includes more than 1,000 corporate and retail supporters who influence the $887 billion outdoor recreation economy, which supports 7.6 million American jobs.For 30 years, IMBA has increased trail access for an estimated 8 million mountain bikers, including nearly 11,000 high school athletes in the National Interscholastic Cycling Association. Mountain bikers are widely considered to be exemplary public land stewards and highly engaged advocates, and IMBA is proud to represent these community leaders.IMBA’s Position on The Wilderness Act IMBA’s longstanding position on trail access in federally designated Wilderness is as follows:
IMBA will continue to respect both the Wilderness Act and the federal land agencies' regulations that bicycles are not allowed in existing congressionally designated Wilderness areas. IMBA is not supporting H.R. 1349.As part of our commitment to trail access and public land stewardship, we have been involved in discussions about Wilderness and other forms of legislatively driven protections for public lands for decades. We find that when mountain bikers are given a seat at the table in these discussions, we can protect important trails while finding common ground with those who are looking to create new conservation designations.Examples like the Continental Divide Wilderness and Recreation Act in Colorado and the Blackfoot-Clearwater Stewardship Act in Montana have been widely celebrated and serve as models for how collaborative efforts involving mountain bikers throughout the process can lead to advancing both conservation and recreation. But some discussions are less inclusive and, in those cases, we actively oppose new Wilderness designations that would negatively impact revered riding opportunities.Encouraging Mountain Bike-Friendly Land Protections We are actively working with leaders in the conservation community to ensure that the aforementioned collaborative scenario becomes the standard across the country. As we gain ground in these efforts, we feel it is unwise to amend the Wilderness Act—one of the nation’s most important conservation laws—when the outcome mountain bikers desire can be reached through on-the-ground collaborative efforts.While trail loss due to past Wilderness designations remains a frustrating reality to many mountain bikers,where possible we work with members of Congress to regain access to important lost trails. The most recent example of this was the Columbine-Hondo Wilderness Act of 2014 that reconnected a cherished high-alpine loop by removing a severed part of the trail from Wilderness.As part of our commitment to balancing conservation and human-powered recreation, we are helping to drive legislative efforts that will protect the places we ride by establishing a more uniform system of National Recreation Area designations with specific inventory and recommendation guidelines for recreation. Representative Rob Bishop’s Recreation Not Red Tape Act (H.R. 3400) does just that, and IMBA actively supports that legislation.Mountain bikers are particularly encouraged by the Volunteer Enhancement Initiative that H.R. 3400would establish, which will help IMBA chapters better engage with federal agencies to maintain trails and address the federal trail maintenance backlog. The bill would also expand recreation opportunities by identifying seasonal locations ripe for additional recreation assets, and would add recreation to the missions of more federal land management agencies to increase opportunities for places to ride.Inconsistent Management of Recommended Wilderness Separate and apart from congressionally designated Wilderness, the U.S. Forest Service uses an administrative designation called “recommended wilderness.” This administrative designation, which is a power wielded by the bureaucracy and does not require congressional input, is inconsistently applied across Forest Service regions. As a result, recommended wilderness has effectively closed 800 miles of cherished mountain bike trails.In most of its regions, the U.S. Forest Service allows continued mountain bike use within recommended wilderness areas. However, Region 1 has taken a different approach. Region 1 automatically excludes all types of mechanized transportation from these areas, even human-powered forms, despite the forest service manual’s recommendation to follow a hierarchical adaptive management approach before prohibiting such uses.The unique path that Region 1 has taken has had far-reaching impacts in the mountain biking world. In a 2016 Travel Management Plan, the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana used two recommended wilderness areas to close 178 miles of cherished trails. Similarly, in 2009, the Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest in Montana used the creation of other recommended wilderness areas to close 367 miles of trail to mountain biking.As more national forests undergo plan revisions under the 2012 Planning Rule, thousands of miles of unique and highly valued trails could be at risk if the current trend in Region 1 continues or is expanded to other areas of the country. A diversity of trails and trail experiences are important to mountain bikers across the country and they are also an essential part of the nation’s recreation infrastructure that creates millions of jobs, many of them in rural areas.We have raised these concerns with the Secretary of Agriculture and will not waiver in our fight to see this administrative mechanism reformed in a way that makes sense for mountain bikers across the country.Mechanized Versus Motorized We also want to briefly highlight a growing need for Congress and the federal agencies to more carefully consider the differences between mechanized and motorized uses of trails and public lands. Frequently,legislation will give direction to agencies regarding “mechanized or motorized” uses, lumping both platforms into a single sentence. In many cases, treating these uses as the same or even substantially similar does not reflect important differences in patterns of use and unique management requirements.Conclusion IMBA’s members and staff work tirelessly to create, enhance and protect great places to ride. We are unwavering champions for access and land protection that allows robust recreation in America. We look forward to continuing our work with this committee and other champions of recreation to ensure that the interests of mountain bikers are clearly heard.

CLICK HERE to see the original statement.

(Transparency: MLT has never taken a political stand in the past 8 years, but bill HR 1349 that would allow mt. bikes and mechanical transport in our Wilderness areas is different. We are solidly against this assault against Wilderness and will continue to post articles from around the nation.)
"This new bill would open up wilderness areas to bikes—but the arguments in favor of it don't hold water
Earlier this month, in a triumph of hope over horse sense, some mountain bikers cajoled their congressmen to introduce H.R. 1349, a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would amend the Wilderness Act. This bill would allow biking throughout the 109 million acres of the national wilderness preservation system. A different bill with the same goal was introduced last year in the U.S. Senate.
It’s tempting to laugh off this latest assault as a fizzy bottle rocket launched against the stalwart walls of one of the nation’s founding environmental laws—tempting, except that today we live in a land where alterna-facts grow on trees that are soon to be salvage logged and Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, the new overseer of our nation’s wilderness, once mailed out a Christmas card featuring himself as Santa in a sleigh laden with oil derricks, mining axes, and dead wolves for all the good girls and boys. Right now, there’s a war raging over the future of your public lands, and everything’s up for grabs. If it’s sacred to you, chances are someone is coming for it.

In this case, that “someone” is mountain bikers.

The bill swaddles its goal in populism: to “amend the Wilderness Act to ensure that the use of bicycles, wheelchairs, strollers, and game carts is not prohibited in Wilderness Areas, and for other purposes.”
In Trumpland, however, where even the ludicrous is in play, even laughably bad ideas like this now must be jousted. So let’s demolish some shibboleths quickly, shall we? Here are five lies advocates are using to justify bikes’ admission into wilderness areas.

1. This Has Nothing to Do with the Public Lands Debate If you’re paying attention at all, you know there’s a war being waged by the GOP-controlled Congress against federal public lands—an all-out effort to drill it, scrape it, sell it, or hand it over to the states to manage. This bill may be only about access to a few, but its implications are larger.
“This is yet another piece of legislation in a broader agenda to roll back protections on federal public lands and the environment,” Michael Carroll, senior director of the People Outdoors Program for the Wilderness Society, told me. “There’s no other way to look at it.”

That talk isn’t the conspiracy stuff of wee-hours talk radio. The congressman who introduced the bill is Rep. Tom McClintock, who has a 4 percent lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters. McClintock is vice chair of the House Natural Resources Committee and is working with Utah Rep. Rob Bishop to unwind federal hold on and management of public lands. So far this session, McClintock voted to make it easier for the feds to dispense with public lands and to weaken the Antiquities Act, which has been used throughout our nation’s history to such dastardly effect as creating the future Grand Canyon, Bryce, Arches, and Joshua Tree National Parks.

“As a mountain biker, I’m super angry at this bill,” says Carroll, who races mountain bikes in Durango for a team. He views it “as a means to drive a wedge between the mountain biking community and the conservation community.” Play to people’s self-interests. Divide and conquer.

Last year, some 115 groups sent a letter to Congress opposing the Senate bill. Though the International Mountain Bicycling Association has previously said it doesn’t believe mountain bikes belong in the wilderness (which prompted the founding of the Sustainable Trails Coalition), the organization didn’t sign the letter to Congress and hasn’t come out against either of the bikes-in-wilderness bills. That’s gutless.

2. Mountain Bikers Are Losing Access Those who push mountain biking in wilderness bellyache that their sport is under assault from trail closures around the West. “Unfair!” they scream. The answer is more wilderness elbow room, they say. There’s a small flaw in their argument: it’s not true.

There are no reliable statistics nationwide, or for the western United States, about the miles of mountain bike trails. Still, there’s no evidence that mountain bikers are losing places to ride. In a spring 2016 survey of IMBA members, 76 percent of respondents said that nearby trail access increased over the past decade, and another 18 percent said access stayed the same. That’s 94 percent saying that their access was either as good as before or better.
“Off the cuff, we know that the number of miles is going up because people are building more trails and inventorying them spatially,” a researcher at the Outdoor Alliance, which is working on compiling a more exact tally of trails, told me earlier this month.

Have some trails closed? Of course. The most contentious example may be the Boulder-White Clouds area outside Sun Valley, Idaho, where a messy conclusion to years of wrangling resulted in the loss of some high-alpine mountain bike routes in 2015—but also resulted in the creation of a 275,000-acre wilderness, which mountain bikers had fought in favor of other designations that might let them continue to ride.

A larger trend, though, is mountain bikers demanding access to Wilderness Study Areas. WSAs are federal lands that have been marked for possible future wilderness designation. A special law that established these study areas on Forest Service lands in Montana decades ago ordered that their “existing wilderness character” be preserved. In other states, federal law dictates that on Bureau of Land Management lands, for instance, WSAs can’t be impaired so much that they can’t be considered for wilderness designation in the future by Congress.

Yet in Montana and elsewhere, mountain bikers have been demanding that WSAs should not be declared wilderness anymore, because they have ridden there, sometimes for years. Mountain biking groups have become as much a user group as snowmobilers or ATVers, fighting for their piece of the pie instead of thinking first about conservation. When mountain bikers make demands, other groups follow suit.

3. Mountain Biking Used to Be Legal in Wilderness The 1964 Wilderness Act is blunt: “[T]here shall be no temporary road, 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.” (Emphasis added.)
The Sustainable Trails Coalition, the group pushing the bikes-in-wilderness idea, says that its “modest reform” only turns the clock back to a time when bikes indeed were permitted in wilderness.

“They have half of a point,” acknowledges Chris Barns, a retired wilderness specialist and BLM representative to the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center. In 1966, two years after the Wilderness Act was passed, the U.S. Forest Service wrote up its regulations to interpret and implement the act. At that time, the Forest Service was the only agency to have wilderness in its care. Its regulations defined “mechanical transport” as no different than a “motor vehicle.” That seemed to leave wiggle room for bikes. But that was an oversight, Barns says. After all, the act itself uses two different terms. The oversight was soon noticed. “They changed that soon after,” says Barns.

Significantly, none of the other three agencies that would later oversee wilderness made the same mistake when they wrote their regulations. What’s more, Congress has had ample time to clarify the language of the act to allow bikes if it had meant to allow them, as it did to clarify the ability to graze, Barns says. And Congress hasn’t done that.

4. Local Managers Should Make the Call
On its first attempt, one year ago, to pry open wilderness to bikes, the STC pushed a bill that would have tried to give local land managers some discretion about where bikes could go. “[W]e are not in favor of a blanket permit” to allow bikes in wilderness, the group says on its site.

Unfortunately, the latest bill is just that—a blanket permit: Section 4(c) of the Wilderness Act (16 U.S.C. 1133(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following: “Nothing in this section shall prohibit the use of motorized wheelchairs, non-motorized wheelchairs, non-motorized bicycles, strollers, wheelbarrows, survey wheels, measuring wheels, or game carts within any wilderness area.” (Emphasis added.)

The STC’s Ted Stroll told me this bill would still give land managers discretion to decide where bikes could go. “The bill does nothing to interfere with the numerous land-use regulations in the Code of Federal Regulations and federal agency policy manuals and handbooks by which the Forest Service, National Park Service, and Bureau of Land Management regulate when, where, and under what circumstances people can visit federal land,” Stroll wrote in an email, citing regulations that, for instance, rule out camping right next to lakes in wilderness areas.
Four different experts on the Wilderness Act told me that Stroll is wrong—that the bill opens the wilderness gates to bikes, everywhere, without qualification.

Then there’s this: wheelchairs have been allowed in wilderness since soon after the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. The authors of this bill know this. Yet they added “wheelchairs” to hide their motives behind seeming to help the handicapped. Greasy? You could oil your chain.

5. Wilderness Won’t Be Negatively Impacted Finally, can I just say a word or for wilderness?
In creating wilderness, our grasping country showed its most restraint. “Here, man doesn’t rule,” we said to one another. “Here, nature rules.”
Wilderness is not a recreation designation.
Wilderness is not for our entertainment.
Wilderness has other goals.
Wilderness is solitude. It is water quality. It is remaining grizzly habitat, as we squeeze down on bears and most other species.
Wilderness is not supposed to be easy. In wilderness, we abandon even the wheel, and we set out on foot. We come to wilderness to meet the earth as it is, as it was, as it yet might be—if we can hold the line.

To see the original article by Christopher Solomon in Outside magazine CLICK HERE

(Transparency: MLT has never taken a political stand in the past 8 years, but bill HR 1349 that would allow mt. bikes and mechanical transport in our Wilderness areas is different. We are solidly against this assault against Wilderness and will continue to post articles from around the nation. This one is from the Sierra Sun Times.)
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"On Dec. 13, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee passed HR 1349[i], the Mountain Bikes in Wilderness bill sponsored by Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA).  This bill weakens the 1964 Wilderness Act[ii] to allow mountain bikes and other wheeled contraptions into every Wilderness in the nation.

The bill passed 22-18, but initially failed 15-19.  Committee Chair Rob Bishop (R-UT) brought the bill back up again after more Republicans had arrived at the committee markup session.  All Democratic members of the committee opposed the bill, and one Republican (Liz Cheney, R-WY) also voted against it.  The bill will now go to the House floor for a vote.

A mountain biking splinter group, the Sustainable Trails Coalition (STC), has joined forces with the worst anti-wilderness Republicans to promote this attack on Wilderness.  And sadly, both the STC and the Republican promoters in Congress rely on a number of outright falsehoods and deliberate distortions to advance the bill. 

The Republican committee leadership corrupted the hearing process and refused to allow any testimony on the bill but for the STC.  Not one of the 133 conservation organizations that co-signed a letter of opposition to the bill[iii], no wilderness experts from academia or the legal profession, and no wilderness specialists from any of the four federal land management agencies that administer Wilderness were allowed to testify or correct the falsehoods.

Here are some of their most common misrepresentations and outright lies:
• The Wilderness Act doesn’t ban bikes in Wilderness.  Not true. The 1964 Wilderness Act specifically prohibits “mechanical transport” in Wilderness, and the law also mentions the threat of “growing mechanization.”  Bikes are mechanical machines.  A recent Los Angeles Times article[iv] quoted Ed Zahniser, a retired National Park Service official whose father (Howard) wrote the Wilderness Act, “The Wilderness Act clearly says no mechanized uses. How could they possibly say the original act allows this? They are just making it up.”

• The U.S. Forest Service unilaterally banned bikes in 1984.  Not true.  It was the Wilderness Act that banned bikes, not the Forest Service.  And none of the other three federal agencies that oversee Wilderness has ever interpreted the Wilderness Act as allowing bicycles.  Though the initial Forest Service regulations were confusing, the agency’s regulations were made more explicit in 1977 to specifically mention bikes.  Biking bill proponents claim that because the agency’s original regulations mentioned “mechanical transport” but didn’t explicitly name bikes, it means bikes were allowed.  By that measure, snowmobiles, ATVs, and helicopters should also have been allowed because the regulations mentioned only “motor vehicles.”

• Mechanical transport in the Wilderness Act only means motorized vehicles.  Not true.  The Wilderness Act specifically bans both “mechanical transport” and “motor vehicles.”

• Wheelchairs are prohibited in Wilderness.  Not true.  The 1990 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) allow both motorized and non-motorized wheelchairs in Wilderness with reasonable safeguards to avoid abuse of the exception.  And many people with disabilities want to and do enjoy non-mechanized and non-motorized experiences in Wilderness.[v]

• Mountain bikers are prohibited from visiting Wilderness.  Not true.  Only the machines that mountain bikers ride are prohibited in Wilderness; mountain bikers are free to hike, paddle, or horseback ride like other wilderness visitors.

• Mountain bikes don’t do as much trail damage as horses in Wilderness.  Horses certainly create impacts, as do hikers, but the test of whether something is appropriate in Wilderness goes beyond physical impacts.  Mountain bikes destroy wilderness character by the mere presence of these modern machines, by their speed, by their penetration of remote areas, by their destruction of solitude, by their disruption of wildlife, and much more.

Beyond these examples, the bill’s promoters use even more untruths and distortions.[vi]

Make no mistake, HR 1349 is a dangerous attempt to weaken the Wilderness Act and crack open the National Wilderness Preservation System to bikes and other machines, and who knows what else afterward.  It would be extraordinarily sad if this bill becomes law, but it would be even worse because it is based on falsehoods and deliberate distortions.
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Kevin Proescholdt of Minneapolis is the conservation director of Wilderness Watch[vii], a national wilderness conservation organization based in Missoula that is organizing conservationists to oppose HR 1349.

To see the complete article in the Sierra Sun Times CLICK HERE.
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[i] https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/1349/text?q=%7B%22search%22%3A%5B%22hr1349%22%5D%7D&r=1

[ii] https://wildernesswatch.org/wilderness-act.

[iii] http://wildernesswatch.org/images/wild-issues/2017/12-07-2017-Sign-on-letter-Mt-Bikes.pdf.

[iv] http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-mountain-bike-trail-republicans-20171219-story.html.

[v] https://www.wildernessinquiry.org/.

[vi] http://bit.ly/2BSS5zL

[vii] www.wildernesswatch.org.

[viii] http://bit.ly/2Bp5gZP and http://bit.ly/2BSS5zL.

Goal Interference 
The dispute over bikes in HR 1349, the Wilderness Bill, is in part, an argument over aesthetics. When you’re hiking in the woods, you’re there to slow down, get close to nature, and find some peace in a hectic world. A mountain biker speeding around the bend can shatter that peace, leaving your nerves rattled and mood soured. Just knowing bikers could be coming around the corner can add an ambient tension to a hike. Mountain bikers often tell hikers that to avoid problems all they have to do is stay alert, but that state of perpetual vigilance interferes with our ability to relax and appreciate the natural world.  

Hikers want peace and quiet. Bikers want challenge and adventure. Researchers call this “goal interference,” and it’s at the heart of the bikes and Wilderness debate."
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This is an opinion piece written for Sierra Magazine, the publication put out by the Sierra Club, written from a mt. biker's point of view. Photo and opinion by Aaron Teasdale.

"Wild country opened before me like a treasure chest. Matching the mountains to the lines on my topo map, I found a trail better suited to goats and climbed. On a ridgeline in the sky, I navigated talus slopes to an alpine summit where a golden eagle sat, taking in the world. It winged away and I assumed its perch, gazing across mountains beyond mountains, no other humans in sight.

I was in my early 20s, adventuring in the Whitefish Range of northern Montana and having one of my life’s formative backcountry experiences. For years I returned to this same remote area, entranced by its wildness, determined to explore every trail. Except I wasn’t hiking. I was mountain biking. My love affair was with the mountains and bears and raw ridgelines and eagles, but I relished the adventure and challenge of exploring them on two wheels.  
This was in the early days of mountain biking, before much of the controversy over bicycles in wild places. Recently, the question of bikes in the backcountry has taken on a new urgency. On December 13, the House Natural Resources Committee voted 22-18 to move to the House floor a bill, HR 1349, sponsored by California Republican Tom McClintock that would allow bikes in wilderness areas. A companion bill, S.3205, has been introduced in the Senate. If passed, the bills would overturn the long-standing ban on bicycles in federally designated wilderness areas and give local land managers discretion to open trails they deem appropriate to bikes.

Wilderness activists are apoplectic at the thought of bicycles in areas that have long been reserved for only people and horses. The proposed bills, they say, are “a cynical and disingenuous move” to permit bikes in wilderness under the guise of increasing access for people in wheelchairs. Mountain bikers are irate at what they see as unfair restrictions. People on both sides are shouting past each other about “wildernuts” and “wreckreationists.” It’s not exactly constructive dialogue. 
Given the biosphere-altering environmental threats we currently face, the whole controversy might seem a little parochial. But the debate over bikes in wilderness is more important than it might appear, because it gets to the core issue of how we humans relate to and experience the natural world. It’s also perilously divisive at a time when wild nature needs all the defenders it can get.

How did mountain bikers and hikers—both of whom reside in the big tent of outdoorspeople—come to such an internecine feud? And even more important—can we find common ground?

Two Legs Good, Two Wheels Bad?   
Let me be 100 percent clear: Bikes should not be allowed in federal wilderness areas. There is no spot in the Lower 48 that is more than 22 miles from a road, and wilderness areas are one of the few places left for people on foot to find peace and escape modernity’s din. 

But mountain bikers have a place in the backcountry as well. We conservationists need more, not fewer, allies in our efforts to protect wild places—and that will require hikers, backpackers, and other outdoor enthusiasts to make a fresh attempt to understand where bikers are coming from and what they want, too. 

Wilderness is the most protective land designation in the United States. It can exist on any federal land—national forests, national parks, wildlife refuges, BLM properties—and can only be designated by an act of Congress. Within Wilderness (which I’ll differentiate from wild lands without the formal federal designation by capitalizing it) no motorized use of any kind is allowed—no Jeeps, no ATVs, not even chainsaws for trail clearing. 

The Wilderness Act was passed in 1964 in response to the ever-increasing encroachment of roads and automobiles into America’s natural areas. Its defining statement is that Wilderness is “an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

George Nickas, executive director of Wilderness Watch, a sharp-fanged watchdog group, sums up the view of many when he describes the deeper ideals of Wilderness. “Wilderness says there is value beyond us out there,” he says. “The inherent sense that some places should be left alone, that restraint and respect for nature, is what the human species has to embrace for nature to flourish, and ultimately for humans to flourish, on this planet.”

“We can overrun Wildernesses if we want, but we’ve chosen not to,” he continues “Building that sense of restraint and respect, having the human species develop that, is essential to the preservation of the world.”  

Such sentiments inspired the Wilderness Act’s ban on all “motorized equipment or motorboats . . . landing of aircraft [and] . . . other form[s] of mechanical transport.” While the prohibition on “mechanical transport” would appear to apply to bicycles, bikes are not explicitly mentioned in the law, since bicycles capable of traveling rugged trails didn’t yet exist. For decades, anyone who did try riding a bike on singletrack trails in Wilderness likely did so without official intervention. Then, in 1984, the US Forest Service banned bikes within its vast Wilderness lands. The other land management agencies soon followed suit.  
Since the 1980s, mountain biking has exploded in popularity, and off-road biking is now nearly as popular as backpacking. According to the Outdoor Industry of America, there are 8.5 million mountain bikers in America, compared to about 10 million overnight backpackers (and 42 million day hikers). Far from the scruffy counter-culture types who birthed the sport, today’s mountain bikers are lawyers, doctors, mayors, even a president.  

The growth in the popularity of mountain biking inevitably led to some conflict with hikers and equestrians, especially on popular trails near urban centers. This friction soon spread to the backcountry, with some Wilderness proponents accusing backcountry cyclists of selfishly viewing the natural world as nothing more than a personal gymnasium.

Some mountain bikers see the backpacking set as trying to kick them out of some of their most beloved places to ride. “I also love the fact that we have protected wilderness, but I draw the line when these proposals infringe upon some of the best mountain bike trails in the country,” one Oregon cyclist wrote in an online discussion about a proposed Crater Lake Wilderness that would boot bikes from several popular trails.

The tensions are at risk of worsening. Today there are 109 million acres of protected Wilderness in America. Wilderness advocates want to see much more. But many of the roadless areas suitable for Wilderness designation now have mountain bikers using them. And those cyclists—quiet, muscle-powered, outdoor lovers—are using their growing organizational might to ensure they can keep riding there.

Goal Interference 
The dispute over bikes in Wilderness is, in part, an argument over aesthetics. When you’re hiking in the woods, you’re there to slow down, get close to nature, and find some peace in a hectic world. A mountain biker speeding around the bend can shatter that peace, leaving your nerves rattled and mood soured. Just knowing bikers could be coming around the corner can add an ambient tension to a hike. Mountain bikers often tell hikers that to avoid problems all they have to do is stay alert, but that state of perpetual vigilance interferes with our ability to relax and appreciate the natural world.  
Hikers want peace and quiet. Bikers want challenge and adventure. Researchers call this “goal interference,” and it’s at the heart of the bikes and Wilderness debate.  
It seems to this writer that both sides have their blind spots. Mountain bikers often underestimate the impact they have on the experience of hikers, much like ATV riders and snowmobilers don’t appreciate their impact on non-motorized users. Cyclists say, “We’re willing to share, why can’t hikers?” But when bike use on a trail becomes too heavy, many hikers abandon it. That’s not sharing—it’s displacement. 
There’s a technological hierarchy of backcountry trail users, with the more mechanized negatively impacting the less mechanized. Social scientists call it an “asymmetric relationship.” The hierarchy goes something like 1. Hikers 2. Equestrians 3. Mountain bikers 4. Motorcycles/ATVs. The higher numbers typically don’t mind encountering the lower ones, but the reverse is not true, especially as the number of users increase. Canoeists hate motorboats. Skiers hate snowmobiles. Hikers hate mountain bikes.  
This takes on another dimension in Wilderness, where hikers and equestrians go to have primitive experiences in a wild setting. I backpack every summer with my family. We exclusively go to Wilderness areas. Like other backcountry trail users, we’re seeking nowhere. But when you’re hiking, nowhere feels a little more like somewhere if bikes come rolling through. 
Suddenly the vast, indomitable wilderness becomes smaller, more playground than sanctuary. The bicycle is a reminder of the fast-paced civilization we’re trying to leave behind. Not surprisingly, maybe, some backpackers even find their bliss busted by trail runners. As one online commenter wrote: “Once on a backpacking trip (and being quite far away from a trailhead) we came across trail runners who had started from their car that day!... It was weird to have the feeling that I wasn't really in a remote place, it just felt that way until the runners came along.”
By setting aside Wilderness, we are trying to protect wildlife habitat, intact ecosystems, and natural processes. But the truth is, this could be accomplished with other land designations that allow bikes. In Wilderness we’re also trying to protect an experience—of solitude, of wildness, of the primacy of nature. This is valuable: We need places where we move to the old rhythms.  
Too many anti-bike Wilderness advocates seem hesitant to take a stand for this key point. Instead, they try to make an ecological argument against bikes in the wilderness. They would be more intellectually honest if they acknowledged their distaste for bikes on trails fuels much of their philosophical opposition to bikes in Wilderness. Because as it turns out, the ecological argument against bikes in Wilderness is relatively flimsy.

Leave No Trace
The burgeoning field of recreational ecology continues to reveal the many ways humans affect the natural world—but it hasn’t shown mountain bikers to be more impactful than hikers. Some studies even show that slower moving trail users, like hikers and cross-country skiers, can be more disruptive to wildlife than faster-moving trail users, who leave an area more quickly. Bikers also tend to be predictable, staying on trails rather than moving erratically and exploring off-trail the way hikers can. Conversely, mountain bikers can travel farther, giving them more opportunities to disturb wildlife (though on rugged backcountry terrain they cover less ground than some imagine, or about 10-20 miles in a day).  
A debate also rages between activists on both sides of the issue over who has the biggest erosional impact on the trail itself. In this the science is somewhat clearer—a bike’s impact on trails is equal to a hiker’s, and both bikers and hikers create much less erosion than equestrians.
While this might seem a minor issue, it’s a key point in cyclists’ arsenal of arguments. How can bikes be accused of causing inordinate harm to Wilderness when equestrians, welcomed in virtually every Wilderness in America, cause more trail degradation and erosion? 
Consider the recent backpacking trip I took with my family in Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness, on the border of Yellowstone National Park. The trail, popular with equestrians, was the width of a road and the soil was so churned by hooves it was like hiking on a beach. It was not my idea of a Wilderness experience. 
Horses aside, the attempts to parse the erosional differences between Vibram soles and bicycle tires is where this debate goes off the rails. Trails themselves and our non-motorized modes of travel aren’t the major ecological issue of backcountry recreation. We are. No matter how we travel—foot, horse, bike--Homo sapiens are the ones importing invasive species, disturbing wildlife, and camping along the delicate shores of mountain lakes. Mountain bikers in particular often like to calculate their environmental impact solely by considering their effects on the trail itself. But mountain bikers, like all other trail users, need to realize their impact extends far beyond their contact with the soil.
I’m a case in point. I still mountain bike, but I also hike a lot. I love heading off trail in wild country with a pack full of camera gear to explore and look for wildlife sign—tracks, scat, kills, dens. The hard truth is that backcountry nature photographers—typically found tromping around prime habitat—have potentially much greater impact on wildlife than the typical mountain biker. 
Yet if the average Wilderness advocate saw me in the woods—dressed in khaki, binoculars around my neck—they would greet me as another nature-loving ally, while a mountain biker might elicit their scorn for being an insensitive jock seeking to conquer the wild in a selfish quest for thrills. 
Which gets to the nut of the issue: hikers simply don’t like encountering mountain bikers. And mountain bikers don’t have much patience for trying to understand why their beloved activity might spoil other people’s equally beloved activity.

Misunderstanding on a Two-Way Singletrack 
Just as some people cherish meditation and quiet observation, there will always be those sporty humans who—genetically, psychologically—thrive on motion and adventure. What more healthful place for them to find challenge than nature? Many titans of conservation—think of John Muir, Bob Marshall, David Brower—were well known for their adventurous, athletic endeavors. Some conservationists have always started as outdoor funhogs before aging into a deeper type of nature appreciation and environmental advocacy. 
Non-cyclists often imagine all mountain bikers as gonzo thrill seekers, skidding down mountainsides and flying through the air at terrifying speeds. But the reality is that on steep, rugged backcountry trails, mountain bikers typically travel slowly and carefully. The average speed of a backcountry trail ride is five or six miles per hour, or about two to three miles per hour faster than a hiker. 
Aaron Clark, a longtime employee of The Wilderness Society who became the International Mountain Bike Association’s conservation manager in an effort bridge the divide between cyclists and hikers, says this style of riding, “Is like hiking with a bike, essentially. It’s a deep riding experience. It’s something our community wants desperately to preserve. A replacement for that is not to say, ‘Let’s build trails in the front country near this urban community.’”
Just as there are many different types of skiers—classic track, backwoods Nordic, Alpine, big mountain backcountry—there are many varieties of mountain biker. There’s a big difference between armor-clad cyclists streaking down a purpose-built bike park and the type of rider who heads deep into the backcountry under his own power. Backcountry cyclists often are also hikers, backpackers, and backcountry skiers. They carry food, water, maps, and emergency supplies on their backs, earning every mile with muscles and sweat. These are not the riders with poor etiquette going too fast on multi-use trails; nor are they the adrenaline-addled, trail-shredding mountain bikers seen in bike advertisements and videos. 
We could have a more honest dialogue about where bikes are and are not appropriate if Wilderness advocates stopped misrepresenting the nature of backcountry mountain biking by using in their public education campaigns photos and videos of high-speed riders at lift-assisted ski areas on bike-specific downhill trails. This is akin to using a video of horses streaking around a racetrack to argue against equestrian use of the backcountry. 
Mountain bikers are often accused of treating the natural world as a conquest, though there are certainly plenty of hikers with the same affliction. See, for example the hard chargers who race to complete the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Crest Trail in record times. (And don’t get me started on trail users with headphones in their ears, a sad display of nature disconnection that’s all too common among hikers, trail runners, and bikers alike). Although their interactions with wild nature are different and perhaps less intimate than those of hikers, mountain bikers experience more of the natural world around them then they’re often given credit for, especially on breaks when they appreciatively soak in their surroundings and scenery. While they may be in a perception bubble while riding, they’re also watching ecosystems, forests, waterways, and wildlife adapt and change with the terrain and seasons. If hikers are ecologists, mountain bikers are geographers. Both care deeply about the landscape. 

Some conservationists who lament the growth of mountain biking urge cyclists to stay on our nation’s superabundance of roads. This ignores the fact that backwoods mountain bikers seek the same primitive, quiet, backcountry experience hikers do, away from motorized din. The entire sport of mountain biking is predicated on the pleasures of navigating narrow, “singletrack” trails. Telling mountain bikers to ride roads is like telling hikers to stay on sidewalks. It fundamentally misunderstands the activity.

A Question of Limited Space 
All of that’s fine and good, you might say, but why do some mountain bikers insist on access to Wilderness? With so much other undeveloped, public land out there, why can’t they just ride in national forests or BLM properties that aren’t designated Wilderness? After all, only three percent of the continental U.S. is designated Wilderness, leaving much of the remaining 500 million acres of public land available for bikers. This is true—and it’s beside the point.
Hikers aren't interested in many of those lands because they’re full of roads and other scars of industrialization and motorized recreation. Mountain bikers, especially the expert, self-sufficient, backcountry riders relevant here, feel exactly the same way. They seek the same things hikers do: intact landscapes, scenic beauty, and exploration of wild places. These experiences are found in roadless landscapes, which make up about 170 million acres of our public lands. This is the acreage relevant to this debate.
In other words, the bikes-in-Wilderness debate often comes down to specific trails, in specific backcountry, roadless settings. When these larger issues move into people’s backyards, that’s when things get complicated and relationships become strained.
Nothing illustrates the challenges of Wilderness and bikes more than the Boulder and White Cloud Mountains of central Idaho. Bikes are not allowed in the 217,000-acre Sawtooth Wilderness, but backcountry cyclists have long prized the neighboring White Clouds for the wild scenery and solitude they offered. Wilderness designation for the area was first proposed decades ago, but it never went anywhere. Then, a few years ago, it seemed a new, broad-based solution was in reach when The Wilderness Society, Idaho Conservation League, and other conservation groups joined with the International Mountain Bicycling Association in support of a proposed 571,000-acre national monument that protected the land while allowing bicycling. In a joint statement, the groups asserted, “hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, skiing and other forms of human-powered recreation are appropriate and important, and that a quiet backcountry experience for all human-powered recreation groups needs to be monitored, maintained, and protected.” 
It appeared a long-sought model for collaborative, landscape-scale conservation planning that united the Wilderness and mountain bike communities had finally been found. 
Except Idaho’s Republican congressional delegation wasn’t on board. Fearful of a national monument designation by President Obama, Representative Mike Simpson proposed three Wildernesses for the area, tortuously shaped to not impinge on popular motorized routes and protecting half as much area as the proposed monument. Boundary concessions were even made for heli-skiers. The legislation passed and President Obama signed it into law in August 2015. The Forest Service immediately began enforcing the bike ban in the new Wilderness areas. I was forced to cancel a bikepacking trip on Adventure Cycling Association’s Hot Springs Mountain Bike Route, a route that traversed the White Clouds and is now partially defunct.  
The closure of once-cycled trails quickly, and inevitably, sparked outrage from many cyclists in Idaho and across the country. Bryan Leisle summed up the anger of many mountain bikers when he wrote, in one online forum: “I'm an Idahoan. I got screwed out of pristine mountain bike trails we've used for decades with the stroke of a pen when the White Clouds were designated Wilderness. Please tell me how after decades of use by mountain bikes, the White Clouds are magically now not compatible with bikes. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. You zealots of Wilderness are creating enemies of a huge group of people that support the preservation and conservation of public land.”
This sort of rhetoric has become common among some mountain bikers. Here’s Montana mountain biker Lance Pysher, writing in (you guessed it) another online forum after 180 miles of trails were closed in the Bitterroot National Forest because they fell within wilderness study areas. “Stop trying to tame wilderness into an outdoor church of bowed heads where we engage in the fantasy that we are the first white people explore the land,” he wrote. “By limiting wilderness to merely being a place for quiet reflection, these wild lands are diminished to merely being a pretty place to camp. The wild is taken out of wilderness.” 
For its part, the International Mountain Biking Association, which considers itself a conservation-minded organization, does not support bikes in Wilderness areas and favors cooperating with Wilderness advocates to draw boundaries for newly proposed Wilderness areas that maintain bike access to popular trails. IMBA maintains that stance today, even as it comes under intense pressure from many of its members who would like to be able to ride in Wilderness. In the wake of the Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness designation, for example, donations to the Sustainable Trails Coalition soared. That bikes-in-Wilderness legislation currently before Congress? It was drafted by the Sustainable Trails Coalition. 

To read the complete opinion and see more photos in the Sierra Magazine, CLICK HERE.

"The momentum of the McClintock measure (to open protected Wilderness to mechanized transport, such as mt. bikes) is alarming conservation groups, including the organizations that maintain the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, which together stretch through dozens of wilderness areas." The International Mountain Biking Assn., which represents 40,000 bikers, is siding with the more than 100 environmental groups opposed to the re-envisioning of the act and against its own San Diego chapter.

When their vision of creating a scenic cycling trail through a protected alpine backcountry hit a snag, San Diego area mountain bikers turned to an unlikely ally: congressional Republicans aiming to dilute conservation laws.

The frustrations of the San Diego cycling group and a handful of similar organizations are providing tailwind to the GOP movement to lift restrictions on the country’s most ecologically fragile and pristine landscapes, officially designated “wilderness.”

Resentment of these cyclists over the longstanding ban on “mechanized” transportation in that fraction of the nation’s public lands presents a political opportunity for Republicans eager to drill fissures in the broad coalition of conservation-minded groups united against the GOP environmental agenda.
“People who enjoy mountain biking have just as much right to use the public trails as those who enjoy hiking or horseback riding,” said Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) during a hearing for the bill he authored, H.R. 1349, to allow bikes in wilderness areas. It was swiftly approved in committee and now awaits action on the House floor. “Our wilderness areas were never intended by Congress to prohibit human-powered mountain bikes,” McClintock said.
McClintock’s interpretation of the Wilderness Act is hotly disputed, including by many mountain bikers, as well as people intimately involved with the act’s drafting. But it appeals to groups like the San Diego Mountain Biking Assn., which complains that wilderness designations are interrupting plans for long-distance trails between the beaches of Oceanside and Del Mar and the rugged mountains around the historic mining town of Julian.

The momentum of the McClintock measure is alarming conservation groups, including the organizations that maintain the Pacific Crest Trail and the Appalachian Trail, which together stretch through dozens of wilderness areas. They warn it would invite mountain bikers to shred through the iconic landscapes, despite assurances from McClintock that the measure empowers federal land managers to ban the bikes where appropriate. The Sustainable Trails Coalition, the California-based cycling group that recruited McClintock to the cause, has for years been seeking to open the Pacific Crest Trail to mountain bikes.

“This would redefine what wilderness means,” said Mark Larabee, an advocate with the Pacific Crest Trail Assn. “It would forever change the experience people have come to expect from walking on the trail.”
The International Mountain Biking Assn., which represents 40,000 bikers, is siding with the more than 100 environmental groups opposed to the re-envisioning of the act and against its own San Diego chapter. The international group says keeping some lands off-limits to bikers is appropriate, and it focuses its work on collaborating with other conservation groups to increase access in places where mountain bikes do belong.
But the issue is a complicated one for avid bikers. The Wilderness Act, which was passed before mountain bikes existed, has been used in recent years to protect more and more land, sometimes pushing bikers out of areas where they had long ridden. President Obama’s designation in 2015 of the 275,000-acre Boulder-White Cloud region north of Sun Valley, Idaho, for example, locked mountain bikers out of cherished trails they once enjoyed.
In San Diego, mountain bikers complain patchworks of inland wilderness designations are throwing a wrench into plans to complete multiple cross-county trails through the woods. “It’s extreme and unfair,” said Susie Murphy, executive director of the San Diego Mountain Biking Assn.. She says environmental groups opposing the McClintock bill are missing an opportunity to expand the draw of wilderness to a younger generation of outdoor enthusiasts eager to preserve the backcountry.
“In a lot of these areas, the mountain biking community would be amazing stewards,” Murphy said. “If you don’t get newer groups into these places to take care of them, how would anyone protect them from other uses that would be way worse than mountain biking, like mining?”
But outdoors advocates say there are far more productive ways to expand access to bikers than joining the GOP’s public lands crusade.
“People should not be fooled,” said Michael Carroll, director of the Wilderness Society’s People Outdoors Program. “The lawmakers supporting this are the same people pushing to shrink national monuments and drill the last bit of unprotected coastline in the Arctic. This would set the stage for other special interests to say, ‘You rewrote the Wilderness Act for mountain bikes. What about our needs?’”
Carroll said other ongoing initiatives are already effectively expanding access to mountain bikers, as conservation groups and federal agencies re-envision public lands protection to meet the growing population of cyclists. He pointed to a recent collaboration in his hometown of Durango, Colo., in which mountain biking organizations played an influential role in designing a large preserve. The “Recreation Not Red Tape Act” proposed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) would require federal land managers to prioritize expanding recreational opportunities.
“We have learned from our mistakes how to sit down together and plan,” said Andrew Downs, a regional director of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. “The best way for the mountain bike community to get better rides and more trail miles is to work collaboratively.”
The supporters of amending the Wilderness Act frame it differently. They talk of overzealous bureaucrats hijacking a landmark law that was never intended to bar bicycles from public lands. McClintock pulled from the archives of speeches delivered by one of the Wilderness Act’s sponsors, the late Democratic Sen. Frank Church of Idaho, whose words McClintock interpreted to express regret that outdoor enthusiasts like bikers were kept out of wilderness. Retired federal land managers interpret Church’s words very differently.
“The whole point of our public lands is so that people can enjoy them, for use, resort and recreation,” McClintock said.
Some of the people who were intimately involved with the drafting of the Wilderness Act, though, say that actually was not the point. It was to keep certain lands free of all but the most primitive encroachment, they say.
Among them is Edward Zahniser, a former park service official. Zahniser’s father, Howard, wrote the 1964 act. And Edward Zahniser himself has been explaining it to lawmakers and federal officials from the time he was a boy helping his dad leaflet the halls of Congress in support of the measure, through adulthood when he held dozens of training sessions for other bureaucrats.
“The act clearly says no mechanized uses,” said Zahniser. “How could they possibly say the original act allows this? They are just making it up.”

To see the original article and photo in the Los Angeles Times newspaper, CLICK HERE.

The Placer County Board of Supervisors is adding its voice to the city of Auburn in support of a river recreation-based economy revolving around the American River canyon and the Auburn State Recreation Area.

In voting 4-1 Tuesday to approve a resolution of support, the board joins Auburn City Council, the Auburn Recreation and Park District board and the Auburn Chamber of Commerce board in publicly endorsing an economy that includes whitewater rafting and kayaking.

Mike Lynch, the Recreation District board chairman and a ranger in the Auburn State Recreation Area for 35 years, said that in good years more than one million people use the canyonlands for recreation. Lynch said a vote would support a future that would include more certainty that the area would remain a “river-based recreation and natural mecca.”

The recreation area was formed by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to look after federal lands earmarked in the 1960s for an Auburn dam. Earthquake and financial questions have kept the dam from being built and the State Parks Department now manages an increasingly popular recreation destination, just east of Auburn.

Gary Estes, an Auburn resident, said that the dam debate revolving around flood control issues in the Sacramento area is over, with Sacramento finding other solutions to increase safety. Estes invited supervisors to visit Downtown Auburn’s Central Square, where they could observe monuments and markers placed in the sidewalk honoring an aspect of the recreation economy — endurance riding and running events that end in the city. 

The vote to support the resolution wasn’t a unanimous one. Supervisor Kirk Uhler reminded the board that they would be taking a stance, that in his opinion, went against historical county backing of water storage on the American River canyon.
Uhler said the American River canyon is unquestionably beautiful. “But there are scores of beautiful canyons,” he said. “There are not scores of rivers that could be meeting the water supply needs of our current and future population.”

In the mid 1800s, Malakoff Diggins was the sight of the world’s largest hydraulic mining operation. Powerful canons blasted the hillsides reducing the towering layers of sedimentary rock, quartz and even gold to a pit of gravel. The monolithic volcanic rock was further eroded by the decades of wind and rain and shaped into the living museum that is the Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park. (Photo Credit: Mary West)

The best way to view the effects of hydraulic mining is a hiking trail just behind the town site marked Church Trail which leads to the Diggins Loop trail. On my last visit, I parked in front of the historic hotel site. A  small wooden bridge that covers a seasonal creek begins the history lesson. Under your feet is river bed. Look up at the hills. You see areas covered with pine, other areas thick with manzanita and chamise. Still more areas devoid of any tree, bush or blade of glass. These are the hillsides blasted by water from the river to be sifted for gold.

Malakoff Diggins is the site of our country’s first environmental law issued by the federal government against the North Bloomfield Gravel Mining Company (Sawyer Decision) to curtail the release of the mud, gravel, and debris that clogged streams and major rivers from the foothills down to San Francisco Bay, according to Malakoffdigginsstatepark.org.

Church Trail starts with a brief greenbelt of pine. The first stop is a cemetery. Take a right around the cemetery and the trail leads downhill quickly to the dry river bed to the Diggins Loop Trail. Digggins Loop Trail is marked by posts painted yellow and accompanied by flagging tape. The trails takes you in a loop around the hydraulic mining pit. The trail follows the outer edges of the volcanic rock formations left behind. Underfoot is rock and sand. Following the trail posts you come to a boardwalk through a wetland. Turn right at the end of the board walk and begin the loop back. The sharp contrast in the coloring of the rock formations caught my eye. The red in the rock face is iron oxide. One formation in particular is purest white. Shaped by wind and weather into bold curves and sharp edges. 

The loose rock demands sturdy hiking shoes or boots. Much of the trail is exposed to the sun so protection from burn is advised. There is significant elevation change so I will call the trail easy to moderate. Bring enough water to quench your thirst. Bring more water to overcome the arid quality the land has taken on following the effects of mining. 

To get there from Auburn, take Highway 49 north to Nevada City where it turns left toward Downieville. Continue on toward North San Juan. Just short of town take a left on Tyler Foote Road. The road name changes to Cruzon Grade. Turn right onto Derbec Road. About one and half miles down the hill you arrive in historic North Bloomfield Road. One of the last buildings is the hotel on the right. Park and look across the open area through the trees. You will see the wooden bridge. Pass over it and walk into a past.
 
CLICK HERE to see the original article "Day Hiker - Sight trek to Malakoff Diggins" by Mary West, in The Union newspaper.

Mary is a retired radio personality and news reporter with a longtime love of the outdoors, sharing her favorite day hikes in Placer, Nevada, El Dorado and Yuba counties. Learn more about local trails by following Mary on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

The United States Forest Service Region 5 Pacific Southwest Office has named SYRCL 2017 Partner of the Year.
South Yuba River Citizens League - SYRCL works alongside Tahoe National Forest staff members to restore meadows, assess legacy mine impacts, monitor water quality, manage forest health, plan fish habitat restoration projects, and provide input on dam re-licensing. Over the last four years, SYRCL has raised over $1.7 million to implement projects on the Tahoe National Forest which covers much of the Yuba watershed.

“Working in partnership with Tahoe National Forest staff members is the highlight of my job at SYRCL,” remarks Rachel Hutchinson, River Science Director, “Their commitment to improving and protecting the Tahoe National Forest and our watershed is inspiring. This award is a true honor and a testament to the dedication of staff at both the Tahoe National Forest and SYRCL.”

SYRCL looks forward to many more years of partnership and collaboration with the Tahoe National Forest. For more information about some of our collaborative projects, please check out the restoration, water quality, and dam re-licensing pages here.

A bill that, if passed, would allow access for mountain bikes into legally designated wilderness areas will be heard by the House Federal Lands Subcommittee this morning, December 7, 2017, in Washington, D.C. To see the bill in its entirety, CLICK HERE.

House Bill 1349 is the latest attempt spearheaded by the small California-based group called the Sustainable Trails Coalition (STC) to get Congress to amend the 1964 Wilderness Act, which prohibits any form of mechanized transportation in the country’s 756 legally designated Wilderness Areas. Similar bills have been introduced over the course of the past few years, and, not surprisingly, wilderness advocates are opposed to the measure.

The bill is the brainchild of Ted Stroll, an attorney who founded the Sustainable Trails Coalistion (STC) in 2010 to try to get the various federal land-management agencies that administer the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail to loosen up what he considers to be overbearing regulations regarding mountain biking.

His efforts failed, which led Stroll, an attorney who describes himself as an avid mountain biker, to take a larger view.
“It was obvious that the agencies were never going to do anything to change,” he said.” As more and more wilderness areas are established, that’s more area that mountain bikers can’t ride. Some places, we have been riding for years, and, suddenly, it’s declared a wilderness and we can’t legally ride there anymore.”

Stroll is of the opinion that Congress, when it passed the Wilderness Act in 1964, never intended to prohibit bicycles.
He contends that, from 1964 to 1984, bikes were indeed allowed in wilderness areas — though, of course, mountain bikes as we now know then did not exist during most of that time. It was only in 1984, according to Stroll, that the Forest Service amended its interpretation of the Wilderness Act in such a way that the new sport of mountain biking was excluded from the country’s most-protected public lands. He feels it is time for a change. This is the second time that STC is trying to get Congress to amend the Wilderness Act. This is the first time under the Trump administration.

Mountain biking is allowed in almost all federal lands, and Wilderness makes up only 3% of those lands. Some have concluded that biking will just be the beginning of dismantling the landmark Wilderness Act.

Stroll will be one of the witnesses testifying Thursday in front of the House Federal Lands Subcommittee, of which Scott Tipton, who represents Colorado’s Third Congressional District — which includes the Roaring Fork Valley, is a member.
“As it stands now, you can’t ride into the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness over to Crested Butte on a mountain bike,” Stroll said. “We just want those decisions to be made on a local level so that interested parties can more easily be part of the decision-making process. I get it that the Maroon Bells are way overused, but most of that use is between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Maybe, with local input, we can make it so mountain bikes are allowed in on Tuesdays after Labor Day but not on rainy days. Something like that.”

‘Anti-public-lands extremists’
Not surprisingly, not everyone is in agreement with Stroll’s perspective. (Against this bill are the national groups, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, Back Country Horsemen of American, the Defenders of Wildlife, and over 100 more.)
Will Roush, conservation director for the Carbondale-based Wilderness workshop, is particularly adamant in his opposition to HB 1349.
“They are anti-public-lands extremists who want to gut one of the country’s most significant public lands bills,” Roush, who counts himself as a mountain biker, said of the bill's congressional sponsors. “I have numerous concerns, including its precedential nature, that, by making one change to the Wilderness Act, it will eventually open up wilderness areas to motorized use.”
Stroll calls that perspective a logical fallacy.
“Congressmen are in the business of getting their bills passed into law,” he said. “If they were to add ATVs to the measure, it would be defeated. This is like the argument that, if the federal government raises the national speed limit to 55 miles per hour, some states might raise it to 105 miles per hour and a lot of people would get killed. Or that, if we don’t stop the communists at the North Vietnamese border, they will invade Japan. That argument is a non-starter.”
George Nickas, executive director of Missoula-based Wilderness Watch, disagrees.
“We are in uncharted territory here with this administration,” he said. “We do not know what might make its way as a rider to another bill. These are the guys who just resized two national monuments. This would set a terrible precedent. More than 133 prominent conservation groups have signed onto a letter opposing HB 1349. Groups like the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club and the Defenders of Wildlife. Look at the Sustainable Trails Coalition’s website to see who their partners are.”
For the record, according to the STC’s website, its supporters include local bike groups, The Angry Singlespeeder from MTBR.com, singletracks.com, the New England Mountain Bike Association, Mount Hood Mountain Bikers, Folsom-Auburn Trail Riders Action Committee, Access4Bikes, CORBA and Ride Salmon.
“They have made a pact with the devil,” Nickas said. “Both times they have tried to get this bill passed, they have solicited sponsorship from some of the virulent anti-public lands elected officials in the country. They just want this bill passed so they can ride their bikes into wilderness areas. This has nothing to do with local control and local input. I find it heartening that the International Mountain Bike Association is not supporting this bill.”

According to Mike Pritchard, executive director of the Roaring Fork Mountain Bike Association, a chapter of IMBA, the group does not support HB 1349 or the efforts of Stroll’s STC. But neither are they actively opposed. “Even if this bill passes, I think it will be subject to a lot of lawsuits, and we do not want to be part of that,” Pritchard continued.

The International Mountain Bicycling Association issued a press release that makes its position clear. "IMBA will not support any broad efforts by any organization to amend the existing Wilderness Act in its entirety or the federal land management agencies’ regulations on existing Wilderness areas as these are not strategically aligned with achieving our long-term mission," the organization stated."

If HB 1349 makes its way through the labyrinthine halls of Congress and gets signed into law by Trump, the management onus will fall on the agencies like the U.S. Forest Service, an agency whose employees are generally very tight-lipped about legislation that is under Congressional consideration, even legislation that could have a direct effect on their vocational lives.
“As you know, the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness is one of the most highly visited Congressional designated Wilderness areas in the country, and our newly adopted Visitor Use Management Plan only addresses overnight use,” said Karen Schroyer, district ranger of the Aspen/Sopris Ranger District of the White River National Forest. “Any additional use in that wilderness, regardless of the activity or mode of transportation, creates challenges for us. If a law were to pass, allowing mountain bikes in wilderness, we’d have to adjust how we manage all our wilderness areas, not just MBSW, but it would be irresponsible to speculate at this point on how we would adapt our management.”
Tipton, who will participate in the House Federal Lands Subcommittee hearing on Thursday, did not exactly tip his hand.
“At this point the Congressman has not taken a position and looks forward to questioning the panel of witnesses about the bill,” Tipton said through press liaison Kelsey Mix. “He supports recreation on public lands but does not believe a one-size-fits-all approach is appropriate for any management plan.”
“Right now, wilderness is pretty much a country club for people rich in time, money or both,” Stroll said. “They have the luxury of time to take a week to backpack into the wilderness. I know some people day hike, but they are a rarity. A lot of people access wilderness on horseback as part of a guided trip, where they get camp set up for them.
“The idea of mountain bikers in the wilderness is threatening to wilderness advocacy groups,” he continued. “They fear that, if mountain bikers are allowed into wilderness areas and none of the horrible things they say will happen as a result, it will negatively impact their standing and their fundraising efforts. They are against the democratization of wilderness.”
“Mountain bikes cover a lot more distance than hikers, so that means their impacts will extend further into wilderness areas,” Nickas said. “Mountain bikers argue that they are denied access to wilderness areas. They are not. They can walk or ride a horse into the wilderness. We only have a small percentage of lands in this country that are protected from mechanical contrivances. Those lands should be left as they are.”
“They want it so the only access to wilderness is by means that are from biblical times,” Stroll said. “Wilderness areas now cover an area larger than the state of California. Groups that oppose opening wilderness areas to mountain bikes are trying to scare gullible people. House Bill 1349 would have a very modest and narrow effect on wilderness areas.”

Excerpts above taken from this article in the Aspen Daily News. CLICK HERE to see entire article.