WMC Update 2012

A Rant. ( Or why WMC is right on the money. ) By CookieMonster

I have family and friends in the BC interior who support themselves on jobs that arise from tourist dollars, so I'm somewhat conflicted on this issue. That said, I'll skip the politcal correctness for once and just say what I really think.

The Highway 1 corridor between Sicamous and Revelstoke is one example of what is feared by some people in the US.

This area used to offer simple, quiet skiing with the occasional snowmobile. Now it's BRAAP BRAAP every-effing-where, along with gales of huzzy buzzy drunken laughter. Yes, it's great that people actually want to go to Sicamous in the winter, but you should see the motels in the area during mid-winter ... stuffed to bursting with trucks and trailers and sleds and fat sausage approximations of mountaineers. Nearby, the grand knobs of the Monashees are full of sled tracks all winter long. Far off, the Cariboo Mountains --- remember, the Cariboo are a fairly remote mountain range --- are full of sleds where there is easy picking.

I doubt many skiers would support unfettered access for snowmachines if they experienced a BC style infestation for an entire winter. And BC style infestations *are* coming to Washington.

By infestation, well, I guess I mean 80 or 90 sleds in a medium-sized drainage. Sometimes more. Imagine sharing Silver Basin with 20 or 30 sleds if you want to get an idea of what it's like. Imagine sharing a place like the Tatoosh with 50 or 60 sleds. Forget first tracks, hell, forget a single clean line ... the sledders will have already sliced up the mountain for themselves before you've even skinned the first thousand feet.

But there are even worse things about sledders.

Sledding spreads like fungus because you don't need psychological or physical endurance to ride BIG mountains. You need, really, what amounts to a modicum of skill at best. In the Cariboo one afternoon I watched a big sweaty pig ride a 1000 metre line in FIVE minutes. Now take a climb rate 10,000 metres an hour ... yes ... 10,000 METRES AN HOUR ... and imagine how much is left over after 10 sledders have had their fill.

Physical fitness and skill are important barriers to entry if we're talking about deboning a 1000 metre alpine line by hand. Does anyone here really believe that an $8000 sled turns your average poke into a mountaineer? Exactly how much mountain sense does that $8000 buy? The equivalence is as follows: 8000 money dollars = -8000 mountain sense dollars.

Do you really want to share the slope with morons riding $8000 avalanche triggering machines? Do you really think they care if they have to ride above you ... when they don't even care if they kill their own friends?

Yet there are worse things still...

Let's forget all talk of sharing because snowmobile mountaineers aren't mountain people by their very nature. To become a mountain person, you need a sense of aesthetics, and most importantly, a sense of respect. Lowell Skoog is a great example of a high quality mountain person who ... my past remarks aside ... actually sees something in the mountains beyond themselves... and in this respect he is a great template for a mountain person.

And unlike most backcountry skiers I know, who are also mountain people by direct virtue of earning the experience through sweat, including the respect that arises from such sweat, sledders aren't prepared aren't prepared to "earn" the backcountry experience through sweat. No, having earned nothing, sledders roar into the backcounty to bask in their own flatulent glow...

That's why it so easy for sledders to demonstrate such disrespect for themselves, and others, and the mountains ... because they don't appreciate what they don't earn. Yeah, sledders sure do appreciate their sleds, but that's only because they must sweat for the sled. But where the ski becomes a tool for the mountaineer who must pay for his voyage, the sled becomes a vulgar plaything for those don't want to pay anything at all.

Sorry if this sounds chicken little or elitist or spoiled, but sledding is turning into something quite malignant in the mountains of North America. In 20 years, I believe that reasonable ski touring will take place largely in wilderness because the snowmachines are coming and they're not going to stop.

This is why people who respect the mountains don't want to travel with people who don't.

And...

For the record, I am not talking about backcountry skiers who use snowmobiles as tools.

Thank you NWBCer and CookieMonster! Great comments!

Again, remember, WMC seeks more designated non-motorized areas for skiing and human-powered recreation on snow. Outside of areas designated for human-powered winter recreation we seek no restriction or closure. We ask for a share of the Forest for skiers!

Sledding is one of the hardest, technical, scary things I have learned to do... Bean and Esmeralda basins are now "voluntary non-motorized areas". WMC and others, how often have you seen sledders in Bean Basin? Would this area be a proposed buffer zone? It seems like it would be a good one. (Closest to the snopark, road melts out to here first). Do you have a map of proposed locations of "buffer zones"?  To draw a line back from the wilderness boundary along the crest seems unfair. Law enforcement of wilderness would be the better option, with buffer zones in areas that skiers/snowshoers can actually access in a day.

CookieMonster's rant sounds like he is describing Scotsman. Scotsman, your original post came off as selfish as you claim the WMC poster's was. I could see where you posts were going before you declared your intent to track out our stashes on your new sled. You're most likely worried about future access to good "ghost riding" being restricted because your local Crystal bc is getting tracked out too fast and you want to travel farther for the goods and are tired of working for your turns. CookieMonster's description of interior BC is already approaching reality here on the east side of the Cascades. The forest is more open over here allowing for completely unrestricted travel, mostly, for snow machines. The areas where snow machine mobility is restricted is not even fun for xc style skiing. You(Scotsman) agree about the Heather/Skyline ridge area being designated non-motorized, what about the entire forest surrounding Mission Ridge ski area? The areas adjacent to Mission Ridge are part of this proposal and are currently abuzz with snow mobiles on any given weekend, with regular incursions into an operating ski area. Most snow machine users I've encountered off designated travel routes, legally operated, seem to have the same taker attitude as you and lack respect for the mountain environment in winter. Typically bc skiers will not ski on top of others and will ask about your intentions to ski in a given drainage in order to share and for safety, sledders will swarm about you and greedily track out all skiable terrain without regard for safety or sharing. Almost every bc skier I know has experienced this on the eastside. OHV and motorcycle use is restricted to roads and trail in the seasons without snow cover, why should winter be any different in many areas? Sledders routinely travel over terrain with thin or no snow cover in their pursuit of powder or for highmarking, destroying vegetation and disturbing the underlying soil. If this is hard to believe, you haven't spent much time in   areas frequented by sledders.

Thanks, Toby and Aaron. You guys "get it."

The Stevens Pass and Mission Ridge areas are logical starting places for the idea of non-wilderness buffer zones.

Another example is Windy Pass north of Harts Pass. As many of you know, North Cascades Heli-Skiing operates a yurt at Windy Pass just outside the Pasayten Wilderness. Clients are flown to the yurt by helicopter, then left to ski on their own in silence. Many of the places they ski are outside the designated wilderness.

As I understand it, there is a gentleman's agreement between the Methow snowmobile community and the yurt operators to refrain from snowmobiling in the area during the operating season of the yurt. After the yurt closes for the season, I imagine that the snowmobilers can go in there.

To those who initially criticized WMC for the non-wilderness buffer idea, Windy Pass provides another example of the need to separate incompatible user groups. As far as I know, the Methow recreation community has managed this one case without official involvement of the Forest Service. But this is a special situation and in other areas we may need the Forest Service to help mediate conflicts.

I want to reinforce the idea that non-wilderness buffer zones are not a radical idea. They are needed and we should be talking about where they should be established and how to carry that forward. Without them, as several posters have pointed out, before long you're not going to have many day-skiing locations outside designated wilderness.

I love having new examples to teach my kids about the idea of "sharing".

Being a sledder that was informed of this thread, I'm going to throw in my $.02.

Having not grown up in the west, but the midwest where the hills are bumps in comparison, I can appreciate the back coutry mountain terrain more than you could imagine. The beauty and extreme nature of the area is awe inspiring and makes me and my troubles feel very small. It gives me a great appreciation for the toughness of those that explored and settled the west.

Land use is a topic that I've been following over the last few years as I've seen more and more land restricted to snowmobile use. Never any land offered as new use, nothing but restrictions and exclusion. These restrictions are not applied to skiers or hikers, only mechanized, including mountain bikes in many areas by designating it "wilderness", as you look up the road that used to give access.

There's no doubt about the conflict of sharing your honey hole with someone else. It happens often in a season when I search for the pow just as skiers do. And when I do come upon someone enjoying "my" spot, I let them, first come first served, if there's room, I may take a few turns, but mostly it's their turn and I move on. I have always given extra room to skiers/boarders for this same reason and also the noise.

I wouldn't want to exlude anyone from the back country for my own selfish reasons and this will be an example for my kids to show they need to stand up for themselves and watch for those that have selfish interests.

Ski the wilderness, it's legal for you. If you see a sledder in these areas report them, just as I would and let's not restrict more of the peoples land to just elitists and self serving people not willing to share.

It doesn't matter how you get there, enjoy that view, that terrain and be willing to share it and be courteous to those that have also made the journey for those same reasons, sometimes it's the only way they can get to see that view. I've seen multiple folks with handicaps on sleds enjoying the same view.