WMC Update 2012

I edited my post.  I didn't not intend to imply that the WWA are "behind the scenes" of the WMC, just supporting the proposal.  I edited for clarity... It was not my intention to misrepresent the WWA support. Sorry for the confusion.

No worries, did not take it that way. WMC has its own views, its own agenda. WMC was created so that it could have the single purpose, no overlying agenda or view.

Ruffryder and yammadog, I wish you all the luck in trying to get a meeting mediated my the industry person that we have met with. We can make this a win-win on several levels.

WMC has received cc letters of suppport for designated USFS winter non-motorized areas and also has received more letters in support of the proposal below. Letters of support cc to WMC have come from both sides of the Cascades, and from five states. Please consider your support of designated winter non-motorized areas on the Forest and send a message to the OWNF Supervisor. Thank you.

The Need for More Non-Motorized Winter Recreation Areas

In winter, the National Forests in Washington winter have become motorized playgrounds. Very few areas of the Forest outside of Wilderness are closed to snowmobiles. Because most Wilderness Areas are relatively inaccessible in winter to skiers and snowshoers, the Wenatchee Mountains Coalition believes that there is an important need for more non-motorized areas, outside of Wilderness, in our multi-use National Forests.

Sadly, even significant portions of Wilderness have been used as snowmobile playgrounds regularly and intentionally on a large scale for a decade. The Forest Service has not rallied to deter Wilderness snowmobile use. In summer, however, non-motorized adjacent lands have been created as buffers to Wilderness. In winter some of these same buffers could enhance Wilderness protection and at the same time provide non-motorized recreation areas.

To address these issues and the need for new, significant areas for non-motorized winter recreation in the Wenatchee National Forest, a group of backcountry skiers and snowshoers formed the Wenatchee Mountains Coalition. We invite other winter recreationists to help us and to join the ‘Thousand Skiers Project,’ (described below).

Advances in snowmobile technology means that, each year, more terrain can be visited quickly and frequently by snowmobiles. With the capabilities of modern snowmobiles no longer creating a natural separation, there’s a modern need for the USFS to facilitate separation by designating new non-motorized areas.

There are significant numbers of non-motorized winter recreationalists, yet the non-wilderness portion of the Wenatchee National Forest allows a disproportionate amount of the Forest to be monopolized by one use - snowmobiles. We do not wish to prohibit snowmobiles on the Forest (some of us are also snowmobilers), but because motorized and non-motorized uses are incompatible on the same terrain, we ask for more non-motorized terrain. We invite all winter recreationalists to share their thoughts about this issue and this need with the Forest Supervisor (email address below).


About the Wenatchee Mountains Coalition

Purpose: Advocacy for non-motorized winter recreation on Forest Lands.
Goal: Designation of USFS Non-Motorized areas for winter recreation. Specifically, we seek non-motorized status for the pristine unroaded crest of the Wenatchee Mountains.
Initial action -- the Thousand Skiers Project: One thousand skiers/snowshoers/Forest users will write (email) the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Supervisor and request designation of new non-motorized areas on the Wenatchee Mountains. The ‘significant’ area we are targeting is the unroaded Wenatchee Mountains ridge crest from Van Epps Pass to Three Brothers (mountain). This encompasses Ingalls Peak, Fortune Peak, Iron Peak, peaks surrounding Bean Creek, Earl Peak, Navaho Peak, Three Brothers and the Wenatchee Mountains Crest from Rd 9716 to the west of Diamond Head across Tronsen Head, Mt. Lillian including down to the Old Ellensburg trail to Mission Peak and on to the Mission Ridge Road including Lake Clara, Mission Peak, and surrounding areas. This area would offer many short day-tours, long day tours, overnight self-powered ski tours, and snowmobile road-assist tours. We hope to generate a thousand comments by August 15, 2010.

Contact information: Mail, email, or call
Rebecca Heath, Forest Supervisor
Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Headquarters
215 Melody Lane
Wenatchee, WA 98801
(509) 664-9200
Email:  Rebecca Heath, OWNF Supervisor, and the Forest Plan Revision Team:  r6_ewzplanrevision@fs.fed.us
Carbon Copy Us: wenatcheemountainscoalition@hotmail.com. We need to track our support and to capture additional thoughts and ideas of non-motorized recreationalists. Your privacy is paramount, we will not share your contact information or reveal your identity.
Help us Succeed. Please forward this message to your skiing/snowshoeing friends. Ask for their involvement.

Fabricated conflict.

If this wasn't a blanket means of simply closing out areas to other users, why would WMC solicit letters from 5 other states and extreme environmental wilderness groups?

Save it for the fall when all users will be more interested in participating in the discussion. And as Marcus requested, stop with the "boiler plate" posts for letters.

And drop the slander about "significant" portions of wilderness. We have visited this endlessly, those that violate need to be fined to the maximum the law will allow and there is not "significant" area that is being poached, it's actually a very small area by a very few users. the exageration is getting old.

Wilderness is non-motorized and more than 4.5 million acres are designated as such, add to it the amount of area that is simply off limits to motorized users for many verious reasons. Add that up and then talk about parity.

Fabricated conflict.

If this wasn't a blanket means of simply closing out areas to other users, why would WMC solicit letters from 5 other states and extreme environmental wilderness groups?

Save it for the fall when all users will be more interested in participating in the discussion. And as Marcus requested, stop with the "boiler plate" posts for letters.

And drop the slander about "significant" portions of wilderness. We have visited this endlessly, those that violate need to be fined to the maximum the law will allow and there is not "significant" area that is being poached, it's actually a very small area by a very few users. the exageration is getting old.

Wilderness is non-motorized and more than 4.5 million acres are designated as such, add to it the amount of area that is simply off limits to motorized users for many verious reasons. Add that up and then talk about parity.

Nothing new here Yammadog. We have had this discussion for a while. It has been a while since refreshing the general purpose of this thread.

We are trying to get skiers to think about this and get involved. In the end, USFS will decide how to appropriately manage the Forest.

"Backcountry snow sliders are about six million strong?"
"2009 United States Snowmobile RegistrationsTotal 1,652,642"



Article today at Wildsnow:

www.wildsnow.com/3474/backcou...kiing-numbers/

www.snowsports.org/

(quote)
Rumors of Our Demise Were Exagerated

SIA released their annual snowsports participation study. Some tidbits to make you laugh or cry:

... Snow sports participation increased by more than than a 1.5 million people during the2008/09 season. That includes 573,000 alpine skiers, 309,000 Nordic skiers, and 262,000 snowboarders...

... about 20% of skiers are going backcountry one way or another... U.S. snow sports participation has reached 30,000,000, close to 10% of the total population. I’m assuming SIA is talking snowboarders and skiers in that number (don’t know about snowshoes)...we backcountry snow sliders are about six million strong?...


...“The recreational transport category suffered a double-digit category decline in 2009. Wholesale sales were $27.33 billion in 2009, down from $31.48 billion in 2008 – a decline of 13.2%. As recently as 2007, the recreational transport category was at $37.47 billion. The line items in this category include motorcycles, jet skis, recreational vehicles, snowmobiles, bicycles, and pleasure boats & motors.”...

(end quote)

Statistics from ISMA:

(quote)

www.snowmobile.org/stats_registrations_us.asp

2009 United States Snowmobile Registrations

State # Registered Snowmobiles
Alaska 55,249
California 22,930
Colorado 33,367
Idaho 52,259
Illinois 39,500
Indiana 9,373
Iowa 28,400
Maine 98,472
Massachusetts 16,136
Michigan 346,315
Minnesota 252,003
Montana 39,531
Nebraska 2,100
New Hampshire 60,000
New York 136,471
North Dakota 15,822
Ohio 17,300
Oregon 17,392
Pennsylvania 40,066
South Dakota 12,231
Utah 28,768
Vermont 36,400
Washington 35,150
Wisconsin 219,907
Wyoming 37,500
Total 1,652,642

(end quote)

The Wenatchee Mountains Coalition is actively advocating for significant new winter designated non-motorized areas along the pristine unroaded crest of the Wenatchee Mountains. Please see Page 1 of this thread. Thank you for your consideration and support.

"Backcountry snow sliders are about six million strong?"
"2009 United States Snowmobile RegistrationsTotal 1,652,642"

... about 20% of skiers are going backcountry one way or another... U.S. snow sports participation has reached 30,000,000, close to 10% of the total population. I’m assuming SIA is talking snowboarders and skiers in that number (don’t know about snowshoes)...we backcountry snow sliders are about six million strong?...

I consider myself a BC snowboarder, but your numbers are way out of wack IMO.  The 20% number for BC riders is a total guess because there is no way to verify this, and most BC riders do so near ski areas.  The numbers of people that enter areas your proposing to rope off to the rest of the civilized world I'd bet have very very small numbers of BC skiers/boarders compared to snowmobilers. 

Instead of hiding behind your group name, why don't you post as the individual that you are?  Who are you?   A few years back there was an issue of people hiding behind anonymous profiles and posting here.  Has that restriction changed?