Expansion of North Cascades National Park

I don't know enough to comment at this point.

Sorry to belabor the point Lowell, but you are a member of the group "spearheading " the project and you're not usually so coy.
I found some of your advise and arguments on the WMC thread useful. How can you spearhead and not know or even be a member of an advocacy project and not know what the arguments are.?

You already intimated that there were people who portend bad things that make the designation of this particular area( and again I'm being specific to the SR20 area from Rainy Pass down to the Early Winters campground) to a National Park rather than current control necessary.
What are those things?
Let me try to help.
1) heli-sking
2) Snowmobile access along Sr 20
3) Lots of use by BC tourers concentrated in one area.
4) Dogs
5) Mountain Biking
6)Horse back riding
7)commercial wind farms
8)mini hydro-electric
9)Fear USFS will change multi-use policies in the future
10) all of the above

How can you spearhead and not know or even be a member of an advocacy project and not know what the arguments are.?

Didn't I say that I was not an active participant in the American Alps Legacy project? Which part of my previous post did you not understand? You're way out of line suggesting that I'm spearheading anything in this case.

The issues you listed probably include some of the things people are worried about. I honestly don't know. As I said, I'm a member of N3C. But I have several years of their newsletters sitting on my bookshelf unread because I just haven't kept up with them.

I suggest that you go to the N3C website and look through some of the recent issues of "The Wild Cascades." Those are the same magazines I receive from N3C. There isn't anything I can tell you about the N3C position that you can't find in there:

www.northcascades.org/magazine.html

Didn't I say that I was not an active participant in the American Alps Legacy project? Which part of my previous post did you not understand? You're way out of line suggesting that I'm spearheading anything in this case.

The issues you listed probably include some of the things people are worried about. I honestly don't know. As I said, I'm a member of N3C. But I have several years of their newsletters sitting on my bookshelf unread because I just haven't kept up with them.

I suggest that you go to the N3C website and look through some of the recent issues of "The Wild Cascades." Those are the same magazines I receive from N3C. There isn't anything I can tell you about the N3C position that you can't find in there:

www.northcascades.org/magazine.html

No I didn't understand the distinction between" member of the group spearheading" and non active participant . But I do now, thanks for clearing that up.

It's pretty easy to take pot shots (comparing with Glenn Beck) or picking select items to criticize or generalize. The people behind NCCC are the ones who helped bring us Glacier Peak Wilderness (instead of an open pit copper mine), Olympic NP, NC National Park and now the Wild Sky Wilderness. They've been at this for more than 5 decades and we're all the recipients.

I too am mixed for various reasons. And I think things are fine now so why "fix" what's not broken. I think NCCC, because of decades of battles, knows that unprotected means just that so take action before it gets broken. Their "fixes" in the past have insured that 100's of thousands of acres of wilderness won't be despoiled. Their goal with the Wilderness Alps proposal is to finish what was unfinished decades ago because they understand that political winds and economics can result in irreversible changes to wilderness. Doing nothing doesn't mean nothing will happen.

Their website and journals include contact information and board members' names so rather than wondering and speculating, ask them.

I believe the problem is that any of the "fixes" described will change the character of the area by changing what people can currently do there.

As an example, if the area is converted to Wilderness, that will shut down any heli-skiing as well as any mountain biking.

If it's converted to a National Park, that will also shut down heli-skiing and hunting in the affected area. Overnight camping and backpacking will also be effected, and mountain biking would be optional depending on the local NP administration - which given how NCNP is managed as a defacto wilderness area, probably suggests it would also be shut down.

Conversion to a National Recreation Area could allow from protection against development (i.e. no new downhill ski areas being built), but also allow for all of the existing uses of the land to continue, but I don't think (having seen the presentations and visited the website) that's really what people are campaigning for.

Great comments, reflections and questions.  Personally, I too am bothered with this push for parkdom in the expanded areas.  Though I sympathize with the notion that greater, permanent protection could be given the areas mentioned, as 'previously left out when the NCNP was created', I seriously question the need and consequences.  As the areas under consideration are some of the most successful multiple-use recreational areas in our mountains, why would we want to change that?  I can think of few areas in the Cascades where nordic and backcountry skiers, heliskiers and sledders all coexist with minimal friction.  Where rock and alpine climbers, hikers, horse folks, packers, mountain bikers, campers and rv'ers can all recreate in proximity in the spring, summer and fall.  What are we worried about?  That mining might once again emerge like cicada's from the played out mines of Chancellor?  I think SeaTacExpat hit it right by suggesting National Recreational Area status - if any change in status is needed.  I too believe the NCNP is running 'their' park like a 'defacto wilderness area'.  Despite prepark commitments to backcountry fisherman to retain existing high lake fishing, the park just recently determined to poison such lakes within the Park of their existing fish - trout native to Washington, but not previously (50 to 75 yrs previously) native to the lakes in question within NCNP - thereby doublecrossing those fisherman who were talked into supporting efforts by N3C to bring about the original NCNP.  I therefore can't and wouldn't trust the NCNP to do or not do anything it might say today as it pertains to current and future uses of the areas as they might expand into.

Another issue at play here, which I think is critically important to recognize, is that organizations and individuals maintain and gain credence through the public activities they support - whether in politics or business, right?  So if you are an organization espousing environmental or conservation causes, then you need a cause to rally behind in order to maintain or gain credence.  What could be more convenient than to rally behind a cause and in an area tucked away a convenient distance from the higher use areas of the central and southern cascades, where existing urban, industrial, business, mining, logging, park, recreation and highway users compete more vigorously.  The more remote an area is from the big urban centers supporting potential conservation issues, the less impact it has on those urban centers, and the less they have to give up.  N3C's efforts are made easier if they can make the issue warm and fuzzy, after all the N3C et al is just proposing to 'expand the NCNP to its former intended boundaries', thereby protecting those fuzzy, friendly  little pikas, lynx and ghost grizzlies.  Well, maybe there were damn good reasons the original park boundaries were established where they were!  Maybe those boundaries reflected the concerns and realities of needed multiple recreational uses and users at that time!  And have those needs changed since then?  If anything, the need for areas to enjoy such recreational uses as are currently allowed in the area is more endangered than the lands under consideration are endangered by potential mining, lumber, etc.

So for all of the previous concerns and reasons,  I am personally not behind the expansion of the NCNP.  I don't want to see my recreational opportunities, or those of my fellow summer and winter users of this fantastic area,  further minimized.  I do support balanced, rational multiple use, and support our continuing to do so as long as we are not further degrading this wonderful mountain environment we chose to play in.