Expansion of North Cascades National Park

You nailed it. I am glad to hear that you agree with some areas within the American Alps proposal. However, on a personal note, I resent the implication of superiority in my post as I was not trying to be pompous nor snooty, merely suggest a course of consideration by EXAMPLE.

Going beyond ad-hominem...

A big point is they are not wanting to remove Mountain biking as per your arguments:

Well excuse me Mr/Mrs Resent but it was You who started your argument by implying that those that want to retain the area around Hwy20 for multi-use were SELFISH and that you were NOT and wiling to give it up for the greater good and then you take umbrage to me implying an implication of superiority.  You are quick to apply  derogatory name tags to those that have different views from you but very sensitive when the same is given back to you.

But back to topic
  I have read the statement you cut and paste and it is very carefully worded and ambiguous.
So they are going to disallow downhill skiing (presumably they mean heli-sking)and snowmobiling but allow horse back riding and mountain biking in the Hwy 20 corridor if it becomes a Park.??? Are you sure about that?

Edit to add. so we should follow the Euro's and ban heli-skiing? Do you feel heli-skiing  should be banned globally then? why is heli-sking such a sore point  with people with your conservationalist views?

One of the things I wonder about when I think about the Highway 20 corridor is whether we are living in a "golden moment" that cannot last.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I don't have a problem with heli-skiing along the highway at the current level of activity. But anyone who's been around a few years will remember that the previous owner of North Cascades Heli-skiing applied for a permit to operate two helicopters simultaneously in the highway corridor. I was against that, and as far as I know the request was denied. If heli-skiing grew too much along the highway corridor, I would no longer support it.

The same thing goes for snowmobiling. Although I don't live in the Methow Valley, and I don't own a snowmobile, I believe that nearly all  the snowmobile use along the highway corridor has been limited to the established roads. I'm not aware that riders have been leaving the highway and heading for the alpine zones. I'm extremely thankful for this. If snowmobiles were to begin riding to the alpine zones near the highway, I would do everything in my power to have them banned.

So, in this golden moment that we are experiencing, I am ambivalent about whether more protection is needed along the highway, because the situation is not too bad at this point. But what about the future? I'm on the fence about including the highway corridor in the National Park, but it wouldn't take much to knock me off the fence.

The North Cascades Conservation Council long ago concluded that they prefer Park Service management to Forest Service management. I haven't seen detailed N3C proposals, but I presume that they do not think the current situation will last, and I imagine that they are less comfortable with the current situation than I am.

Well there's plenty of folks on this site who use the Hwy 20 corridor for snowmobile access and there's people I'm sure who are associated with the heli-skiing groups. I'd very much like to hear from them.

I'd also love to hear what the N3C's specific fears are regarding the Hywy 20 corridor and why they feel that this area needs protection now.

This , at least to me, seems based upon what I'm hearing above, boild down to muscle-powered vrs mechanized issue simil;ar to the Wilderness thread.

This , at least to me, seems based upon what I'm hearing above, boild down to muscle-powered vrs mechanized issue simil;ar to the Wilderness thread.

I think that's only partly true. Park status gives better protection against things like mining, road building or hydro electric projects, which may still seem like bigger long term threats.

User conflict between motorized and non-motorized groups is a growing issue. But there's a pretty long history of other major land use projects really being seen as the major threat to conservation and I don't think that lesson has been forgotten just yet. Park status is really the best way to prevent that stuff if that's your goal.

Well excuse me Mr/Mrs Resent but it was You who started your argument by implying that those that want to retain the area around Hwy20 for multi-use were SELFISH and that you were NOT and wiling to give it up for the greater good and then you take umbrage to me implying an implication of superiority.  You are quick to apply  derogatory name tags to those that have different views from you but very sensitive when the same is given back to you.

Fair enough. I have been in Seattle long enough to degrade into passive statements unintentionally. I should have directly argued "It is SELFISH to want to DO something that may (in all likelyhood) directly (via pollution or development) or indirectly (via preventing formation of preserved areas for recreational desires) contribute to the decadence of an ecosystem or area". By this statement, I would be directly calling you, Mr. Heliski, selfish. Before you go so far, I will agree with you that I am selfish, every single time, I drive to the mountains. Whatever. Can't get away from that, and it would be harder to appreciate the mountains if I couldn't enjoy them by driving to them. The thing is, Mr. Heliski, is that we can choose to do things that will be better for more. Some things are easier to choose to not do (like heli skiing, or not paragliding) than others (like driving). I would rhetorically ask you, if you couldn't heli-ski or mountain bike in the North Cascades, would you even care about them that others could enjoy them in the ways that they do? Don't worry, as I believe that you would indeed still care about them based on the passion of your responses. But I am asking this question to the emphasize my point there are ways to enjoy the mountains without dropping out of choppers and bombing down mountains that may allow the greater preservation of the area.

Edit to add. so we should follow the Euro's and ban heli-skiing? Do you feel heli-skiing  should be banned globally then? why is heli-sking such a sore point  with people with your conservationalist views?

I would personally say, that heli-skiing in the NC should be banned. Recreational heli-skiing and the protection for the remaining parts of the North Cascades (such as with American Alps expansion) are likely mutually exclusive. One of these actionsis a fairly trite desire to get some adrenaline and wicked turns in amazing scenery, the other being a plan to preserve the amazingess of so that your sons and daughters can enjoy this amazing scenery later on in his adult life. This is not about mechanized vs muscle powered (I use ski lifts...another selfish desire). Europe is a slightly different story, from what I can gather. They did it because it was ffing noisy and dangerous. So, we shouldn't just follow suit because of Europe's reasons, but for that I said above.

As for the term 'conservationalist': I think I would prefer to be called a preservationalist. As I've heard before, conservation is what you do when you are running out... Preservation is what you do before you run out.

Upon further reflection, I believe if I had instead completely bypassed all of my above two posts above and instead asked the question: "Is it perhaps selfish...?" then such passionate ad-hominem back and forth would not have followed: if we could not agree on the answer to question there would be no sense in arguing as would not be talking on the same page. I apologize for not framing it this way.