Baker south side reports?

So, that about covers it for ya, eh Sam?

hehe, I guess I know where I can't ride my snowmobile now... though even that isn't clear.

Looks like the weather is putting baker on hold anyway... so all of this was for nothing!

well then, back to sno mo's...

(+ there's always the N side, no sno mos and skis real nice...

and pretty much car to car right about now with minor road travel)


like snoholic was saying, there was definitely a steady stream of loud whining to the steam vents:



As mentioned above this activity seems pretty well ingrained and - if it is illegal - out in the open.  Check out all of Charlie McDowell's Youtube vids from the day of the pic above.

I think the crux of the problem is this very discussion. The fact that it's taking place. Which is primarily due to the lack of easily accessible and definitive information on what the boundaries are.

Seems to me anyone should be able to search: "Mt. Baker snowmobile boundaries" on their favorite search engine and come up with an answer pretty quickly. But you can't.

Why?  I don't know.  Obviously the FS hasn't made it a priority (posting clearly marked and easily accessible boundaries on the web would be a days work at most...)

Seems to me anyone should be able to search: "Mt. Baker snowmobile boundaries" on their favorite search engine and come up with an answer pretty quickly. But you can't.

I agree. The Forest Service should basically restate the law (you can't use a snowmobile in a Wilderness area) and then link to an online USGS map. It wouldn't be that hard. Ideally it would be something like the GMap link listed above. The only problem with that is that you depend on GMap (or whoever) to stay around. The cheap and easy way to do it is to simply grab a jpeg and throw that on the server.

I think the crux of the problem is this very discussion. The fact that it's taking place. Which is primarily due to the lack of easily accessible and definitive information on what the boundaries are.

Seems to me anyone should be able to search: "Mt. Baker snowmobile boundaries" on their favorite search engine and come up with an answer pretty quickly. But you can't.

Why?  I don't know.  Obviously the FS hasn't made it a priority (posting clearly marked and easily accessible boundaries on the web would be a days work at most...)

I agree that the FS is contributing to the problem (by posting vague descriptions that violators can hide behind), but it is not true that there is no easily accesible, definitive source for boundaries. As Amar has shown above, they are clearly marked on the USGS maps which are freely available on the internet and clearly show all wilderness boundaries. While the USGS maps are not free from errors, they are pretty damn good.

That the boundaries are not widely understood among the various recreation groups is clear. I remember a fairly recent example (perhaps on this site or maybe nwhikers; I'm too lazy to search) of a self-powered user with their panties in a wad b/c someone had taken their snowmobile past the wilderness boundary sign on the trail to the Park Butte lookout all the way to the lookout itself. The lookout is clearly outside the allowed area marked on the 'map' linked by Good2Go, but, in fact, the entire trail to the lookout is in the NRA and outside the wilderness, so the trip was legal and the sledders were on the correct side of the law.

I would point out to the sledders that the FS can not set or modify the boundaries. Their job, which they don't seem able to do well, is to manage the public lands including enforcing the boundaries. The boundaries are set by federal law. Just b/c an incompetent or unethical FS employee misrepresents the boundary, it does not follow that it is legal or ethical to ride in the wilderness. It's your responsibility to know and obey the law. I understand that there can be honest confusion, but this particular location has been discussed at length many times. The conflict is well known, and self-powered user can only assume that continuing incursions into the wilderness on the south side of Baker are willful violations of the law.  If you want to sled to Park Butte lookout, I'm 100% on your side. If you want to sled in the Mt. Baker wilderness, I will wag my disapproving cyber-finger at you.  

Here are some indisputable facts Amar:

1. The sled community believes that it is legal to ride to the crater (including the clubs that interface w/ the FS all the time).
2. Sledders ride to the crater practically every day during the season (and have been for probably 30 years), not because they are negligent or intentional law breakers, but because they believe it is legal.
3. FS knows about this and does not object, even when it happens in their presence (e.g., at snomo club events that are also attended by the FS - which happens every year).
4. The FS posts a map on the page on their site dedicated to snomo rules on Baker and it shows the top of the mountain between the Roman Wall and Sherman Peak as within the legal zone (which just so happens to be the spot you are flagging as illegal). 

That map may not be up to your lofty standards Amar, but the FS knows people will rely on it.  (And if you think "official" maps are perfect you may want to look into the story of the Infinite Bliss climbing route controversy on Mt. Garfield.)

Please tell me you at least called the FS to confirm that it is illegal before coming on here to declare it "100% illegal".   I'd be just blown away, totally stunned in fact, if an individual with your obvious attention to detail (based on your excellent trip reports) did something so reckless.

He did call the FS LEO and it is illegal. It's our responsibility to know the boundaries and respect them. Just because you believe something to be legal doesn't make it so. That's not how the world works.

but it is not true that there is no easily accesible, definitive source for boundaries

well, then try to find it - where is it?

Put yourself in the shoes of the average Joe (or Josephine). In good faith you try to find out where the boundaries are. You type: "Mt. Baker snowmobile boundaries" in your favorite search engine. You click on all 12 links on the first page, waste half an hour and come up empty handed. Sure there's lots of info stating "Snowmobiles are prohibited in Congressionally Designated Wilderness Areas." Great. But there's absolutely no practical or helpful information (map) clearly stating where the boundaries are.

What good is information if you can't find it?

So Josephine says f**k it, my friend Charlie sez the steam vents are really cool, I'm going to go check them out. Everybody else does. And off she goes.


Or maybe she's a little more diligent, perceptive and patient than the average Joe and tries searching for "Mt. Baker Wilderness Area boundaries". Still nothing.

What I'm driving at is that instead of this incessant kvetching about it - long thread about it last year too - why not work towards a solution?
As stated earlier, this information can be made much more accessible without too much trouble. If the Forest Service doesn't have a web person that can do it, have them get a hold of me. I'd be happy to spend a day freelancing to set up increased textual and image based SEO (search engine optimization) for "Mt. Baker snowmobile boundaries", "Mt. Baker Wilderness Area boundaries", and any derivatives thereof.