I'll give you an example. You probably think you know who your friends are, and who your enemies are, politically. One group of politicos is pro-bikes, the other is anti-bikes, right?
Well, not exactly. Check out some letters to the editor from the Denver Post about recent moves to open National Park lands to mountain bikers. First the editorial:
A proposed federal rule that could open up thousands of miles of national park trails to mountain bikers is sure to cause a dustup.
But we think the change would be a good one for the park system's future.
The Interior Department earlier this month issued a rule that would give park superintendents greater say in opening up selected trails to mountain biking.
As it stands, precious few trails in the park system are open to mountain biking.
The proposed rule, which is subject to a 60-day comment period, has reopened a long-standing and often pitched battle between hikers and bikers.
Hikers accuse cyclists of creating erosion and bad karma with their speed-seeking ways. Mountain bikers say hikers are narrow-minded ideologues who see no other way to enjoy the wilderness.
We think there can and should be a way for these users to co-exist on selected trails.
And we also think park superintendents, who intimately know the parks and their users, are best-suited to make these judgments.
As it stands, national parks have been seeing an alarming decline in use, particularly in the backcountry. During a decade ending in 2007, overnight backcountry stays went down by more than 20 percent, according to National Park Service statistics.
Biking advocates say that young people would be more inclined to visit those areas if they were allowed to do so via mountain bike.
Furthermore, biking can be easier on those with aging and damaged joints so long as severe climbs aren't involved.
As far as damage to trails, that is a management issue. Trails that are overused will become damaged, whether they are traversed by humans on foot, on bicycles or on horseback.
We would expect park managers to closely monitor trail conditions, as they routinely do, and temporarily shut down those that get too beaten down.
In some ways, it's a good problem to have. The best way to build support for our precious national park system, which comprises 84 million acres in every state but Delaware, is to have citizens who know the parks and love them.
Purists who believe nature is best experienced on foot will be upset by potentially having to share trails with mountain bikers, but we would ask them to have an open mind about it.
At the earliest, the rule would take effect in mid-2009. That means the Obama administration, and proposed Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, will have the final say on the matter.
We hope the next administration will give serious consideration to leaving the rule intact so a new group of outdoor enthusiasts can enjoy the splendor of our parks in their own way.
That's about how I feel as a rider - share the trails. I think people should get out to appreciate the land, and as long as we can do it together safely, we should do so. You shouldn't close vast tracts of beautiful nature to people who don't have the time to do a 6 day roughing-it style hike to get there. I'm grateful that The First Mountain Biker sees things my way.
A lot of hikers don't, apparently. Here's the letters in response:
Re: “Hikers, bikers should share national parks,” Dec. 28 editorial.
Your editorial went badly off-track. First, there are ample opportunities for mountain biking in national parks. All roads and vehicle accesses are open to mountain bikes as well as many trails. The only issue is access to narrow backcountry trails.
There is currently a process for bike trail designation that was initiated under President Reagan. This process is not broken and allows input by hikers and others who feel they may be run off trails by fast-moving bikes.
One issue The Post omits is that the Bush plan would open up nearly 8 million acres of proposed wilderness lands in approximately 30 parks to mountain bikes. This big reversal of Park Service policy could prevent these lands from ever enjoying the permanent protections of the wilderness system.
The Post should acknowledge that this plan is really a special interest grab for what may become (through millions of tire ruts) exclusive access to many of the best lands in the national park system, with reduced opportunity for public comment and review. It is one of the several questionable parting gifts left by an environmentally challenged Bush administration and should be put on the shelf.
Jeff Ruch, Washington, D.C.
The writer is executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Bicyclists, pedestrians just don’t mix well
The city of Denver’s bicyling ordinance states that “riding bicycles upon or along sidewalks, whether on public property or private property opened for use by the general public, shall be unlawful except when the operator or rider thereof is a uniformed city employee riding a bicycle or a police officer riding a bicycle is a marked or unmarked official police bicycle while engaged in the discharge of his or her official duties, or when the operator or rider thereof is engaged in the delivery of newspapers or where the sidewalk is part of a designated bicycle route. Bicyclists shall yield the right-of-way to pedestrians on the sidewalks, and shall leave the sidewalk or dismount if necessary to yield such right-of-way.”
Why do you believe such an ordinance exists? It is because pedestrians and bicycles don’t mix very well. And if regular bicycles and pedestrians don’t mix well on city streets, why do you think that hikers and mountain bikes, many of which are typically operated with “extreme” behaviors, will mix well on narrow trails in the backcountry of national parks?
Bill Wade, Tucson, Ariz.
The writer is chair of the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees’ Executive Council.
Bikes in parks are like roller skates in church
Mountain bike trails have no place in our national parks, contrary to the Denver Post’s enjoinders to create such moving violations within them.
Nature will be natural, if we let it be. And our national parks will be natural preserves of a world untouched by time or technology if we minimize the incursion of the artificial within it.
Mountain bikes are machines, devices of gears, sprockets, and chains. As such, they are artificial means of transportation. Their presence within a national park abrades its mood and mission as much as roller-skating in church. With the incursion of such off-road vehicles into a natural area such as a national park, it becomes less a park and more a playground, a place less for experience and more for entertainment.
Marty Tessmer, Denver
I was also standing in line behind a couple guys from a national advocacy group last week, waiting to buy lunch downtown. I knew this because they were wearing monogrammed shirts. You'd recognize the name of their group, you may have given money thinking it was a good thing to do. They were very excited because recent changes in the political landscape will probably permit them to convince the legislature to reclassify hundreds of millions of acres of federal lands as off limits to anything other than limited numbers of hikers. They were talking about getting the new rule change reversed, and then some, based on the reception they've received to their political overtures. So mountain bikers, grazing farmers, lumber companies, miners and oil drillers will all be in the same bucket. We're not talking about shutting off the local MTB trail to you, we're talking about putting enormous tracts of land off limits, and rendering them basically inaccessible to anybody except for hikers with the wherewithal to take multi-day, possibly multi-week unsupported trips.
Nice, huh?
The lineup of characters advocating one thing or another probably defies most of your stereotypes. How's that make you feel, Verne?
This situation illustrates that most of us don't know what we think we know. We're lucky if a good percentage of what we think we "know" is true, and if even a little bit of what we surmise is accurate. Yogi Berra said, "In baseball, you don't know anything." The older I get and the more I learn, the more I'm starting to believe that "in life, you don't know anything." The people you'd expect to be your friends may not be. The people you are positive are your enemies, may not be either. Life can't be simply summed up by generalities and most people can't just be relegated to the camp of "good" or "bad." Life simply has to be about a long string of particular circumstances and special cases; otherwise you simply can't get your head around situations like this one. It makes my noggin hurt to have to think of things this way, it's painfully complex. Yes, it's also a very old school Tory outlook, but I don't see any readily available, effective ways of filtering life and understanding what's happening other than to struggle to consider the particulars of any given situation and to be slow to pronounce judgment on it. I really do believe that you just don't know anything in life.
In this mountain biking / federal lands situation, you might find that if you're a mountain biker, grazing farmers, Pacific Gypsum, Exxon, loggers and uranium mining companies are your friend, and a lot of hikers and environmental groups aren't. That's a bit mind bending and it doesn't fit the usual template. I wish it was different; insofar as I have a stance on the issue, it's that American land should be used to everybody's benefit, and that entails a painstaking balancing process to permit the preservation of wildlife habitat and our beautiful spaces, responsible (e.g. good stewardship) exploitation of natural resources, and measures to ensure the public at large can visit these places. I think there's no reason we can't share, but I may be weird to think this way. I get the feeling a lot of land users across the spectrum think everybody else is a jackass and should be shut out. Careful consideration of individual cases, with a general policy of trying to serve all the people, strikes me as the best management philosophy for land that we theoretically own in common.
But what do I know. I'm willing to consider the possibility that I may be wrong about this.
14 comments:
First!!! (oh wait, this isn't BSNY).
Marty Tessmer's post is my favorite. He sees bikes as "machines, devices of gears, sprockets, and chains". Well, what about the "naturalist" hikers who head out into the woods with high-tech hiking and camping gear?
I look at it this way: hikers and bikers are both consumers, and bring the economy into the state parks. Since the average biker brings way more money into the parks, the parks should be giving them more consideration than they already have. After all, hikers walk into the woods with a couple of hundred dollars worth of gear - hundreds of dollars into the economy. Mountain bikers go into the woods with thousands of dollars worth of gear - thousands of dollars invested into the economy.
Nature will survive, and these days, it is surviving a whole lot better than the economy.
Great post Jim. I kind of see myself in the middle in the political specturm. You see me as Liberal and liberals see me as conservative. I have to say I agree with you on this one.
The hardest part is to find balance. But balance is sooo freaking subjective you will never make anyone happy. The problem with Mountain bikers is that there is so little of people who mountain bike compared to the rest of the McDonnalds popluation. What do they care about Mountain bikers rights, let alone cyclist rights overall.
When I lived in california I would go do some day hikes into the back country and I might only see one other group of people back there. I was thinking I want to mnt bike back here because of the time it took. Plus the reason why is I can take all my stuff with me easier also. Not like I would book down the trail with 50 pounds of stuff on my bike.
And for some reason I agree with you on it being equal for business to be there also. Just as long as it fits my liberal balance perspective. Shit I am starting to get old because I lean right more and more.
>>>Jason said:
>>>Marty Tessmer's post is my favorite. He sees bikes as "machines, devices of gears, sprockets, and chains. He sounds like Gandalf the Grey, disturbed by all of Saruman's infernal machines and unnatural creations. (Like Dave Zabriskie, who is half man, half-unicorn). Don't let Mr. Tessmer know that we sometimes work on our bikes with Chain Whips (Whips!!!). If he figures out we're all into whips and chains, we'll never get into any parks.
Kyle - I haven't a clue what your politics are. I'm actually more or less minarchist.
I am non partisan so I can fling mud on everyone without anyone bringing up stances of a party I do not agree with. You know how I am. The Rainman of Mabra.
Good Post as always Jim. One of the most destructive things man does to land is farm it, yet without farmers a lot of us would be pretty darn hungry all the time. (Kyle could finally lose that last 15 lbs!) For me, that's why you can't label this a left/right issue but more of a human issue. It's not like liberals all of a sudden are going to decide to save the planet by not eating anything, or conservatives want to go plow up, bulldoze flat and pave over every square inch of the earth.
I seriously doubt it's beyond man's capabilities to somehow manage the use of our national parks in a way that allows people to still actually enjoy them, including mtb'ers.
Perhaps the two sides could come to a compromise. You know when you have the satisfaction of knowing that neither one of you is getting what you want.
Can't remember who said that.
-B
Bluenoser, I'm all for plowing both the hippies and the oil company execs into the ground and using that compost to grow hemp to upholster the seats of my Hummer. That would be a compromise, right? It sure would beat the baby seal skin saddle cover I have on my Brooks B-59.
Jim...
the main issue really is the use of mountain bikes in backcountry wilderness in National Parks. Wilderness is defined (in the 1964 Wilderness Act) as
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value
Sooooo...the part where they want to go into Wilderness is kind of not so good in my opinion. I think Wilderness should be cherished a little bit more than lame Bush last minute referendum, but that's just me.
Now the part about getting more mountain biking into National Parks in non wilderness areas is another topic and one I can kind of jive with ALTHOUGH I have spent A LOT of time all over the West IN AND NEAR many many National Parks with my mountain bike. Usually, a good trail is located on USFS land just right outside of any National Park so I view this whole process just another waste of time from an Administration that should be focusing on more important matters, like WAR and ECONOMY.
My .02
Great post!
There's another option for sharing the wilderness and that is to have dedicated MTB single-track for the cyclists. Most of the mountain biking around here, MN & WI, is structured this way. Seems to keep everyone happy.
Oh, btw, I think NashBar has those baby seal skin saddle covers on sale this week...
Robb, I'm with you, except the initiative that the nice gentlemen in front of me were so indiscretely discussing in line at the lunch counter involves putting hundreds of millions of acres of lands now in use, into Wilderness status. That means driving the cows, oil derricks, logging trucks and mountain bikers off land now in fairly extensive use. It's a legal fiction to call reclaimed farmland wilderness, but a lot of people are willing to do that if it drives humans out. The back 40 at Yellowstone as Wilderness? Yeah, I'm fine with that being mostly off limits. Stuff where the cows currently graze in between logging trucks? Maybe not so much.
Wheeldancer - most of the MTB trails I've seen, built in conjunction with MTB advocacy groups, are natural surface, multi-use trails that are very low impact on the land. They can be used by hikers, MTB'ers, and horseback riders. 12' ceiling and 24" wide, with attention paid to anti-erosion features.
Some good points Robb.
My point was that the environment is valuable to humans in many ways. An untouched little corner of it for posterity is just one of those ways.
Jim,
Paul McCartney's ex hauled his ass out to the ice flows to protest and he followed along like a seal pup after it's mom. Look where that got him.
Haven't seen him back since. Sealskin bartape to match?
-B
Long time listener, first time poster..
As someone involved in local (NE) MTB advocacy all I can say is just keep your head up. It's irritating dealing with people who want the woods all for themselves, and their singular experience, while the actual number of what they see as "legitamate users" falls off faster each year (at least it does around these parts).
It takes a lot of work to change the minds of a generation that feels like it collectively "owns" everything it touches, including trails located in a public park/forest. That Tessmer jackass is a perfect example of someone wanting to dictate to all what their experiences in the woods should be at all times.
Plenty of people like him would rather watch urban and suburban parks turn into pickle parks than have folks actually using the trails in a legitamate manner. IMHO this is mainly because it simply infringes on their experience, and their experience is paramount.
I learned not to trust anyone, from any other user group, with an agenda. My naivete at a younger age was quickly wiped away by horrid logic, and bad arguments, made by people attmepting to justify their selfishness.
The less people are allowed to experience the outdoors, be it wilderness or uran/suburban parklands, the less valuable the experience, and subsequently the land, becomes. It's semi ironic that the generation (the ME generation, go figure) that accelerated the buying, selling and overdevelopment of our land now holds much of the decision making power over how to "save" the remainder of our open spaces.
These plans serve to devalue the land because so few will get to have the experiences that allow people to fall in love with wilderness in the first place. When only a lucky few (with the time and means to backpack for days/weeks) get to experience nature on that level there's too few to lobby for it's protection down the road. But then again it's all about them, and their experiences now.
Sorry that was so long winded and such a downer..
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