Mountain bike accessibility in national parks could expand exponentially under a rule change proposed by the Bush administration, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.
While the current regulation largely restricts mountain bike use to designated trails in developed areas, NPCA officials said the pending regulation would, if approved, allow superintendents to "designate bicycle routes on:
1. existing trails within developed areas;
2. existing trails within undeveloped areas; and
3. new trails within developed areas."
"Under the proposal, if any trail designations within these three areas were considered controversial or would significantly alter public use patterns, then the superintendent would be expected to issue a special regulation," the parks advocacy group said in comments on the proposed rule change."
The comments came near the end of the public comment period on the proposed rule change. Also opposing it was Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Tamalpais Conservation Club, the Bay Area Trails Preservation Council, Wilderness Watch, Wild Wilderness, the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance, and Grand Canyon Wildlands Council.
In its comments, the NPCA said the proposed changes would increase "the risk for local stakeholder groups to unfairly influence local park decision making" because a park superintendent in many cases would have the final say on opening trails. The current rule-making process requires National Park Service officials at the regional and national levels to review any proposed changes.
Additionally, NPCA said that while "a special regulation issued in the Federal Register would still be necessary for uses of, or activities of a, 'highly controversial nature' or that would result in 'a significant alteration in the public use pattern,' it is unclear what conditions would need to be met.
"Guidelines are needed to both assist the public in making this claim and assist superintendents in supporting their decision," the group continued. "We believe the Federal Register should not be used as a notification tool, as this proposal would do, but rather as a public involvement tool."
NPCA also believes any rule change should include language specifically prohibiting bicycles not only in officially designated wilderness areas but also in areas proposed for wilderness designation by the Park Service as well as areas currently managed as “potential Wilderness.”
NPCA officials also voiced their opinion that while national parks exist for the public's enjoyment, not all forms of recreation are appropriate for the national parks.
"We understand that some bicyclists, especially mountain bikers, would like to have increased access to the parks. However, the national parks do not have to sustain all recreation; that is why we have various other federal, state, local, and private recreation providers to share the demand, and to provide for those types of recreation that generally do not belong in the national parks, or that must be carefully limited," the group said.
"The 1916 NPS Organic Act, emphasizing conservation for future generations, is substantially different from the organic laws of the Bureau of Land Management, the US Forest Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, or any other federal agency. The NPS mission is also different from that of state park agencies, or of county or city park agencies. Together, these agencies provide for many forms of public recreation, including single-track mountain bike opportunities—but not all forms of recreation are appropriate in national parks."
Meanwhile, the other groups also urged Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to withdraw the proposed rule change, saying it was "a late lame-duck Bush administration plan to carve mountain bike trails across the backcountry of the national park system."
In announcing their opposition, the coalition pulled from an "action alert" the International Mountain Bicycling Association sent to its members, asking them to file comments in favor of the rule change. In that action alert, PEER officials said, IMBA described what is at stake this way: "…over 170 forests and grasslands administered by the NPS [National Park Service] and a potential 130,000 miles of trails, the move is a mouthwatering prospect for cyclists."
Among the concerns raised by the coalition are:
* Increased User Conflict. Introducing mountain bikes on backcountry trails will drive off hikers, horseback riders and other users, as fast moving bikers, sometimes in large groups, whiz down narrow paths;
* Introduction of Extreme (BMX) Mountain Biking Trails. The wording of the proposed rule appears to endorse, for the first time, construction of trails designed specifically for high-speed, bicycle motor-cross (BMX) racing, to the practical exclusion of other uses; and,
* Aggravation of Maintenance Backlog. High volume biking on backcountry trails will multiply the demand on the Park Service for erosion control to keep unpaved trails functional. The agency already reports a $9 billion backlog in maintenance projects.
"While we endorse the use of bicycles through the developed areas of park units like the C&O Canal in D.C., these proposed rule are designed to facilitate mountain bicycles in undeveloped park areas - the backcountry, far from paved park roads," commented PEER board member Frank Buono, a former NPS manager. "This rule could not only negatively change the backcountry experience for park visitors, but would allow a non-conforming use in proposed and recommended wilderness."
Jeff Ruch, PEER's executive director, added that, "This mountain bike rule is a classic example of special interest influence over management of our national parks. There is no shortage of other venues for mountain bikes that would justify opening up the last, best places within our national parks."
Comments
The NPS knows what it is doing at Muir Woods, Zebulon. Experience shows that if you let visitors wander around off-trail, they walk round and round and round those big redwoods. The result is dead trees. All of that tromping compacts the soil around the tree roots, eliminates vital air pockets in the upper root zone, and severely inhibits the downward movement of moisture. Fortunately, there are other plenty of other parks where you can go off-trail without endangering redwoods.
Keep Wilderness and National parks backcountry trails for animals ie. human; horses; and of course wild animals!!!
I would argue that is is closed to all sorts of mechanized use for very logical reasons. The wilderness designation was created to permanently set aside protected areas that could provide opportunities to completely get away from mechanized society. It has nothing to do with ultra environmental groups, and everything to do with preserving a place that helps provide contrast to how we live our lives.
I disagree that it is just going to be a matter of time before these rules change for wilderness. The more mechanized our society gets the more important it will become to protect wilderness (and there are some very strong groups who support that viewpoint).
Finally, biking may grow in popularity during the future... however I seriously doubt that will eclipse hiking (an activity that requires no special equipment and no monetary investment)
P.S. You are right when you say that there are no inherent qualities in the wildlands that makeup Wilderness that prevent any activity. The qualities (that prevent improper use of Wilderness) were in our society's ability to recognize the importance of pure, untrammeled, and unmechanized spaces and their growing importance to our society.
@ Zebulon-
I would bet that the NPS managed lands are such a minuscule percentage of the overall public lands that I don't think you lose out by not being able to mountain bike in National Parks.
I am a mountain biker, I live in an area with tons of mountain biking opportunities but little equestrian and the trails (wilderness) that don't allow bikes are not as shredded as the ones that allow biking (non-wilderness.) Let me say this again, I mountain bike and love it. I'm all for trail development but feel there is a time and place for everything.
Having run trail rehab programs via a nonprofit and put in a lot of hours rehabilitating trails myself (read: sore back, blisters and sweat...), I feel that I can comfortably say three things:
1) Mountain bikers don't show up to work on the trails, even when heavily recruited (at least around here)
2) Trails that allow mountain biking need more maintenance than those that don't.
3) Trails built or maintained to IMBA standards need TONS more work than those employing USFS standards.
4) The new generation (which I'm part of) of mountain bikers doesn't really slow down or tolerate walkers/runners/hikers/families on trails (around here) and gets upset when they have to slow down or pull an earbud from their ipod out to have a quick exchange with those not on a bike. I think hikers don't enjoy mountain bike trails because they are always having to jump out of the way. Say what you want, but you must not be riding fast enough to see where the conflict and disrespect comes from. I get mad when I have to slow down and then rebuild my cadence...
As such, I also don't see where the money to pay for these trails is going to come from other than sucking away funding towards rehabilitating/maintaining what is already there.
@ Zebulon- One more thing- If you take a look at the stats (take yer pick - typically generated from user surveys) you'll see that in heavily used public lands, hiking is the #1 activity.
I read the National Park Conservation Association and Wilderness advocacy group attachments. NPCA's position boils down to an argument that bicycles are fine for parking lots and for battling Winnebagos on NPS's paved roads. Despite NPCA's perfunctory statement that bikes may be OK on some trails somewhere, I've never heard of a trail that NPCA would find suitable for cycling. I wonder how many people under 40 would be excited to belong to an organization like this.
The people and organizations, like NPCA, who/that oppose giving individual park superintendents authority to decide on trail usage and want Washington to decide everything, would be the first to support the idea that some states, like California, should be allowed to set their own more stringent air-pollution control rules and not have to follow dictates from Washington.
So hypocrisy abounds. Nonetheless, one can dismiss the "concerns" (complaints) of hidebound groups and still acknowledge that mountain biking has an impact. All uses have impacts, some intrinsic, some extrinsic. Here's how I assess various traditional user groups' impact on wildlands:
1. Mountain bikers: low environmental impact, moderate intrinsic social impact (i.e., on the trails; see my following post), low extrinsic social impact (willing to share with others, do lots of volunteer trailwork, not hostile to other users).
2. Equestrians: moderate environmental impact, low intrinsic social impact (on the trails), moderate extrinsic social impact (hostility to mountain bikers and some other user groups; don't do much trail maintenance).
3. Hikers: low environmental impact, low instrinsic social impact (on the trails), moderate to high extrinsic social impact (insistence on keeping parks off limits to almost all nonmotorized users but themselves; don't do as much trail maintenance as mountain bikers do).
So no one can make a claim to social or environmental purity, notwithstanding the posturing of people and organizations who/that assert in substance that they possess a monopoly on both.
I am always reassessing the nature of trail-use conflicts. I no longer toe the party line of some of my fellow mountain bikers that nonmotorized user groups can all get along on every trail. And as I stated in my prior post, I acknowledge that the social impact of mountain biking can be, in certain senses, in certain places, and at certain times, higher than that of hiking. The environmental impact is usually the same, or even less, but the social impact on the trails is sometimes greater because we move faster (enabling us to scare people) and are more able to range farther into remote wildland interiors (enabling us to disrupt others' sense of solitude, which a number of people prize; I know I do). I believe we mountain bikers must acknowledge these issues and offer shared-use models that take them into account and neutralize (or minimize) any problems.
The question, though, is whether other user groups will work with mountain bikers in good faith. I doubt it. A number of Wilderness purists have been so fanatically devoted to their model of hikers-and-horses only that they have been willing to make the ultimate sacrifice: a virtual halt to Wilderness expansion for many years. This attitude shows that ideological purity prevails over the putatively fundamental goal of wildland protection. Given such a mindset, I fear that mountain bikers have little to offer that the purists will be willing to consider.
Anonymous of four posts above describes himself as a mountain biker but admits that he rides heedlessly ("I get mad when I have to slow down"). He wants to assign his misconduct to a whole generation of mountain bikers in his region. (Maybe it's midtown Manhattan.) It's fine that he admits to personal misbehavior, but I and thousands of mountain bikers don't want to be lumped in with him, because we ride politely and with sensitivity to others.
Regarding Anonymous's assertion that "the trails (wilderness) that don't allow bikes are not as shredded as the ones that allow biking (nonwilderness)," here's what one backpacker wrote of his Wilderness experiences with commercial horse pack trains in 2006:
"My trip to Stanley Hot Springs was full of surprises. This was my first trip into the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, which was the 1st Wilderness Area designated in Idaho and one of the first of the entire United States. It lies directly north of the massive Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness, and is separated from the Frank by only one road, the Magruder Road.
"We broke camp at Wilderness Gateway Campground at 4 a.m. in an effort to beat the heat. We were unfortunate to arrive during a week-long heat wave of mid-90s to 100+ temperatures. The last part of the hike down to Rock Creek was rough. There was little water, the trail was thrashed and loaded with horse poop due to extreme outfitter activity—in many places it was like hiking up jagged stairs. And, horse traffic on the trail proved cumbersome as the heat ratcheted up.
"Horses have the right-of-way here, so every time they are encountered backpackers and hikers have to get off the trail, approx. 5-6 feet below the horses and crush beautiful foliage as a result while the horses pass and kick rocks and dirt all over the party below. This makes for slow going, and if you have heavy backpacks on can really suck. We had to do it 4 times. Some of the outfitters were actually upset at having to deal with us backpackers, I think it was because our dogs spooked their horses and one of them spilled their beer. All in this particular party were drinking beer and smoking cigars while on the trail."
Source: http://www.idahohotsprings.com/destinations/stanley/index.htm
No one I know of has offered, with similar convincing detail, a kindred personal account about being displaced or forced to hike radically damaged trails because of bicycles. Moreover, the available science runs counter to Anonymous's assertion that mountain biking damages trails more than hiking.