Outdoor Recreation

Radar

Forest Service and Interior Department Endorse Bikes in Wilderness

As reported in the Sustainable Trails Coalition last week, there’s been a bit of development in the often debated topic of whether or not bicycles should be allowed in designated wilderness areas:

“Agency staff testified before a Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee regarding S.1695 – the Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act, introduced by Senator Mike Lee (R.–Utah). Click here for video of the full testimony.

S.1695 would remove the agencies’ blanket bans on bicycling in Wilderness and revert to the Forest Service’s 1981 rule, allowing line officers to treat bikes as they do horses, hikers, campers, and hunters—i.e., allow or prohibit access based upon local conditions.”

This is a massive undertaking, with many details that would need to be ironed out if it passed.

Read the full report and many more details at Sustainable Trails Coalition.

Radar

UNNUR

Do you remember the crazy trans-Icelandic voyage featuring our friend Chris Burkard from last month? Well, we’d like to give his video UNNUR a shout out here. Enjoy this somber piece on your Friday afternoon!

“Elli Thor is an Icelandic photographer, surfer, and former kayaker. A decade ago Elli nearly drowned under a waterfall while kayaking a challenging Icelandic river. The near death experience became a catalyst for personal growth and his professional career. After walking away from kayaking, a newfound passion for surfing and the birth of his daughter Unnur gave him a new perspective worth living for.”

Reportage By: Hailey Moore

Stefan Griebel and the Origin of the Colorado Trail Race – CTR

When I first heard about the Colorado Trail Race I was in fact riding part of the route, albeit one of the least engaging stretches. It was just ten days after I’d raced my bike for 200mi in Kansas and I’d been overly optimistic about my recovery when I’d agreed to a four-day tour from my home in Boulder through the South Platte (and on through Summit County) with my partner Tony.

Radar

USDA Forest Service Issues Proposed Guidance to Manage e-Bike Use on National Forests and Grasslands

e-Bikes aren’t going anywhere. They are a part of cycling and they’re here to stay. That means various forestry management departments are trying to find out what regulation these electronic bicycles need. I’m well are this is a heated topic and there are a lot of opinions about e-bikes, so now’s your time to let your voice be heard.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Forest Service is requesting public input on proposed updates to the agency’s internal directives on how e-bikes are managed on national forests and grasslands. These proposed updates are in alignment with the Secretary of Agriculture’s direction to increase access to national forests and grasslands, and would provide needed guidance for line officers to expand e-bike access while protecting natural resources and other forest uses.”

Read more at the USDA website, where you can learn how to submit a public comment.

If you’ve read the above-linked memorandum, then you see how important it is what we VOTE!

Reportage By: john watson & kyle klain

A Discussion About Wilderness: Backpacking and Fly Fishing in Northern New Mexico

There is a case for wilderness in the American West, which is defined in the Oxford dictionary as “an uncultivated, uninhabited, and inhospitable region.” The problem is, this classification was written by colonizers and erasers of indigenous history. Humans have long inhabited these areas, before the Spanish or the Pilgrims infiltrated these lands, long before it was called New Mexico.

This topic is a heated one. Organizations like the Sierra Club lead the way in this classification, establishing rules about who can or can’t visit these lands: for instance, cyclists. I’m not here to talk about whether or not bikes should be allowed in areas classified as wilderness, so let’s step back a bit and discuss what that word, wilderness, means in the context of the original inhabitants of the Americas.