COMMENTING CONCEPTS

The Forest Service highly values comments with a personal touch and/or connection.  You need not have been able to visit the these areas with threatened access but may want to someday or can connect it to your experience in a similar place. In this forest plan, there are a wide range of options. This process is not a vote for an alternative. Tell Forest Service what you value about the land and why, rather than focusing on an alternative as a package. Here are some themes you could add to a comment. The commenting specifics has more specific language, while these are overall concepts that resonate with us that we hear from members.

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• Bicyclists are conservationists and want to see areas recognized for the underlying values of Recommended Wilderness, but we don’t take kindly to being removed from the land as part of the process.

• Bicyclists are citizens and taxpayers, we like our wild places and we take pride in ownership and stewardship of those places.

• Mountain biking is a quiet, family friendly activity. Provide backcountry access for future generations.

• Mountain bike riders are volunteer stewards of trails that reach far into the backcountry, reducing levels of deferred maintenance.

• Closures to bikes are not based on impact on the environment, but rather to maintain nebulous social character and to discourage advocacy for land designations other than Wilderness.

• Many people base their opinion that mountain bikes do not belong in WSAs or RWAs on outdated science, anecdotal history or a personal grudge, when in reality mountain bikers tread lightly on remote places and are outstanding stewards of trails.

• With the realities of climate change, shifting climate zones, invasive species and forest fires, adaptive management should be the keystone of forest management.