Wilderness areas

[backcountry_hunter]

I don't really have a dog in this fight either, I can appreciate both sides and the mentioned "hypocrisy"..... for selfish reasons I'd prefer to keep bikes out of wildernesses but when alls said and done I can see the bow, release, etc... argument also.

Just to clarify the chainsaw argument though. I don't work for the USFS.... I have worked along side of them as a contractor on one occasion in a heavy blowdown. Once they entered the wilderness area a tree had to meet a certain threshold in order to warrant the use of a chainsaw. To dummy it up the Feds weren't going to risk the lives of their employees for this rule so they allowed the use of a power saw only if the tree was dangerous enough. Everytime that saw ran, The start and stop times had to be documented, recorded and summarized.... each day there were dozens of entries on the log sheet. The USFS (at the time) was documenting.... get this..... noise pollution.

Every other tree that wasn't hazardous enough was cut with a crosscut saw. No waiver for this project as it wasn't threatening life or property (the damage had already occured).

That was going on 20yrs ago though, I'm not sure what changes have been made to policy and procedure.

 

[go4thegusto]

Are you looking for rationality? In WY you can hike, backpack, forage, explore, climb, camp, mushroom, etc. Get lost, hurt, whatever but we can't be trusted to hunt without a guide on OUR land. I can't believe that hasn't been overturned yet. First on my list when I win the Powerball

 

[Gr8bawana]

no wheels and no motors allowed

Darn! That means no electric roller skates.

 

[ben h]

When I was in High school, we had to do indentured servitude aka community service, for poor citizenship marks and I happened to excel at skipping class and being late so I had a lot of community service. I spent my time working on the "great western trail" in Utah and in wilderness areas, we used hand saws to cut trees and polaski's to dig out roots and stumps. They'd use chainsaws outside of wilderness, but I never saw them used in wilderness areas. Oddly enough we did use explosives to move some boulders that were in the way that I believe was in wilderness and no, they didn't let the bad kids detonate that unfortunately.