Human-powered on the Tahoe National Forest
Photo by Ming Poon

1. Winter Travel Plans Moving Forward

April brought the long-anticipated release of the Lassen National Forest’s final Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) and draft Record of Decision (ROD) for its winter travel plan, and also the publication of the Tahoe National Forest’s draft plan. The Lassen was the first national forest in the country to start winter travel planning under the 2015 OSV Rule. It’s been a long, bumpy road, but now the end is in sight.

The plan is far from perfect, but we’re generally ready to live with it. There are a few things we’d still like to achieve, and we’re working with Snowlands Network to file some specific objections. Our biggest points of contention are: (1) that the Forest chose to designate a couple of high-value quiet recreation areas for OSV use without very convincing rationale; and (2) we don’t agree with how they’re proposing to allow OSV use in areas near the Pacific Crest Trail. That said, we’re glad to see that the plan sets a minimum snow depth, protects important wildlife habitat and many of the non-motorized recreation areas we’ve advocated for, and generally focuses OSV use in places that actually get snow and provide winter recreation opportunities. Click here for a more detailed summary.

The Tahoe’s draft EIS is now out for public comment. We’ve posted some preliminary information, links to documents and a mapping tool on our website, and are working with our partners and grassroots groups to finalize our organizational comments. We hope to publish our online comment tool next week. In contrast to the Lassen plan, we’re very pleased with the level of analysis on this one. It’s clear that the line officers and planners on the Tahoe have a much better understanding of the landscape and of human-powered winter recreation.

Also in California, we’re expecting to see a draft EIS for the Eldorado National Forest winter travel plan any day. All updates regarding winter travel planning in the Sierra will be posted here. Elsewhere, we’re also expecting a draft EIS from the 10 Lakes region of the Kootenai (in Montana) this spring, and a draft EIS from the Shoshone in September. And scoping for winter travel planning is supposed to start soon on the north zone of the Idaho-Panhandle. Stay tuned!

2. Rallying for Skiers and Snowshoers in the Eastern Cascades

Our grassroots group in Wenatchee, WA — El Sendero Ski and Snowshoe Club — has been working for years to establish a non-motorized winter recreation area on state lands. They’ve worked through a state-level public process and a local collaborative planning process to develop the non-motorized area proposal. Through all of this, El Sendero has worked with the local snowmobile club to get their support, but now the whole effort is threatened to be derailed by a small number of snowmobilers who are opposed to any sort of non-motorized designation. El Sendero has put out the call for help to rally support for this non-motorized area. We’ve created a super simple comment form, so if you could take two minutes to send in a letter to Chelan County that would be awesome. Thanks!!!

3. …And some rare good news from D.C.:

Late last year the Interior Department floated a proposal to drastically raise entrance fees at a number of popular National Parks. Interior’s proposal would have more than doubled the fee to visit 117 Parks, to $70 for some! This proposal generated massive public backlash (WWA’s alert had a higher response rate than any alert we’ve ever sent out). Over 90% of those who commented were opposed to a fee increase and many called out Secretary Zinke for slashing the Park Service budget at the same time he was calling for raising fees to address the Park Service maintenance backlog.

We’re happy to report that Interior seems to have listened to the thousands of people who commented on the fee hike proposal and announced that they are going with a very modest fee increase of $5. Outdoor Alliance put out a good blog post on this, and I encourage you to check it out. You can also click here to see what it will cost to visit your favorite parks this summer.

Oh and last but not least, one of the bills we’re big supporters of, Recreation Not Red Tape, passed out of its House committee, narrowly escaping being gutted by a last-minute amendment from Representative Cheney (WY). The outdoor recreation community came out in force to keep the bill intact, and our voices made a difference.

– Hilary