sustainable wilderness camping management

General discussions on hiking in Oregon and the Pacific Northwest
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retired jerry
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by retired jerry » May 31st, 2022, 11:14 am

I think the National Park System is more into providing for visitors, because that's there only purpose

For the National Forest Service, recreating humans are just one of many functions. They don't care as much about having lots of visitors. They seem to be into preserving the forest both for nature and logging which is a good thing.

I can see restricting usage at trailhead parking areas that are overwhelmed, with cars overflowing onto the main highway and restricting travel, endangering humans.

wnshall
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by wnshall » June 8th, 2022, 2:03 pm

The ideas outlined in this report, at least as summarized by folks in this thread, seem sensible to me. It's frustrating that the Wilderness act is being used to prevent forest managers from actually ... managing forest use effectively.

I would like to point out that having permanent designated camping spots does impose limits on how many people can use an area -- just like the Central Cascades Wilderness permit system does. Unless you are willing and able to move on and camp elsewhere (sustainably) when/if your desired area is full. Some people will do this, but sadly I suspect the vast majority of campers would just do dispersed camping in the same area.

By the way, isn't this essentially what was done at Green Lakes and Jeff Park? There are a fixed number of permanent designated campsites where you were allowed to camp, and otherwise you weren't supposed to camp within a mile or so of the lakes.

The advantage of a permit for camping is that it assures you'll get one of those camping spots -- let's call it a reservation. As others have pointed out, starts to sound like the system implemented in most National Parks.

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retired jerry
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by retired jerry » June 8th, 2022, 2:30 pm

yeah, camping at Green Lakes and Moraine Lake (and Jefferson Park?) only at designated sites

marked with a post with a triangle on it

the Forest Service could put in designated sites, maybe marked with a post, at other areas. People could still camp at undesignated sites.

(This is all fantasy delusion. They'll never do any of this :) )

Aimless
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Aimless » June 10th, 2022, 7:25 pm

Designated campsites in Jeff Park were put in place a couple of years before the current Central Cascades permit system was proposed and implemented. But the FS withdrew the requirement for only camping is designated sites in Jeff Park when it became clear that it was totally unworkable without limiting entry permits as well. The same number of hikers came and camped whether there were official sites for them or not. :o

It's all moot right now as the whole northern part of the Mt. Jefferson wilderness is closed, including Jeff Park. :(

Rider51
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Rider51 » June 11th, 2022, 2:43 pm

I wanted to say this is an excellent thread and discussion. By all parties involved, and something I've thought about, and looked into, for some years off and on.

My primary thought is one needs to try to glance into the future when making such hard plans. Just how popular are some USFS Wilderness areas going to be in the next 10, 20, 50 years? Assuming the demand for visitation doubles, what plans, or options, will we have available to implement to both protect the wilderness, as well as limit overuse?

Another question, perhaps beyond the scope of this study which focused on the PCT, and Central Cascades (contiguous), is how good of a general idea is it to push to disperse people from heading to Jefferson Park, and towards areas like Mt. Thielsen, Boulder Creek, Menagerie Wilderness areas? Granted, the USFS has no money to even maintain trails and signs, let alone bridges in some of these not-often visited areas, but it's a thought.

If anyone has been to Canada, they tend to treat everything nearly the same. National Parks, Provincial Parks, even Wildlands. Established campsites that are marked, bear proof lockable chests on site, etc. often with reservations. Could we find more unity here in the US as the backcountry gets more and more popular?

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Charley
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Charley » June 13th, 2022, 5:08 pm

Rider51 wrote:
June 11th, 2022, 2:43 pm
My primary thought is one needs to try to glance into the future when making such hard plans. Just how popular are some USFS Wilderness areas going to be in the next 10, 20, 50 years?
I would bet that the Forest Service tries to do this, and I don't envy that task. There are powerful global changes in store, with regards to remote work technology, the power of social media, the expensive cost of living in rich, urban areas, etc.

I mean...
  • Trail use could decrease as people spend more and more time using their computers for recreation, or returning to pre-pandemic social activities.
  • Trail use could increase because of rising population and the instagram effect, especially in popular areas.
Rider51 wrote:
June 11th, 2022, 2:43 pm
Another question, perhaps beyond the scope of this study which focused on the PCT, and Central Cascades (contiguous), is how good of a general idea is it to push to disperse people from heading to Jefferson Park, and towards areas like Mt. Thielsen, Boulder Creek, Menagerie Wilderness areas? Granted, the USFS has no money to even maintain trails and signs, let alone bridges in some of these not-often visited areas, but it's a thought.
Again, USFS funding could really change that dynamic (though my hopes have been thoroughly dampened on that front, this year): if the USFS could effectively maintain its legacy network, the whole system would have far more capacity, and thus sustainability.

Rider51 wrote:
June 11th, 2022, 2:43 pm
If anyone has been to Canada, they tend to treat everything nearly the same. National Parks, Provincial Parks, even Wildlands. Established campsites that are marked, bear proof lockable chests on site, etc. often with reservations. Could we find more unity here in the US as the backcountry gets more and more popular?
Maybe? I do think we can see that beginning to happen in Wilderness Areas and popular hiking destinations. But so much of the Forests is just managed for industrial logging... what a weird, bipolar system that would be. It would be the heavy hand of management with regards to low-impact activities like hiking, but the relatively free-reign of the clearcut and chain saw elsewhere. I've never thought that made much sense.

So I hope not.
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drm
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by drm » June 14th, 2022, 7:40 am

I skimmed the document and it strikes me as unrealistic and unenforceable. The strategy rests on getting people to camp in certain campsites that are deemed sustainable, and apparently this is away from attractive features like lakes or large flat areas. Are people going to follow that? Do enforcement rangers then have to go and tell people to move their camps when they don't? Do we physically decommission every site that is deemed unsustainable by dumping a bunch of logs on it?

The reason we have what we have is that the only enforcement strategy that practically works is one at the trailhead. We will never have enough wilderness rangers to enforce behavior in the wilderness that is contrary to the desires of most travelers there. That only really works when the rules and _most_ people's desires match and we are only dealing with a few malcontents who break the rules.

Of course we don't exactly have that either. Look at how many people violate rules for campfires. Just one example.

So the practical advantage of fewer people based on trailhead quotas is that even if they do things that might be ecologically damaging, if the numbers are small, the impact can be absorbed. And trailhead quotas are about the only method that can realistically be even modestly enforced.

Any other strategy requires a vast increase in enforcement staffing. We neither want to pay for that nor do we want to experience it in the wild.

I am not saying that what we have in the Central Oregon Cascades is perfect. The issue of no-shows is an example. I don't comment on that much because I rarely visit that area. So this is more a comment on the proposal from that document, which was mostly developed in the eastern US anyway. Maybe it would work for the AT - but I wouldn't know.

The irony of a lot of this debate is that by putting up with the hassles of getting limited permits, we will get much more freedom to do what we want while we are out there. So do you prefer enforcement contained at the parking lot or enforcement in the backcountry? And for those who say neither, that would just lead to the tragedy of the commons.

MtnHiker
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by MtnHiker » June 29th, 2022, 4:40 pm

A short note on enforcement....I was in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and went past a campsite that was within 20 feet of a waterway, with a fire burning and a dog tied to a rock...no person in sight...passed a ranger and said "great, now you can ticket these idiots" ...he said, "We don't ticket anymore, we educate them..." good luck with that!

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Waffle Stomper
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Waffle Stomper » June 30th, 2022, 10:51 am

MtnHiker wrote:
June 29th, 2022, 4:40 pm
A short note on enforcement....I was in the Eagle Cap Wilderness and went past a campsite that was within 20 feet of a waterway, with a fire burning and a dog tied to a rock...no person in sight...passed a ranger and said "great, now you can ticket these idiots" ...he said, "We don't ticket anymore, we educate them..." good luck with that!
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