sustainable wilderness camping management

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retired jerry
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sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by retired jerry » May 16th, 2022, 8:30 am

https://winapps.umt.edu/winapps/media2/ ... .25.18.pdf

This is an alternate vision to the Central Cascades Wilderness Permits

This was written by a USFS and USGS researcher

Rather than limiting visitation, they advocate managing campsites. A lot of specifics.

In low use areas then dispersed camping is good, but if someone camps at a site more than once a year, then it won't recover, better to construct permanent campsites

A particularly bad case is a large flat area where over time, campsites pop up all over ruining a large area

Campsites on rocky or grassy areas are good, but some forest duff areas will be damaged

Constructing a flat tent spot on a hill, sort of like how they construct hills, is good because there aren't good places to camp nearby because they're on a hill, so that site won't tend to expand over time like a flat area

One of the authors works for the Deschutes National Forest - convenient to consult for the creators of the Centra; Cascade Wilderness Permit system.

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retired jerry
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by retired jerry » May 16th, 2022, 8:38 am

another paper by one of the same authors, same idea

https://leopold.wilderness.net/IJW-pape ... 31-002.pdf

"Conclusions
Recreation ecology research and management experience reveal significant problems with unconfined
camping, particularly in popular moderate to high use areas like riparian corridors and lake basins. We
suggest that a dispersal strategy with pristine site camping can be a viable option in remote and/or low
use areas, though more research and management experimentation are needed. In moderate to high use
settings a containment strategy with either established or designated sites is a preferred strategy to
concentrate camping on a more sustainable subset of campsites selected to promote improved resource
and social conditions. Higher levels of use and impact generally require more intensive and direct visitor
management actions such as designated site camping. Constructed and naturally-occurring side-hill
campsites offer another option, particularly in popular high-use areas where other strategies and actions
have proved ineffective. "

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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Aimless » May 16th, 2022, 10:13 am

All the ideas in that presentation appear to me to be sound and solidly based on observable reality. They are even highly practical recommendations, in that they don't require some vastly expensive program to accomplish and can be implemented piecemeal, by building just as many campsites each year as you have the resources to build. The main problem I see is that the FS is already so resource-starved it has trouble just maintaining trails and the massive wildfires of September 2020 instantly created a huge backlog of campgrounds, roads and trails in Oregon needing often-expensive rehabilitation.

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retired jerry
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by retired jerry » May 16th, 2022, 10:50 am

yeah, good point

and, more than labor to make better sites, they're short of the knowledge of how to do it

it wouldn't take very long to make one side hill flat spot for a tent. It's a small area.

I think there's a disagreement on how to manage wilderness

one - spread people out, no permanent campsites, wilderness should be untrammeled by man, if use is heavy then restrict use

two - where use is heavy, manage it by having permanent campsites that conform to wilderness rules

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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Aimless » May 16th, 2022, 4:50 pm

I do think the fact that this presentation was assembled and disseminated by Forest Service employees is a hopeful sign, in that it won't be dismissed automatically as 'outsider' or 'uninformed' criticism. To quote pop culture, "the phone call is coming from inside the house" from two of their own recreation specialists. Maybe they'll listen to this, as opposed to the carefully-gathered public comments they solicited only because they were required to.

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Charley
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Charley » May 17th, 2022, 11:27 am

Fascinating!

I have been very vocal on this forum about the shortcomings of the Central Cascades Wilderness permit system. This slideshow illustrates how an active management of the area could reduce impacts without requiring an onerous and expensive policy of exclusion. I love the approach. It's also interesting to me to note how much like the National Parks the recommended policy would be. Maybe it's news to the Forest Service, but many of the slides remind me of campsites in the National Parks.

For anyone who would like the short version, here is my understanding of the slides presented:
The authors seems to have studied campsites, and found that, as analyzed by nights per year of camper occupation, most of the impact occurs in 2-15 nights per year. In other words, if a place has a single night per year of camping, there is relatively little impact.

After that second night of camping, there are increasingly more and more impacts.

Beyond about 15 nights per year, there's way less impact per additional night of camper occupation.
In other words, beyond 15 nights per year, the impact is pretty near maxed out, and subsequent nights have relatively less additional impact.
1.jpeg
So, regulating that 2-15 occupied nights per year campsite is the sweet spot for mitigating resource impacts.

Given that, they advocate for basically for a polarized management system, in which either a place has . . .

1. Few visitors and lots of campsites, each with very low occupancy (around once per year); this they call dispersal
OR
2. More visitors who are only allowed to camp in relatively few campsites, which are occupied about 45 nights of the year; this they call containment
2.jpeg
I think I get that.

The slides that follow were much harder for me to understand initially as they seem to indicate that land managers should select grassy sites for sustainable campsites. That seems like the opposite of the advice I've heard ("Camp in the trees, not in the meadow").
3.jpeg
However, that is explained in the next slides:
4.jpeg
Then, as Jerry mentioned, the authors point out that it's possible to create side-hill campsites that are quite attractive to campers and very easy to keep from expanding and creating more impact. (In the examples, the sidehill campsites are constrained because every possible ground surface around the site is not level).

That's awesome! I do think it's good that the authors seem to be pointing out that, while a developed sidehill campsite might technically run against the intent of the Wilderness values (natural, untrammeled, undeveloped, solitude, primitive), the effect is to reduce overall impact (unnatural, trammeled, crowded). In other words, by providing a low-impact alternative, even if it is "developed," the "sustainable campsite" is a better solution.

But I found this next slide frustrating:
5.jpeg
I can't figure out why this is so hard. When I've gone on backpacking trips in the National Parks and followed prescribed on-trail itineraries with reserved campsites, it's been easy to find the campsites. There are signs along the trail, and sometimes posts in the ground at each official campsite. In each photo in the slide, the site looks perfect and would be an obviously attractive place to camp: it's level, lots of room for my tent and my partner's tent, trees for hanging bear bags, and downed logs for seating. Perfect!

Is that really challenging??? I understand that Wilderness signage rules are strict, but come on. We can have acres of denuded campsites wherever people see flat ground, or maybe we can invest in some clear signage that shows people to attractive, level campsites. That doesn't seem too hard to me.

The next slides explain how land managers can use mapping technology to indicate the locations of preferred campsites on a cellphone app, even when your cellphone does not have reception. Also a great idea!

GPS can locate your coordinates even when you're not in cell service (though the coordinates don't do much good if you can't also view a map with your location, and it's not possible to download those files if you don't have cellphone or wireless internet). I do think it's bad that, while apps like Gaia and CalTopo benefit from huge amounts of publicly funded data collection (the apps can reference topo maps from the USGS, for example), the ability to download map tiles for later use while offline is often a paid-subscription service. In other words, CalTopo is super useful while I'm at home, but since I'm not a paid subscriber, it won't work out in the backcountry.

Having seen this presentation, I now wonder if the Forest Service or USGS could develop a similar app that would show its products. Given that the resource, the mapping information itself, is a public product, it seems like an app to allow the public to download that resource would be warranted.
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retired jerry
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by retired jerry » May 17th, 2022, 2:44 pm

yeah! that's what I thought too

they could mark designated sites with a post with a triangle (tent shape). Like they already do. Visible from the trail so people don't trample all over looking for a site

I think that people, both forest service and citizens, have this disagreement about whether to manage the wilderness with designated sites, vs making it untrammeled by man

We already manage the wilderness with trails and signs. Making designated sites as these slides advocate, is no worse

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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by rubiks » May 19th, 2022, 7:18 pm

Interesting slides, thanks for sharing.

I guess I didn't fully realize how differently some folks interpret that elusive "Wilderness Character." It seems obviously better to have a limited number of well-regulated, highly used campsites rather than free-for-all dispersed camping that ends up with a higher number of sites in that 2-15 nights per years used bucket. Also from a person aesthetics view, I would prefer to see smaller sustainable sites (even if it means a post or some signage indicating such) in the Wilderness rather than a bunch of large campsites plagued by expansion. Even if it means doing significant work to build sustainable sites (I liked the sidehill idea to address campsite expansion).

It might be a result of where I go (mostly 1-2 night trips on the weekends, not long trips on PCT), but every place I have gone backpacking or would likely go backpacking is already way past the usage threshold where dispersal camping is even possible. I would think that any place that is seeing any kinds of impacts addressed in these slides is already past the point where dispersal camping is even possible. That leaves containment as the only viable option. I don't see a future where the number of backpackers goes down, so a smart strategy would be to accept that and plan for increasing usage.

I like that way more than the other option of artificially restricting usage.
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Charley
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Charley » May 22nd, 2022, 12:24 pm

rubiks wrote:
May 19th, 2022, 7:18 pm
I guess I didn't fully realize how differently some folks interpret that elusive "Wilderness Character." It seems obviously better to have a limited number of well-regulated, highly used campsites rather than free-for-all dispersed camping that ends up with a higher number of sites in that 2-15 nights per years used bucket.
Yeah. There's an odd element of "See no evil" here. Maybe the Forest Service feels so legally bound to manage the Wildernesses in a hands-off way that they've unintentionally allowed users' ecological impacts to increase.

As a practical matter, the Wilderness Act restrains government land managers more than it does "visitors" like hikers and climbers. Effectively, the Act restrains the government from quickly and cheaply responding to impact created by people like you and me. We are practically allowed to camp willy-nilly, even if it flattens plants left and right. . . but heaven help the Wilderness land manager who would brave the paperwork necessary to take a shovel and flatten out some sustainable campsites! So there's an element of single actor who is subject to (professional) consequences, vs many, many actors who are basically free to do as they wish.

An example on a micro scale: since trails are more difficult and costly to clear of fallen trees in Wilderness (no chainsaws allowed in Wilderness), fallen trees often block Wilderness trails longer than non-Wilderness trails. People often bypass such blockages by booting around. That creates a new path by trampling vegetation, etc. In addition to the loss of vegetation, the new route often ends up following a less sustainable trail alignment (worse drainage), which leads to erosion.

Again, that's an example at a really, really small scale. I think it's a useful way of thinking about the problem, though. Which impact is worse? The occasional sound and fumes of chainsaw, or the inevitable trail braiding that goes along with unmanaged treefall over a popular trail? I'm not an ecologist, so I'm not qualified to answer that. The problem is that, even if an ecologist determined that the soil and plant loss is worse than the fumes and noise, the government wouldn't be allowed to take the lesser-impact choice, if it involved the chainsaw!

The florid and spiritualistic language of the original Wilderness Act refers to human values, and doesn't even mention ecology, so it's no wonder that the actual effect of any particular management strategy takes a backseat to calculations of actual ecological impact. Following the law, our land managers are forced to judge the moral compromise of the chainsaw itself as worse than the beneficial effects of its use.
rubiks wrote:
May 19th, 2022, 7:18 pm
It might be a result of where I go (mostly 1-2 night trips on the weekends, not long trips on PCT), but every place I have gone backpacking or would likely go backpacking is already way past the usage threshold where dispersal camping is even possible.
Yeah! Remote bushwhacks I have done in Oregon's sagebrush steppe (who's up for Diablo Peak loop? 40 miles with not a single tree to be found!) are the only hikes I've done where dispersed camping really, really works.

I feel like this is also true of a lot of mountain climbing I've done here: instead of simply designating and roughing out a sustainable approach route, the Forest Service appears not to acknowledge the interest or activity. As a result, we get busy, rutted fall-line trails through meadows. Sure, hiking up the heather might have made sense in the mid 20th century, but at this point, we need to manage for a larger population of outdoorsy people.

In comparison to the Forest Service, I've seen some evidence that at least one National Park acknowledges the impact of peakbagging on one trailless mountain(https://www.nps.gov/crla/learn/manageme ... endium.htm):
The Llao Rock Research Natural Area (RNA) is closed to public entry whenever the area is covered by less than one continuous foot of snow. The Llao Rock RNA is located along the northwest caldera rim and encompasses 435 acres.
Justification: Prior to the last decade, Llao Rock received minimal recreational use. However, it has recently become increasingly popular and has even been mentioned in several media sources as a hiking destination. The Llao Rock RNA was designated in 1994 to protect rare plant species and preserve Whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis) communities, subalpine pumice and ash fields, and an alpine community mosaic. The increased visitor use has led to damage to sensitive resources which the RNA was designated to preserve and protect. The seasonal closure will ensure that these fragile resources are given the appropriate level of protection and further damage is limited. It will also allow for restoration of areas currently impacted by hiking activity.

Now that's a regulation I can get behind! There's a clear justification, a clear line of causality between the prohibited activity and resource impacts, and a clear solution: travel on snow. I'd personally advocate for a trail up the peak, but maybe there's some mystique and value in a peak that has no trail and is only approachable during the ski/snowshoe season.
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Re: sustainable wilderness camping management

Post by Webfoot » May 31st, 2022, 10:31 am

retired jerry wrote:
May 17th, 2022, 2:44 pm
I think that people, both forest service and citizens, have this disagreement about whether to manage the wilderness with designated sites, vs making it untrammeled by man
The word untrammeled appears to be a frequent bugaboo for modern readers of the Wilderness statute.

not confined, limited, or impeded

Not deprived of freedom of action or expression; not restricted or hampered.

The statute is referring to things like building dams or eradicating plants or animals seen as undesirable, not a few campsites with signs.

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