A couple things on that, at least my opinions on them... The FS has a few different levels of road decommissioning efforts, 5 actually. Blocking the entrance is only level 1. All the way to "Full obliteration, recontouring and restoring naturalaircooled wrote: ↑December 4th, 2018, 12:41 pmIt appears the heaviest damage -- excessive damage -- was done at entrance points to the Plateau in a deliberate effort to keep people out.
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What troubles me is the loss of public access to public lands that were not being abused. I've found tons of trash on Horsetail/Angel's Rest/Wahkeena, but the only trash on the BV Plateau is a smattering of junk from decades ago before the gates went up. All this was done hastily with NO opportunity for public comment and, it would appear, any environmental review. Excavators mucked around in the creeks and streams and thousands of mature trees were killed, not for the purpose of reducing fire danger or erosion control, but simply to keep people out.
slopes"
I don't believe that these efforts were to keep people out, more likely to keep vehicles out. But also to provide the area with time to rehabilitate itself. Wildland fire efforts get around a lot of the red tape, and bureaucracies surrounding everything governmental. Look at how long it took to replace the Tish creek bridge, and we have what, 5 or 6 new ones in already as a result of the burn? The lines were definitely cut in fire suppression efforts, to say otherwise would be incorrect. As I said before, from my knowledge and experience, those trees were most likely dropped during the initial line creation, not in the mopup afterwards, and they did try to minimize their environmental impact by using existing road beds..
Few things here too. It's not that easy, if the FS is going to take a trail into their system, it needs to be up to their standards. It needs maintenance, that they would be responsible for, and they adopt the liability, the environmental impacts of it, etc. 'Updating maps' isn't that easy either, most references are decades old. Hell I haven't seen an official map yet that actually has Basin Rd in the proper location These are the same reasons you won't see the foxgloves, munra, ROA or a number of other unofficial trails brought into the official networkromann wrote: ↑December 4th, 2018, 4:00 pmIt could have been added to trails system, like others said - all was needed is trail signs and updated maps. The trails were used by wildlife more than people (especially getting around blackberry thickets) so it wasn't all needed to protect the wilderness - maybe just the opposite.