Do you register when entering a wilderness area?

[kepPNW]

I certainly bristle at the thought of trash, fire rings, user braids, etc all over the wilderness, but their application of the "solitude" provision to justify draconian access restrictions and permit fees is off the deep end and not supported by the Act itself. I wish I'd read this more closely before I was crafting my appeal for the Central Cascades proposal, as I took their "solitude" assertions at face value...

So tragically stupid... Complete solitude may be easily found within minutes of (nearly all) the "loved to death" spots.

Speaking of evil... I guess they learned their lesson, about asking for public comment:

Now the Forest Service, manager of our nation’s 154 national forests, has decided that they could be much more “efficient” if they simply quit communicating with the public.

Under their current proposal (open for comments until August 12), 93.3% of all Forest Service decisions will lose all the current advance notice and public comment requirements.

The newest Forest Service idea: Exclude public comments
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commenta ... st-forest/

[Webfoot]

I would contend that it is an extreme and unreasonable reading of that passage for you (or the Deschutes NF, etc) to assert that the phrase "has outstanding opportunities for solitude" implies that "solitude" (the threshold of which is undefined) must be available in every square inch of a wilderness area, versus being a quality that is generally or mostly present in the wilderness as a whole.

Hear, hear!

[drm]

If the Lunch Counter on Adams is a zoo but the rest of the Adams Wilderness is uncrowded or effectively empty of people (especially in sections where there are no trails), can you really say the requirement for "outstanding opportunities for solitude" is not being met?

Okay, so maybe we can have sacrifice zones. I can accept that the wording is not very specific and of course it doesn't include every single inch. After all, you don't get solitude in the middle of somebody else's camp. The Act also says "opportunities for solitude," which might imply that solitude is something you must seek out, it isn't guaranteed for you everywhere. But the larger an area that is crowded, the harder that gets to support.

Although I think that the Lunch Counter probably presents ecological issues too, since I would assume the blue bag rules are probably regularly violated. But some water tests in Morrison Creek could resolve that possibility, not too hard to do.

[retired jerry]

"I would assume the blue bag rules are probably regularly violated. But some water tests in Morrison Creek could resolve that possibility, not too hard to do."

That would be reasonable. Identify problem, get data, if it's verified a problem do something about it.

It seems like with the Central Cascades restrictions, they started with the idea to restrict usage, then come up with rhetoric to support, like that plants are being damaged, or trails, or wildlife.