Wilderness/Roadless
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Just weeks after a snowmobiler was almost killed by an avalanche in Jewel Basin in Montana’s Swan Range, closed to snowmobiles, the Forest Service wants stiff penalties for those riding illegally in Wilderness and other closed areas. The increasing number of rescues and fatalities of these illegal riders is both dangerous to rescuers and expensive.…
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Representative Mike Simpson is reintroducing his Central Idaho Economic Development and Recreation Act and Senator Mike Crapo his Owyhee Canyonlands bill. Both measures failed in the last Congress, although Simpson’s CIEDRA came close to being sent to Bush’s desk. Here is the story in today’s Idaho Statesman.“Simpson, Crapo again push their wilderness bills. Lawmakers say…
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This happens every winter, some folks ride illegally into an area closed to snowmobiles and meet an avalanche. Jewel Basin is in the Swan mountain range, east of Kalispell, Montana. Story no. 1. Story in the Casper Star Tribune Story no. 2. Illegal and ill-equipped snowmobiling. Montana Avalanche Victim Survives An 8 Hour Burial. By…
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Now that Dale Bosworth is a free man, but no longer a person with authority as when he was Bush’s Chief of the U.S. Forest Service, he tells us that he basically supported President’s Clinton’s national forest roadless area protection role, not Bush’s. I can only hope he did his best to sabotage the Bush…
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The benefit’s of Pombo’s loss keep coming in . . . Wild Sky Wilderness area back in Congress’ sights. Protection may pass by summer. By Charles Pope. Seattle Post-Intelligencer. This is a very important bill because it includes lowland forests. Most designated Wilderness in Washington State is “rocks and ice,” meaning high elevation or otherwise…
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NREPA is a grand wilderness vision and more, but had fallen on hard times in the Republican congresses. NREPA is back, with a greater chance, now that Congress has turned greener. Its name has been changed to the “Rockies Prosperity Act.” Here is the bill’s text. Bill Schneider at New West has a favorable review.…
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Here is another great victory for the Clinton rule protecting all national forest roadless areas. A federal judge in Northern California issued a final injunction Tuesday that protects 52 million acres nationwide from a repeal of the 2001 Clinton roadless rule. U.S. District Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte included language in her decision preventing roads and…
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The Wyoming Range is a beautiful and wildlife-rich mountain range in SW Wyoming. Some folks might think this storyline might be a reference to rangeland in the state of Wyoming. No it is the name of a mountain range 70 miles long and about 25 miles wide. At the headwaters of Lunch Creek and the…