Wilderness, Children, Future, all threatened!

[Power Wagon]

http://www.trib.com/HOMENEWS/STATE/SteensMountain.html

GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) - A Montana environmental group's challenge to a running camp's longstanding use of trails on Oregon's Steens Mountain in Eastern Oregon is testing landmark legislation protecting the area as wilderness.



Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore. , will hold a hearing Saturday in the remote Eastern Oregon community of Frenchglen to hear from ranchers, environmentalists and the director of the running camp.

Back when I lived in Northwest Montana, this issue was almost debilitating in it's urgency. The fear and pain we faced, from the prospect of people pounding defiling footfalls into the holy lands of our wilderness was at times sufficient to deprive us of restful sleep. It was very difficult to arise at 4:00AM for a long day of physical labor when you could do little more than toss and turn and agonize over the impending loss.



As just a teenager, living in the wilds, I could sense the ominous forboding for my future.



Now, hear I am, living in Eastern Oregon, and my nightmares of more than 20 years are now haunting me in real life.



Why, just the other day, my oldest son intuitively sensed it. He came in the door on his way home from school, tears flowing and voice breaking... . "Dad, I just know people are out there somewhere, using a holy wilderness area in a way incompatible with my future environmental values!". It was so heart wrenching. And what could I say? I had absolutely NO idea runners wanted to pound footfalls into the sacred ground of Steens Mountain.



It might help if we could get Congress to undesignate the holiness from the trail areas - you know, non-designation to 4 or 6 foot wide strips so people could actually run through it and not defile the land.



I know it would sure relieve my son's suffering at least some.

 

[homeka45]

Those sacreligous *******s. From three thousand miles away I feel your fear and horror.



Be Strong!

 

[Utah Willie]

wilderness, children, future, all threatened

We have a similar problem here in South Western Utah. The mule deer on my 40 acres leave MORE than foot prints. The turkey flock often interrupts "Rush" with their incessant goobles. I've considered paving the road into my place with the bodies of "environmentalists" to quiet the crunch of the gravel.

 

[illflem]

Did you know it's illegal to land a hang glider, operate a wheelchair or wheelbarrow in a wilderness area? When they say no machines they mean no machines. I don't see any problem with people running though. George Nickas, director of Wilderness Watch, the Missoula, Mont. , environmental group that filed the challenge in Oregon is a former founder of Earth First! and a arrogant A-hole. His group along with a couple others have held up fire salvage logging efforts for two years in my area, now the insects are harvesting the timber. It would have been the biggest timber harvest ever in the state of Montana. Now the dead burnt trees are going to waste...

 

[Power Wagon]

Originally posted by illflem

Did you know it's illegal to land a hang glider, operate a wheelchair or wheelbarrow in a wilderness area? When they say no machines they mean no machines. I don't see any problem with people running though. George Nickas, director of Wilderness Watch, the Missoula, Mont. , environmental group that filed the challenge in Oregon is a former founder of Earth First! and a arrogant A-hole. His group along with a couple others have held up fire salvage logging efforts for two years in my area, now the insects are harvesting the timber. It would have been the biggest timber harvest ever in the state of Montana. Now the dead burnt trees are going to waste...

Yeah, it's holy ground.



Impact on the environment? Irrelevant, it's the religion thing they believe in. It's dogma, rhetoric, ideology. Flying a hang glider into a wilderness area no more hurts it than takign pictures... but it violates the "spirit", you see.



I read the article, and I was so struck with the idiocy of it all, I could find no other means of conveying it than satire.