The Mad River area is the largest unprotected roadless area in the Wenatchee, Okanogan and Colville national forests. For decades, people have campaigned to add at least some of it to the Glacier Peak Wilderness or designate it as a wilderness.
Although the Forest Service has recognized its potential for a wilderness designation, for about 30 years it has expanded off-road vehicle use, mainly motorcycles, in that area.
On June 20, a federal court halted an off-road motorcycle project in the Mad River area until the Forest Service completes an environmental impact statement of the proposed world-class single-track motorcycle trail system within a proposed wilderness.
The ruling is part of a long-standing hiker-vs.-biker feud that seems unlikely to be resolved soon.
Under a law in effect since the 1970s, 1 percent of state gas tax revenues are earmarked for non-highway and ORV activities. A few years ago, a state-commissioned study found that only 20 percent of recreationists driving on Forest Service and national park roads were dirt bikers, quad riders and 4×4 enthusiasts, although 80 percent of the dedicated money (about $5 million) went for motorized use.
So the Legislature enacted a measure that changed the distribution of the revenue, more equally distributing the money among user groups.
The majority of hikers will, even if begrudgingly, allow that motorcycles should have some riding room, but the NIMBY syndrome also jumps into the equation.
The Mad River Trail system is a favorite of off-roaders, in part because it is in the high country, where most ORV use is banned, and in part for the same reasons hikers love it: rivers, wildflower meadows, forests, views of 5,000- to 7,000-foot peaks.
Off-road riders have about 200 miles of multiple-use trails in the Mad River area. But motorized use drives out hikers who are trying to escape the very issues that motorcycles bring – noise, pollution and smell – and who worry about the effects on wildlife, trails and the backcountry when motorcycles leave the trails.
In 1999, a lawsuit stopped an ORV project in an area near the Glacier Peak Wilderness, but Forest Service officials in the Entiat Ranger District then moved to expand ORV use in the Mad River area.
Washington Trails Association has a series of Wild Land hikes. One of them is a Mad River hiking weekend July 7-9, multiple hikes of eight to 15 miles, and a chance to camp at the Grouse Creek Group Camp off Chiwawa River Road on July 7.
Wildflowers and Forest Service staff talking about ORV proliferation are on the agenda. Cost is $10 per person per night, with children under 12 free. For information and to register, go to www.wta.org.
Book shelf: Hard to tell when you’ll be stranded in the backcountry, so Mark Elbroch and Mike Pewtherer opted to isolate themselves on a 46-day unequipped, unprovisioned hike to test their survival skills.
The result is “Wilderneness Survival: Living Off the Land with the Clothes on Your Back and the Knife on Your Belt” ($16, Ragged Mountain Press).
It’s an engaging combination of the journey paired with the down-to-earth practicalities of survival. While much is geared to being in trouble with next to nothing, some methods do call for clever use of items that might be available, such as making a solar still with one plastic bag, a pebble and a few inches of a cord.
With this book, I can send a few other survival books on the shelves off to Goodwill.
Columnist Sharon Wootton can be reached at 360-468-3964 or www.songandword.com.
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