Would a ban on roads in forests also put a freeze on fun?

John Hughes

Sunday, April 16, 2000 | 11:09 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Adena Cook says there's nothing like the thrill of revving her snowmobile past 20 mph, whizzing up a steep hill and glimpsing a herd of deer as the scent of pine trees breezes by.

"It gives you a feeling for the land you just can't get any other way," says Cook of Idaho Falls, Idaho. "When you can go through fresh powder, it's like flying."

But Cook has a nasty feeling the clock is ticking on her fun.

Her favorite cruising zone is a roadless area in the Targhee National Forest.

She and some motorcycle buffs, horseback riders and all-terrain vehicle users fear President Clinton's initiative to ban development in roadless areas of national forests will keep them from pursuing their passions in the woods.

Environmentalists and some non-motorized recreationists hope the president's initiative - a rule-making process announced last fall - will do exactly that.

They are people like Mary Margaret Sloan, president of the American Hiking Society in Silver Spring, Md., who relishes few things more than a quiet walk in the woods.

"We actually are advocating that these (roadless forests) be closed to all-terrain vehicles," she said.

Kim Hedberg of Boulder, Colo., executive director of the Backcountry Skiers Alliance, couldn't agree more.

She contends that all-terrain vehicles are noisy, degrade the environment, harm wildlife and even endanger other people in forests.

"I would not be unhappy if the roadless initiative limited snowmobile access to certain areas," Hedberg said.

But outdoor enthusiasts of the two-legged and motorized kind may have to continue co-existing in the deep woods for sometime to come.

The proposed regulation that could ban development in more than 50 million acres of roadless forests is still a month away, but limits on all-terrain vehicles seem unlikely.

The Forest Service is analyzing national prohibitions in roadless areas, such as road construction, while other issues - including off-road vehicle use - will likely be addressed through local forest planning, said Chris Wood, a top aide to Forest Service Chief Mike Dombeck.

"Roadless area conservation need not affect recreational access to public lands," he said. "The Forest Service will not pit one important public value ... recreational access, against an equally important public value, protecting roadless areas."

However, local forest supervisors have authority to amend local forest plans to restrict motorized vehicles in sensitive areas, and they won't be losing that authority any time soon.

Despite Forest Service assurances, Republicans on Capitol Hill say the national roadless initiative could include a crackdown on recreation.

They point out that environmentalists have been pressing administration officials to restrict off-road vehicles as part of the initiative, and that such activists seem to carry clout with the administration.

They also say recreation groups have been increasingly complaining about road closures and other actions in forests that seem to be giving the administration a track record of restricting recreational access.

"To me there's no question about it, that this will be an outcome of these processes - that there will be a reduction in access," said Doug Crandall, chief of staff for the forests and forest health subcommittee of the House Resources Committee.

Carla Boucher, an attorney for the United Four Wheel Drive Associations in Chesapeake, Va., told the subcommittee earlier this month that a host of Forest Service efforts - proposed planning regulations, a proposed transportation policy and the roadless initiative, among others - spell trouble for members of her group.

"The Forest Service is embarked on a course to prevent access for motorized recreationists on our national forests," she told the subcommittee.

Cook, public land director of BlueRibbon Coalition in Pocatello, Idaho, a recreation industry group, said the combined efforts seem to say "that human intervention in natural process is always negative."

But environmentalists say they have a different take - that Republicans are using the concerns about recreation as a way to try to weaken support for President Clinton's initiative, which they say is broadly backed by Americans.

"There's no doubt they're trying to use it (recreation) as a hammer," said Ken Rait, director of the Heritage Forests Campaign, a coalition of environmental groups advocating protection of roadless areas. "It's a hollow argument."

Americans love to camp, hike and fish in their 192 million acres of federal forests. In 1997, there were 860 visits to national forests, where people took advantage of 23,000 recreation facilities.

Roughly 43 percent of all public land recreation takes place on national forest, with driving for pleasure as the single largest activity.

Agency officials seem to realize that if there is one way to sour people quickly on the roadless initiative, it would be to tell them that they no longer can have fun in their woods.

"None of the current rule-making efforts are intended to block access to national forests and grasslands," says Dennis Bschor, the agency's recreation director. "In fact, nothing could be further from the truth."