Tahoe snowmobile ban won’t happen this winter

Monday, Oct. 2, 2000 | 8:35 a.m.

Gary Schiff, chief ranger for the Carson Ranger District, said his agency won't make a decision until January or February on the proposed snowmobile ban for Tahoe Meadows near the Mount Rose Summit.

Any new regulations affecting the machines there wouldn't take effect until the winter of 2001-2002, he said. The meadow is located along Nevada Route 431 roughly halfway between Reno and Incline Village.

But Schiff said his agency this winter plans greater enforcement of rules, including a prohibition on snowmobiles in the adjoining Mount Rose Wilderness Area.

Rangers also will check to ensure that snowmobilers are traveling at slow speeds near skiers and sledders, and are avoiding bare spots on the meadow in the spring.

The Forest Service also received a pledge from a newly formed group of snowmobilers, the Mount Rose Snowmobile Alliance, that members will self-police their sport.

"Hopefully, we can make it a better situation for everybody up there," group organizer Greg McKay of Incline Village told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

McKay said his group has offered to patrol the meadows and inform snowmobilers about wilderness boundaries and other rules.

"We have to take responsibility," he said. "If we don't become involved and make this a better situation, we do have the risk of not being able to use (the meadow)."

But cross-country skiers, snowshoers and sledders insist outright closure of the area to snowmobiles remains the only answer.

Self-policing by snowmobilers has been tried before and failed, said Gail Ferrell of Reno, organizer of the Coalition for Safe and Appropriate Winter Sports.

"We will continue to press for total closure because we feel this is an inappropriate area," she told the Gazette-Journal. "Tahoe Meadows is too small and I believe there will be an accident in the near future."

The Forest Service is considering the ban after receiving hundreds of requests to do away with the machines on the four-square-mile meadow.

Comments were received during an update of the agency's management plan for a 500,000-acre swatch of the Carson Range on Lake Tahoe's east shore.

Skiers and sledders say snowmobiles are incompatible with their quiet sports and are dangerous as well.

Schiff said the large volume of requests for a crackdown forced them to consider such an action as part of the management plan update.

"There's definitely something we're going to need to do," Schiff said. "We're going to need to take some steps."