The Bacon Strip

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Sometimes a trail should be a quite dirty place for plodding along under the weight of a pack and the burning sun (or freezing rain). Sometimes it’s a shred fest. It should never be a loose, dusty, piss-smelling dung heap like the first 5 miles of almost every Sierra Nevada Wilderness Trailhead. I might not want to step aside for a bike on my 10th day on the PCT or JMT or TRT when I’m out backpacking, but i Sure as shit don’t want some tubby family of slack-jawed douchebags feeding the bears @ Charlotte Lake with my five days of food they grabbed out of the bear locker along with their own who would NEVER be there if it weren’t for the ability to pay someone to do the hard work for them.

The point of a trail is to take your time to get somewhere slowly and with effort. Sans that sacrifice, you might as well pave a road and build a golf course. Every able bodied human is capable of hiking 8 miles in a day. Get TIVO, the game will be there when you get home.

The CDNST is a public trail and potential uses should be considered equally. It is unfair to discriminate against a single non-motorized use, bicycling, when science has shown the impacts of that use to be similar to hiking and FAR less than equestrian use.

With 40 million participants, mountain biking is the second most popular trail activity in the country (Outdoor Industry Foundation`, 2007). This large constituency helps lobby for public lands funding and donates nearly one million volunteer hours each year to trail construction and maintenance. Mountain bikers can be valuable partner for the CDNST by helping build and maintain trail, and by lobbying for its completion.

While some non-Wilderness sections may be suitable as hiking- or horse-only, there is enough room for multiple uses along most of the 3,100 miles.

In 1983, Congress amended the National Trails Act to clarify that potential uses of national trails “may include a wide diversity of recreation types, including bicycling…day hiking, equestrian activities…overnight and long distance backpacking…” (16U.S.C.1246(j)). This clearly states that bicycling may be an allowed use on the CDNST and should deserve equal consideration as given to other uses.

The draft directives are also a departure from existing management under the CDNST 1985 Comprehensive Plan, which separates management of activities only into motorized and non-motorized categories.

The IMBA / Forest Service Memorandum of Understanding states mountain bicycling should be managed distinctly from motorized travel. It also says mountain bicycling is appropriate in areas listed as “primitive” on the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum. These areas comprise a significant percentage of the CDNST.

Unfortunately, the newly proposed Forest Service directives specifically target only motorized and bicycle travel, even though bicycling is a quiet, low-impact, human-powered activity. A growing scientific consensus shows the environmental impacts of mountain biking are similar to hiking and far FAR less than horses or OHVs.

-M