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Quoted from appended news article from today's Oregonian:
[The Forest Service, meanwhile, has found itself pinched between the conflicting federal regulations that, on one hand, prohibit most buildings in Wilderness, while simultaneously mandating the protection and maintenance of historic structures. "We wanted them to fix it up and keep the airfield always open...."]
The article continues....
[The agency conceivably could have hired a concessionaire to run the ranch as the National Park Service does with many facilities. But that would have meant prohibitively expensive upgrades, a Forest Service spokeswoman said...]
At issue, is the management of designated, big W, Wilderness.
Difficult to believe .... isn't it?
Isn't it???
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
November 26, 2006
Future uncertain for wilderness ranch
Volunteers keep Red's Horse Ranch going, but the Forest Service admits the site's long-term needs aren't being met
RICHARD COCKLE - The Oregonian
LA GRANDE -- This time of year, frigid temperatures and blowing snow
mean casual visits are about to end at the historic Red's Horse Ranch
eight miles from the nearest road in northeastern Oregon's Eagle Cap
Wilderness.
The trails will reopen in June, and the U.S. Forest Service will take
stock of how the former dude ranch fared during another winter season.
But the agency can do only basic maintenance; with a budget of $4,000 a
year, that's all it can afford. The approach hasn't changed much in the
12 years since the Forest Service acquired the spread.
Fans of the picturesque site -- shoehorned into a deep wilderness
canyon beside the Minam River and accessible only by shoe leather,
horseback and small airplane -- worry that the ranch will continue to
fall into disrepair, and they want to preserve the rich history of the
place.
"It won't be too long and the roofs are going to get too old; there is
going to be water seeping in. That's a slow process, and it's
starting," said Karl Majerle of Duvall, Wash., who likes the ranch so
much that he visited eight times last summer. He makes the 21/2-hour
trip in his Cessna and lands on the grass airstrip there that's still
open for public use.
The Forest Service acknowledges that the 80-year-old ranch faces an uncertain future.
"There is currently no direction to manage it differently," said District Ranger Mary DeAguero of Enterprise.
The Forest Service took possession of the ranch in 1994 as part of a
land exchange that traded 2,657 acres of Forest Service land and 5,632
acres of U.S. Bureau of Land Management property for 9,428 acres of
private property. The exchange won advocates in northeastern Oregon
when the Forest Service promised it would free up 40 million board feet
of timber for a sawmill in Elgin and 5 million board feet for a mill in
Joseph.
The agency conceivably could have hired a concessionaire to run the
ranch as the National Park Service does with many facilities. But that
would have meant prohibitively expensive upgrades, a Forest Service
spokeswoman said when the agency acquired the ranch. And under federal
regulations, the agency was forbidden to operate a motel or guest ranch
within the boundaries of the Eagle Cap Wilderness.
After the land exchange, the Forest Service spent several years
pondering management alternatives ranging from destroying the rustic
buildings to restoring them.
The ranch is now managed by unpaid volunteer caretakers, overseen by the Forest Service, DeAguero said.
The volunteers, who greet the arrivals and show visitors around, live
on site for a week at a time from early summer until mid-November.
Other volunteers cut the grass on the airstrip, using their own horses
and mules, along with a mechanical sickle mower that remains at the
ranch.
The primary buildings are a rustic lodge, two log duplexes, five cabins
and a barn shaded by tall ponderosa pines. But the ranch includes a
villagelike assortment of 33 buildings if you count a fallen-down
sawmill, a chicken house, two outhouses, a sauna, a barbecue and a
120-foot-long wooden truss bridge spanning the Minam River.
"It's incredible," said Skip Miller, a Forest Service archaeologist.
"It is so isolated in that spectacular valley. You never escape the
feeling of 'Wow, it's a cool setting.' "
After the Forest Service bought the ranch, it found out how popular it had been with segments of the public.
As many as 10,000 pilots, hikers and horseback riders -- many of them
regular visitors -- petitioned to have the ranch put back in private
hands. The effort was led by a group called Citizens to Save Red's
Horse Ranch.
Its campaign ultimately failed, and visitors aren't permitted to stay
overnight in the buildings. But many do camp in the forest nearby, and
the ranch remains a popular destination. Sixty members of a Piper
Supercub airplane club spent a weekend camping at Red's and the nearby
Minam Lodge guest ranch in August, for example.
The Forest Service, meanwhile, has found itself pinched between the
conflicting federal regulations that, on one hand, prohibit most
buildings in wilderness, while simultaneously mandating the protection
and maintenance of historic structures.
"We wanted them to fix it up and keep the airfield always open," said
Robert M. "Mick" Courtney, an Enterprise businessman, pilot and one of
the partners who sold the ranch to the Forest Service. "It's kind of a
unique place, and it would be a shame if they ever lost some of those
buildings."
The Forest Service is doing its best to maintain the ranch, said
DeAguero, the district ranger. Contract workers last summer replaced a
foundation log on a historic cabin beside the main lodge and the
chinking between the same cabin's other logs. The work was financed
from $9,200 donated by Wallowa County for maintenance of historic
buildings.
"It is demonstrating it can stand on its own two feet" without Forest
Service dollars, said Rob Gump, a spokesman for the agency in
Enterprise. He's confident that the Forest Service won't order the
buildings removed, he said.
But Merel Hawkins, another former owner, became convinced a bigger
budget is needed to maintain the ranch after riding to it on horseback
earlier this month.
"I don't think they are keeping ahead of the game on it," he said. "I think it's going downhill."
Most of the Forest Service's sparse maintenance budget must go for
water-purity tests and propane for the volunteers' heating and cooking
needs, DeAguero said.
"It is a small price to pay for volunteers who we don't pay at all,"
she said. "They find their own way in, and they do maintenance."
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