It USED to be that I loved to stop my car anywhere and everywhere -- wherever I saw something interesting along the way. I'd pull to the side of the road, get out and explore. I lived for these experiences.
Today, when I drive, I am in a dark and angry tunnel ---a tunnel created by fee-demo : a tunnel through which I drive only peeking at the scenery KNOWING that I may not get out of my car and stop to investigate because I refuse to purchase a recreation pass and because I will receive a ticket if I enter the forest without that pass.
Being denied access to public lands has turned me into someone who has NO choice other than to try and find substitute experiences. Today I do a lot of trespassing. I explore urban brownfields and inner-city weedlots. I walk in the river that runs through my home town. But mostly I spend a lot of time in my own backyard. Today I am a prisoner and it is fee-demo that has imprisoned me.
What disgusts me more than anything about the new recreation agenda is having some bureaucrat or having the private recreation/tourism industry prepare a recreational experience for me to purchase and consume.
AUTHENTICITY is all I ever wanted of public lands. NATURE IN THE RAW. Nothing prepackaged. Nothing involving a reservation. Nothing involving a price tag.
All I ever wanted of public lands is what God or Nature provided with just the most minimal of improvements that serve only to protect the land itself from the impacts of careless visitors.
I used to routinely volunteer on public lands. I built Nordic ski shelters, I maintained trails, I did wilderness patrol and more.
Today I do none of these things. It has been over a year since I've set foot in a wilderness. For me to enter a wilderness in Central Oregon is to commit a federal crime! Passes are required everywhere.
Yesterday I pulled onto a forest road near my home. Not 200 yards into the forest was a sign that said; "Entering Fee Site - Valid Pass Required for Parking".
That is nonsense.
I was going to a section of forest where there were no recreational facilities at all. I was going, with my wife and son, to walk upon a lava flow where I knew we'd find no one and where I could easily believe that no human had ever walked quite the same way before. I used NO recreational facilities and the USFS provided me with nothing. All I did was drive on a LOGGING ROAD.... a road I paid for through my taxes.
And while I walked amongst the lava.... I was so very much reminded of the USFS's presence. In my exploration I saw no tree in that forest with a diameter greater than 8 inches. What I saw were stumps ---- endless stumps, many of which were over three feet across.
So HOW DARE the USFS attempt to charge me $5 to drive on a logging road and then walk amongst the stumps of trees they sold to timber companies --- sold for almost certainly less than $5 an ancient tree!!!???
HOW DARE THEY!
Scott Silver, Executive Director,
248 NW Wilmington Avenue, Bend OR 97701
Phone (541) 385-5261 E-mail: ssilver@wildwilderness.org