Audit the Fees

Public land user fees as authorized by the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act automatically expires in December 2014. You can help push user fees to a timely demise by joining representatives from Colorado and New Mexico who are calling for an audit of the fee system.

Previous audits by the General Accounting Office have shown serious problems with accounting and overhead and collection costs. No surprise when the agency collecting the tax is also the one doing the accounting and spending!

All you need to do is write a letter, call, or send a fax to Representative Rob Bishop, the chair of the House subcommittee that oversees the US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, asking him to request an audit of FLREA.

Recreation Fees in Arizona's Red Rock Country: Not So Much

As a result of a judge's ruling in 2010, the Red Rock Ranger District on the Coconino National Forest, which administers the recreation areas around Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon, has greatly reduced the number of sites where a Red Rock Pass is required. Basically, you don't need a Red Rock Pass to park at trail heads without developed amenities or along dirt roads in the red rock country. Although the forest is still selling Red Rock Passes as if they are needed for the entire area, they are not enforcing the passes in certain areas. Instead the Forest Service is issuing a "Notice of Required Fee". Although it looks like a citation, this "Notice" is not a ticket and requires no action on your part.

Final rules which restrict the requirement for Red Rock Passes to the trail heads around Sedona, Oak Creek Canyon, and Arizona 170 between Sedona and I-17 are expected early in 2012. Even more important than the reduction in fees for the red rock area, this case sets an important precedent than can be used in future court cases challenging the fee program in areas such as the Pacific Northwest where passes are still being illegally required as parking passes where there are non of the amenities required by law.

For more information on the recreation fee program, see http://www.westernslopenofee.org/.

Dumbing Down Hike Ratings

As a hiking guide book author, I see a disturbing trend in how hikes and trails are rated, especially by land managers. Essentially, everything harder than walking a few yards from a parking lot to a scenic view point is rated "difficult" or "strenuous", implying that ordinary people can't do them.

Where does that leave the real hikes- trails that are a few miles long, let alone backpack trips? Should we rate them "superhumanly difficult"?

I think the standard hike ratings used by one of my publishers, "easy", "moderate", and "strenuous", covers trail hiking very well. My other publishers use a similar system.

"Easy" basically means a hike that anyone in reasonable shape can do without any particular level of hiking experience. By "reasonable shape" they mean a person without disabilities. This rating is applied to hikes of a half mile to a few miles that people should be able to complete in a half day or less. The vast majority of people should be able to do an easy hike as long as they take it easy.

At the "moderate" level, the reader should have some hiking experience and a corresponding level of fitness, and should expect to spend most of the day doing the hike. There may be some elevation gain and loss.

In my books, I reserve "strenuous" for hikes that involve significant elevation change- more than a thousand feet- require a very long day or possibly several days to complete, and may involve off-trail, cross-country hiking. What I'm saying is that only fit, experienced hikers or backpackers should attempt these hikes.

When everything that involves a bit of walking is described as strenuous or difficult, we do a disservice to visitors to our public lands by discouraging them from exploring more than a few feet from their cars. Yet even in the most crowded national parks, you can usually escape the crowds by walking a short trail and in the process get to experience the natural landscape directly, without distractions.

Instead of rating everything as strenuous, why don't we just assume that most people are healthy and capable of taking a short walk? People with health problems or disabilities are usually all too aware of them. We can direct them to "handicap-accessible" trails, which most developed recreation areas now provide.

Drinking in the Woods

There's a lot of confusion on how to make backcountry water safe for drinking, so here's some up-to-date information. Remember, the appearance of wilderness water has no bearing on how safe it is. Even a crystal-clear mountain stream can be contaminated with disease-causing organisms.

Except in the rare case of a spring that is poisonous due to chemical contaminants, what we're worried about are pathogens- bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. While most waterborne diseases in the United States are caused by bacteria and protozoa, viral diseases such as hepatitis are occasionally encountered. Outside the U.S., viral contamination of water is much more common. There are two common disease-causing protozoa which have been found in backcountry water, giardia and cryptosporidium.

The most common health effects from drinking contaminated water are digestive system disorders such as cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea. These can be mild or totally debilitating requiring a helicopter evacuation. In any case your wilderness trip will probably be ruined, so it's a no-brainer to purify all wilderness water sources, including springs. A possible exception is melted clean snow.

There are three basic methods of purifying water- boiling, filtering, and treatment with chemicals.

Without a doubt, boiling water is the most effective method of purifying it. Bringing water to a rolling boil for one minute kills bacteria, viruses, and protozoa. Unfortunately it uses time and fuel, and leaves you with hot, flat-tasting water. You can pour boiled water back and forth between clean containers to aerate it and restore the taste.

Filters and filter-based purifiers are popular, though most are heavy, slow, and bulky. Most filters use hand-operated pumps to force water through the filter elements. Some systems are gravity-fed and can treat large amounts of water fairly quickly. These tend to be even heavier and are used by large expeditions and river trips.

A plain filter is very effective against protozoa, moderately effective against bacteria, but not effective against viruses. Some filters have an active charcoal element which removes chemicals that cause bad tastes and odors. A purifying filter adds an active halogen element (usually iodine) that kills bacteria and viruses.

Chemical treatments include iodine and chlorine dioxide tablets and chlorine in the form of household bleach. Chemical treatments are lightweight and compact, but their effectiveness varies with the temperature and amount of organic contaminants such as plant matter.

Iodine and chlorine are effective against bacteria and viruses, and moderately effective against giardia but not cryptosporidium. Chlorine dioxide is effective against bacteria, viruses, and giardia and is moderately effective against cryptosporidium.

For wilderness travel in the United States, chlorine dioxide tablets offer the best combination of light weight and effectiveness. For travel in parts of the world where water-borne diseases are common, a purifying filter system is the most effective system. Or, you can use a plain filter system and then treat the filter water with iodine or chlorine dioxide.

Always follow the manufacturer's instructions and recommendations, especially in regard to doses and wait times.

See the Centers for Disease Control Web page on backcountry water purification for more information.

http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/travel/backcountry_water_treatment.html

Is a parking lot an amenity?

In the ongoing battle over fees for use of public lands, another crack has appeared in the fee system. Under the original "Fee Demo" program which was in effect from 1996 through 2004, federal agencies such as the U.S. Forest Service could charge for parking at trailheads and other undeveloped areas. In areas such as Arizona's Redrock Country on the Coconino National Forest, and in the Pacific Northwest, the Forest Service got used to collecting such parking fees.

The permanent law that replaced Fee Demo, the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act, requires six amenities (permanent toilet, picnic tables, permanent trash receptacle, developed parking, interpretive signs, and security services) to be present at sites before fees can be charged. The Forest Service has ignored the law.


The court decision in Arizona forced the Forest Service there to stop charging for undeveloped trailheads and parking. In the Pacific Northwest, a backpacker parked at a trailhead without the specified amenities and was cited. He decided to contest the violation. The Forest Service, clearly aware that a court decision in favor of the hiker would derail their entire illegal parking fee system, dropped the charges.

Come on, U.S. Forest Service- this isn't rocket science! Just obey the law.

For more information, http://westernslopenofee.org/index2.php?display=yes&pageid=36

Befuddled With GPS

Recently a hiker published an article about getting slightly lost while trying to hike a trail in Arizona. The result wasn't serious, just some epic brush-crashing. I've hiked that trail myself so I can visualize what happened. This is a classic tale of failure to read maps and an over dependence on GPS.

Don't get me wrong. GPS is a wonderful tool and a lot of fun to use. But a GPS receiver is no substitute for conventional map, compass, and wilderness navigation skills.

Here's an example. You're following a faint, little-used trail through desert canyon country. Knowing the trail might be hard to find, you carefully plotted a GPS route on your digital topo maps at home and uploaded it to to your GPS receiver.

Now, as you hike, you lose the trail. No problem, you think, I'll just use the GPS to hike directly to the next waypoint along the trail. You set out on the direct course to the waypoint and soon find yourself at the rim of an impassible canyon.

What should you have done? The same thing you would have done before GPS- note the point at which you lost the trail, and then search outward from that point, looking along the most likely route the trail would have taken.

Once you find the trail, you can follow it to the natural break the trail builder used to cross the canyon, instead of finding yourself rimmed up along an impassible section.

In rough country, before attempting to walk a direct GPS course (or compass course, for that matter), carefully study your topo map to be sure the route is passable.

A Chance to Comment on the Fee System

The Coconino National Forest is seeking public comment March 1 on the Red Rock fee system in place on the Sedona Ranger DIstrict.

A federal judge found some parts of the fee system illegal under federal law last year and the Forest Service stopped requiring fees at backcountry trailheads in the Sedona area as a result.

Public comments will be taken at Red Rock High School, 995 Upper Red Rock Loop Road, in west Sedona, starting at 4 PM March.

Comments can also be sent by email by following the "Red Rock Pass Changes" link at http://www.redrockcountry.org.

Todays Sponsor: Exploring Great Basin National Park

My Kindle book, Exploring Great Basin National Park, is the sponsor of the

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