Dear conservationists,
I just emailed the following letter to the Forest Service (using my real name and primary email address, of course); and I encourage other Yahi Group members to write letters supporting my comments.
Also, I have discovered that any site-specific comments previously sent to Plumas National Forest, regarding their OHV route designation process, should be re-sent soon, as their biologist has just joined their ID team; and my previous comments, asking that user-created roads in major deer herd migration routes be denied, were ignored.
02-10-08
David C. Erwin
District Recreation Officer
P.O. Box 767
Chester, CA 96020-0767
cc: Lassen National Forest Supervisor Kathleen Morse
Dear Mr. Erwin,
Please accept this addition to my comments on the High Lakes OHV Area Management Plan. I just discovered that the primarily Off-Highway-Vehicle-user's group Friends Of The High Lakes is now encouraging members to write again and ask that Soda Ridge be kept open to motorcycles, after I suggested just the opposite in a compromise proposal to their leaders' insistence that all temporary road closures in the High Lakes area should be repealed.
As the Yahi Group Sierra Club outreach coordinator for the National Forest Route Designation Process I was sponsored by one of their leaders to join FOTHL and organize a Yahi Group trail maintenance crew for the High Lakes area. I joined but suggested that due to the excessive damage cause by OHVs creating multiple routes into Saddle Lake, perhaps the Yahi Group would be willing to adopt that lake and attempt to repair the damage, if that area were kept closed to vehicles.
I also suggested that the lower end of the 614 route through the west end of Reese Flat be kept closed to vehicles (it doesn't currently connect to the 610) to protect the goshawk nesting area I confirmed is there.
Both FOTHL leaders I have been in email contact with replied that they want all temporarily closed roads in the High Lakes reopened and would prefer we adopt a trail in the Vehicle Prohibited Area.
I told them that depending upon what wildlife surveys show as possible marten migration routes, the Yahi Group might be willing to compromise with FOTHL and ask Lassen National Forest to allow FOTHL another chance at trail monitoring and restoration in the High Lakes if they would agree to back our environmentalist stand, during the Route Designation Process separate from the High Lakes, that along with some user-created roads being considered for adoption into the system some existing system roads be considered for closure.
In my comments on both the High Lakes OHV Area and on the Lassen National Forest Route Designation Process I suggested that the Vehicle Prohibited Area of Chips Creek canyon be extended northward across Soda Ridge to the northern part of the Chips Creek Roadless Area.
That northern section already has a Research Natural Area around Green Island Lake and Saucer Lake, as well as another RNA at the north end of Soda Ridge stretching down to Soda Creek, both of which are mostly pristine habitat for species associated with old growth.
Specifically, I proposed that at least the 501 road (from 25N05 near Lots Lake to 26N74 at the Pacific Crest Trail) be closed, and that the high-clearance 26N74 road along Soda Ridge be closed and decommissioned from 25N15 all the way east to the LNF / PNF boundary east of Indian Springs, so as to reconnect the northern and southern parts of the Chips Creek Roadless Area. Those roads (except for the southern-most part of the 501) are outside of the High Lakes OHV Area shown on your map and even in a different Management Area in the Lassen Forest Plan.
While leading a Yahi Group hike into the area, I have seen a marten on the banks of Soda Creek; and the California Natural Diversity Database shows marten as once documented in the area just east of Indian Springs.
Soda Ridge would be a crucial part of my proposed Quiet Recreation / Wildlife Migration Corridor / Vehicle Prohibited Area expansion roughly paralleling the Pacific Crest Trail all the way from the Hwy 32 (with the adjacent the Cub Creek roadless area and Spotted Owl Habitat Area) to the SOHA along Soda Creek that extends toward Hwy 70.
Am I correct in assuming that wildlife surveys, including for marten, will be completed before the final decision is reached as to which routes in and adjacent to the High Lakes will be designated for vehicle use?
Alarmingly, during an early meeting on the Plumas National Forest Route Designation Process I heard an OHV enthusiast claim that the Chips Creek Roadless Area was already roaded and thus completely bisected because the Indian Springs trail OHV route extends from the Lassen National Forest boundary all the way down to Hwy 70. He said because there is no sign at the Forest Boundary, he could not be cited for driving that route.
I checked for a connection to Hwy 70 while leading a hike along the PCT, and noticed PCT signs on the trail intersection with an old road coming up the hill from the trailer park south of Belden, that crosses the PCT toward the power line clearing that connects to the Indian Springs trail. That road, however, is not even mapped by Plumas National Forest, though it is obviously an old road; and Plumas proposes the area remain a Vehicle Prohibited Area.
26N74 should be closed and decommissioned so that it no longer invites illegal cross-country travel from its remote eastern end. Many years ago when I hiked in on the 501 road along the Chips Creek / Coon Hollow saddle, I found near Poison Spring a 40"-diameter red fir that had fallen across 26N74, thus effectively closing Soda Ridge to vehicles; but apparently that huge log was subsequently cut up and the road reopened, because later on during Route Designation Process scoping, new motorcycle routes were identified in the north part of Soda Ridge, where someone had apparently tried to drive to Saucer Lake from the old logging road there (that had once also been effectively closed by other fallen old trees and new growing trees when I hiked through).
A larger Vehicle Prohibited Area, where not even chainsaws are allowed to be used (similar in management to Wilderness), is needed in that area to alert law-abiding forest users when illegal vehicle routes are being created. Just hearing the noise from a motor emanating from Soda Ridge should be enough reason to notify law enforcement or other Forest Service personnel that citations are needed to keep vehicles from driving where they are no longer allowed. Keeping noise to a minimum should also serve to encourage continuing use by marten and other wildlife, whose migration routes are all too often already fragmented by an excessive road density elsewhere in the Forest.
Please work in cooperation with Plumas National Forest to keep the Indian Springs trail non-motorized on Plumas NF and close and decommission 26N74 to keep that trail non-motorized at least all the way west to the Chips Creek saddle, as you analyze future management of the nearby High Lakes OHV Area and which roads should provide recreational vehicle opportunities.
Sincerely,
Cedarrrock
a Yahi Group conservation activist
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