How to manage WMNF

[Andrew]

I have often wondered what it would have been like here if a National Park had been established as opposed to forest. Many of the patterns established here make it hard to unravel. Not to say the Forest Service doesn't do a good job at managing recreation or sites that demand and get more focus on recreational management; but if an agency specifically geared towards recreational management and objectives on the land had developed the recreational opportunities with recreation as the primary focus, things might be different.

 

[Rhody Seth]

Logistically I think it would be massively difficult to pull off, simply due to the proximity of so many who make use of the mountains. You mentioned making reservations four months in advance, can you imagine anything like that with the Whites? Half the time I'm not sure exactly what I'm doing when I'm driving up. And as someone said, with so many ways to enter the mountains I can't imagine a way to make it feasible - unless you hire an army of enforcement.

My daughter and I stayed at Lakes of the Clouds on Saturday and it is one of my few recent experiences with mob scene within the Whites. Had to pay to park at the Cog as the Ammo trailhead was a madhouse at 8:30 AM. Even then we got an early start from the hut the next morning for our ascent of Washington and more or less had the place to ourselves. Getting it done early still seems like a viable way to go for me.

 

[skiguy]

More or less exactly what I was envisioning. Is it possible? In my mind, it would make the whole experience so much more enjoyable. Anticipating the parking situation is one of the most stressful parts of any trip to the Whites these days. I unfortunately foresee an avalanche of outcry of one kind or another (You can't keep me from enjoying the land, Live Free or Die!! or Why are those out-of-staters able to get all the parking permits and those of us who pay taxes can't even access our own trails?! To name a couple...). But maybe I'm wrong about that. It is a National Forest, not a State Forest - maybe things could get done. But I've read enough of Peakbaggers synopses to know management is always convoluted.

From my observations based on decades of experience is that many are resistant to being regulated. The Whites for many is about the freedom to come and go as they please and having very little interference from others telling them what to do. A lot of folks start hiking in the Whites and once doing the significant hikes they move on to Vermont, Maine and then eventually Baxter. The former is where the resistance to change can happen. The mere existence of a reservation system and rules in BSP is typically enough for the average tramper that has hiked in the Whites to have an attitude about regulations. I have led many to Baxter that have never been there. Even upon the mere suggestion of going to Baxter I have experienced an attitude of resistance from fellow hikers. Usually it results in myself doing all the planning, reserving, navigating and trail leading. The aftermath always results in my fellow hikers coming to a realization of why the regulations exist. Trying to make that happen with hundreds of thousands of people in The Whites would be quite a task.

 

[dug]

It's always going to be easier to implement a reservation system with limited entry/exit points. How many vehicles traveling through the Region are actually hiking? I'd be willing to be it's in the minority. Never mind the other aspects of the "multi-use" that use the Whites for non-hiking endeavors

Where would you put the gates?

 

[dave.m]

Online would work as long as there was dedicated funding to manage the process locally in the field. Unfortunately the FS has very poor reputation about leaving dedicated funding sources in place, inevitably their budget gets cut and the dedicated funding becomes part of their primary budget. My guess would be they would offload the management of the system to third party and neglect to ramp up staffing.

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, we should keep in mind that the budget "crisis" was entirely manufactured by budget cuts designed to force privatization. And the manufactured USFS budget crisis should be considered against the backdrop of the radical economic/political theories of Neo-liberalism (Friedman and that crew) that the US, Britain and much of Europe has embraced for the past 50 plus years; the hallmarks of which are austerity budget cuts in social services, privatization and fee-for-use restructuring of services, rising military spending to keep the flow of resources coming in, and massive tax cuts to the wealthy and corporations.

So long as we accept the current radical status quo as the only possible future, our imagination atrophies. We, collectively, through our government, have the moral commitment to develop, fund, operate, and maintain drones capable of hitting human targets from around the globe. We certainly have the technical ability to stand up a fair and efficient permitting system. It's a matter of us collectively having the moral commitment to it and the political will to cast off the radical Neo-liberal chains that we too easily accept as a given.

My guess is the FS just doesn't value and promote folks who spend most of their time in the woods and promote those on the administrative side.

Nothing that better funding and strong democratic (small 'd') control by we the people can't fix.

 

[dave.m]

It's always going to be easier to implement a reservation system with limited entry/exit points. How many vehicles traveling through the Region are actually hiking? I'd be willing to be it's in the minority. Never mind the other aspects of the "multi-use" that use the Whites for non-hiking endeavors

Where would you put the gates?

The control points are the parking areas at the trailheads. The approach should be to limit hiker traffic by limiting legal parking. Limit parking by making it illegal to park at a trailhead without a permit displayed on the dash. Enforcement would be trivial. Send patrols to the trailheads during midday.

 

[TCD]

Interesting discussion. There is a broad spectrum between "the only way to manage is to restrict the number of visitors" and "let everyone enjoy the resource, manage to minimize degradation."

Probably a common sense position somewhere in between, but most discussions of this end up conflicted, with most of the voices at either end.

I lean more towards the "better management" end of the spectrum. There's a lot that can be done (and has not been done at all) to protect the resource before we start limiting access of the people to their resource. (And of course, though it's off-topic, the people who will lose access the most are the "underserved" populations.)

My thought are probably affected by my Adirondack experience. Over here, the state has blathered for decades about all the management actions they are going to do (but have not done any of). In the last couple years, the latest line has been "We've tried every other action possible, now we need to restrict access." Whereas in fact, that have tried none of the basic actions that would protect the resource.

For several years I have been strongly advocating for: Improved, safe, off-road parking; clean, real bathrooms at trailheads; full time trailhead stewards to provide education at the trailhead; more rangers to provide education and enforcement in the backcountry; and more trail maintenance and trail redesign. These are the actions that will protect the resource, and they are not that expensive (for a state with a $230 Billion budget). But our "land management agency" has done zero of them (while constantly crowing about what a great job they are doing).

Thankfully, in the last year, I am starting to see a couple of our local advocacy groups recognize this, and start to shift their advocacy towards it. Sadly, many of the other advocacy groups are still stuck in the "chase all the users out of the woods" mode.

It will take about a decade to settle out. Hopefully things improve.

 

[JoshandBaron]

I mean why shouldn’t someone whom never steps foot in the woods pay for someone else’s good time.

The same reason someone who never flies had to bail out the airline industry twice.

 

[skiguy]

The same reason someone who never flies had to bail out the airline industry twice.

This could be taken different ways. I think I'll recuse myself from any comment on this.

 

[dug]

The control points are the parking areas at the trailheads. The approach should be to limit hiker traffic by limiting legal parking. Limit parking by making it illegal to park at a trailhead without a permit displayed on the dash. Enforcement would be trivial. Send patrols to the trailheads during midday.

Would we line all the roads with no parking signs throughout the entire area? Quick pull-offs on the side of 302 for people to take a dip in. Hunters, loggers, leaf-peepers, hikers, backpackers, general neighborhood traffic, etc. Truckers driving through and pulling over for a rest? There are something like 300 trailheads I think that feed areas in the White Mtns. that's a lot of staff designed as parking control.

Don't disagree with the sentiment but I can't come up a a good option (to me) that won't cost so much to implement that the cost/benefit for an average family to stomach.

 

[skiguy]

Would we line all the roads with no parking signs throughout the entire area? Quick pull-offs on the side of 302 for people to take a dip in. Hunters, loggers, leaf-peepers, hikers, backpackers, general neighborhood traffic, etc. Truckers driving through and pulling over for a rest? There are something like 300 trailheads I think that feed areas in the White Mtns. that's a lot of staff designed as parking control.

Don't disagree with the sentiment but I can't come up a a good option (to me) that won't cost so much to implement that the cost/benefit for an average family to stomach.

That’s where your supposed to cast off the chains and let the rich pay for it.

 

[dave.m]

That’s where your supposed to cast off the chains and let the rich pay for it.

Exactly so.

My German "sister" came to visit as mom was dying in a nursing home. She asked me in her direct German manner...

"David, in our country, we want our people to be healthy and educated. What is wrong with your country?"

There is a vast number of things that society needs to be healthy and educated that can't be reduced to mere commodities to be sold for profit to only those who can afford it.

Whether at the local, state or federal level, natural parks and recreational opportunities are some of the infrastructure needed to have a healthy populace. So yes... tax the rich and invest in our people's health by, among other things, providing well funded and free outdoor recreation opportunities such as WMNF.

Would we line all the roads with no parking signs throughout the entire area? Quick pull-offs on the side of 302 for people to take a dip in. Hunters, loggers, leaf-peepers, hikers, backpackers, general neighborhood traffic, etc. Truckers driving through and pulling over for a rest? There are something like 300 trailheads I think that feed areas in the White Mtns. that's a lot of staff designed as parking control.

Trailheads and only trailheads. Might not need to have permits for all trailheads either. That could be adjusted by usage numbers.

I'm not at all put off by the number of staff. It's a job creation opportunity.

Don't disagree with the sentiment but I can't come up a a good option (to me) that won't cost so much to implement that the cost/benefit for an average family to stomach.

Permits should be free; full stop. Tax the rich. If that's not enough, cap military spending to be no more than the next 5 countries military spending combined.

 

[dug]

Our solution for everything in this country can't just be "tax the rich". It's lazy.

 

[skiguy]

Our solution for everything in this country can't just be "tax the rich". It's lazy.

Does seem to be a default solution by some. I hear the hiking is quite good in Germany. I suppose one could always move there if they wanted to reap the benefits. For myself I’ll stick to more realistic solutions before going out on some self perceived idealistic rant.

 

[dug]

Does seem to be a default solution by some. I hear the hiking is quite good in Germany. I suppose one could always move there if they wanted to reap the benefits. For myself I’ll stick to more realistic solutions before going out on some self perceived idealistic rant.

"Tax the Rich" is code for "someone else pay for what I want".

 

[Mike P.]

As other's mentioned, Parks established in wide open sparsely populated areas 100 years ago can be set up different than a National Forest Established over 200 years after people began to inhabit the area. (Well Yellowstone and Western areas were inhabited, we moved those people from their homes, pretty sure no one in NH or the ADKs is looking at being moved to a reservation. Actually, the ADK and WMNF are set up so that people live within the ADK Park and National Forest. No one lives in Yosemite although some climbers have tried squatting from time to time.) The Western Parks would be more similar to BSP which some people love here and some people here whine about the restrictions.

Twenty years ago I was looking at having work pay for a trip to CA where I was going to take two weeks and hike all throughout the Sierra including Yosemite and Lassen. I had found where their accidents were recorded and they have, in many cases, the same types of calls that F&G.

I tried to find where I was looking 20 years ago without luck but found this: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-helicopter-rescue-hikers-mt-whitney/

In 2016 we visited Yosemite and we could not drive in and get a parking spot near the East Gate to try climb Tioga Peak which would have been about 1,000 feet of gain from a start of almost 10,000. We did get a spot on a side road with well over 100 cars to get to an easy hike to Dog Lake. We played tourist one day on the Valley Floor walking and tried to get to Glacier Point one afternoon and the road was closed because every spot at Glacier, Washburn and Sentinel lots were packed. (They turned us around at the ski area) We managed to do a family hike to Sentinel Dome on a Thursday Evening, my son and I also did Taft Point. On the Day of the wedding, (we stayed at Tenaya Lodge for the nights around the wedding, a home through VRBO the rest of the week) I was up at 2:30, drove to Washburn Point and waited for sunrise. After about an hour, I went back to Sentinel Dome and caught sunrise. (Which comes up behind Half Dome in August.) I was one of about two dozen people who were up there for sunrise.

There's hiking and backpacking in Yosemite, sure, however, it has little peakbagging, it's just tourist, climbers and some backpackers. Dana at the East Gate is the only 13K peak, The CA 14K and 13K is spread out throughout the state, mostly along the Sierra. (Shasta being in the Cascades) The permit system for parking at Whitney Portal isn't easy to get.

Neither the Whites or ADK is going to get the funding needed to higher massive amounts of staff until they are a separate entity that can raise revenue and keep it in house. Currently they get funds from the Department of the Interior or the State of NY. Considering that several properties that the DOI have been, (are) on fire, the WMNF is a smooth-running operation. The State of NH and AMC help with some of the maintenance and education and rescues. BLM lands, also run by the DOI don't have this type of help, in fact, more likely you have the ranchers that use the land helping out. (Would that be similar to having the loggers and paper companies helping out in the WMNF?)

 

[JoshandBaron]

"Tax the Rich" is code for "someone else pay for what I want".

Probably more comparable to "pay the same effective tax rate that I do." There was a time before Reagan that this type of thing was funded. Now we give everything to the lowest bidder and wonder why our infrastructure is crumbling.

 

[peakbagger]

Folks forget, much of the WMNF boundaries are not necessarily lined up with roads, there are many inholdings and the state of NH owns a lot of land along the roads. As the Mt Washington Plan makes it obvious the primary goal of the state is crank up tourism to get more room and meals taxes. Not sure how cooperative the state would be in buttoning up the WMNF.

I have no doubt that the reason why Lafayette Place is not much larger and does not have parking meters or a parking permit system is that it was built with federal highway money and by law the state is prohibited from adding fees to the lot. In most cases if the state wants to do so they have to pay back the Federal government for fed share of the construction.

 

[DayTrip]

My daughter and I stayed at Lakes of the Clouds on Saturday and it is one of my few recent experiences with mob scene within the Whites. .

Ugh. Were you able to crush a few beers at the pool party on the big Lake? I went through there about 5PM SAT and it was more like a frat house than a wilderness lodge. I hightailed it to the rock outcrops at the top of the Camel Trail and made my dinner there so it was out of view and mostly out of ear shot. I pretty much always hike now early, late and in the dark and get way off the beaten path during the day. Nothing about the LOC hut SAT resembled what I want out of a hiking experience.

 

[Daniel Eagan]

Our solution for everything in this country can't just be "tax the rich". It's lazy.

It's lazier to let the rich get away without paying anything, let alone their fair share.