House Committee Approves Alpine Lakes Wilderness Expansion. 12/4 Update

[timberfaller]

"However I know there are many on here who aren't friendly with a wilderness designation...."

YEP 

"Wilderness" is just a political buzz word to make the greenies happy! and the inhabitants of the concrete jungles believing it still exists

Oh ya and it keeps those evil loggers out and ANY proper management practices at bay

[npaull]

Disagree strongly timberfaller.

Loss of habitat is THE existential threat to hunting. Everything else is a way distant second. If we can keep quality habitat, we can expect to have hunting far into the future.

The concept of wilderness - that Americans in the past were wise enough to see a need for its creation - is one of our greatest successes. Every wilderness area is a reason to celebrate for hunters, pure and simple.

This is great.

I know - some logging is good for deer. But with the logging companies increasingly charging for access and spraying herbicide on their clear cuts, I'm getting less and less enthused about giving more land to them, particularly when the strip mall dollars start to look better than the timber revenues.

[Little Dave]

I suppose the wilderness designation will mean new trails and other "improvements."  This with the paved road, the proximity to Seattle, and the desire of the nearby communities to generate revenue from tourism will likely have the effect of putting more people in the woods.

The local ranger district has a policy of suppressing all fires.  While fire is a natural feature of a healthy forest, the political consequence of hikers trapped in a fire is something that creeps them out... so they are willing to let the forest go to a lifeless monoculture old growth.

What will probably happen is sometime over the next twenty years we will have a lot of rain in the spring followed by a hot summer.  Then in that September a huge wildfire will light the place up and burn a huge swath of land like the Tillamook Burn of 1933 in the wet coastal range of Oregon, that was about 300,000 acres a little more than the Carlton Complex burn this year.

Once burned, the proposed wilderness area may develop excellent habitat with a variety of different forest stages...  so this could be a good thing if the country lasts that long.

[JimmyHoffa]

It's just waiting on the president for a signature now.

[bigtex]

It's just waiting on the president for a signature now.

[csaaphill]

Would've thought this one would result in some negative posts 

loner i guess!

[csaaphill]

need to come our way now as long as hunting access is inclued though.

[logger]

lets just designate all federal ground wilderness, rip all the roads out and then all you tri atheletes can hoof it in from the highway.

[Special T]

At least they're not turning it into a National Park where hunting wouldn't be allowed. Seems to me that it's not really changing anything, is it? Isn't this area already wilderness anyway, even if not "official"?

Correct. However I know there are many on here who aren't friendly with a wilderness designation....

I think a certain am mount of apathy has set in for many of us. I know it has for me. Much of the USFS area that i have hunted for elk needs at least SOME logging and hasn't had any is many years. perhaps I should pray for a fire if i really want to go back. Greenies are winning the war, at least here in WA, and since this land is in King County I KNOW its a lost cause to try and be a lone/small voice for reason. USFS does not log as much as it could/should and king county HATES cutting so there is ZERO chance of some cutting. IMO it really doesn't matter if its Wilderness or not because it was defacto wilderness anyway. 

[bigtex]

At least they're not turning it into a National Park where hunting wouldn't be allowed. Seems to me that it's not really changing anything, is it? Isn't this area already wilderness anyway, even if not "official"?

Correct. However I know there are many on here who aren't friendly with a wilderness designation....

I think a certain am mount of apathy has set in for many of us. I know it has for me. Much of the USFS area that i have hunted for elk needs at least SOME logging and hasn't had any is many years. perhaps I should pray for a fire if i really want to go back. Greenies are winning the war, at least here in WA, and since this land is in King County I KNOW its a lost cause to try and be a lone/small voice for reason. USFS does not log as much as it could/should and king county HATES cutting so there is ZERO chance of some cutting. IMO it really doesn't matter if its Wilderness or not because it was defacto wilderness anyway. 

There's actually been some cutting on USFS land in King County in the past couple years. I think we just don't see the large cuts that we used to see on USFS lands.

[Special T]

How many times have we discussed that Edges are important? Your right we dont need a 4 mile square clear cut. What we need is a continuous harvest of trees so that there is a constant rotation of clearcut, reprod, and old growth mixed in close proximity to each other. It provides habitat AND revenue.

[logger]

I am logging 3 sales on the gifford pinchot, it's getting better! HOWEVER! what they are trying to do is not doing much for big game, lottsa excuse's on their end but my biggest peeve is quarter acre clearcut in amongst 200ft tall timber provides nothing but a shady opening, go a bit bigger and get some sun on it and grow some feed and they make us drag all the slash back into the unit and cover the ground which chokes out the feed that could grow. way off topic just my rant of the day. it's better than it was and with some slight tweaking it could be better and still achieve their goals as well.

[Special T]

What area gmu are you doing the logging?

[logger]

mostly lewis river