IMBA Testifies in Front of Congress on Mount Hood Bill

For Immediate Release
09-27-06
Contact: Mark Eller, IMBA Communications Manager

303-545-9011

On Sept. 27, 2006, IMBA Trail Specialist Jill Van Winkle addressed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Subcommittee on Public Lands and Forests, providing testimony on pending legislation that will affect mountain bike access around Oregon's Mount Hood. Van Winkle travels North America analyzing the environmental and recreation qualities of trail systems. She has worked with dozens of land managers on the federal, state and local levels, and helped them formulate management strategies that balance recreation and conservation needs.

Two bills, the Lewis and Clark Mount Hood Wilderness Act of 2006 (S. 3854) and the Mount Hood Stewardship Legacy Act (H.R. 5025) are progressing through the Senate and House respectively this fall. Both pieces of legislation hold much promise for mountain bikers, who have worked collaboratively with a variety of recreation and conservation groups to preserve important mountain biking opportunities on Mount Hood for three years.

"These bills bode well for mountain bicycling, as they offer many boundary adjustments that will accommodate access to significant trails," Van Winkle told the Senators. "With a few key amendments to the legislation, we believe it can protect the land and allow mountain biking, an existing, historical use, to continue at Mount Hood."

Boundary Adjustments Key to Proposed Legislation

Addressing Senator Larry Craig, committee chair, and senators Gordon Smith and Ron Wyden, the bill's sponsors , Van Winkle described her family's longstanding connection to the Mount Hood region ‹ the Van Winkles first arrived in the state on the third wagon train that traversed the Oregon Trail. "Like many outdoors-people, the backcountry has a deep attraction for me," she noted in her opening remarks. "It's where I can get away from roads, crowds and other constructs of urban life. I have found my mountain bike to be the best way for me to reach it."

Van Winkle described one aspect of the legislation in detail: A proposed 17,700-acre Mount Hood National Forest Recreation Area (NRA) that will allow mountain biking to continue in areas such as Fifteen Mile Creek, Boulder Lake, Shellrock Mountain and Hellroaring Creek. "IMBA and our local affiliate club, the Oregon Mountain Bike Alliance, or ORMBA, strongly endorse the NRA proposal and suggest expanding it to several other key areas."

The proposed NRA is a positive solution in public lands policy regarding Wilderness, Van Winkle testified, as it protects the land while allowing bicycling. She told the senators, "Instead of taking away trails our community has enjoyed for decades, National Recreation Areas are a way to protect Mount Hood for our children to enjoy, and also to engage more of the Oregon bike community in land protection."

Van Winkle also spoke about areas that mountain bike groups hope to see added to the list of NRA-protected parcels. "We ask the committee to protect Larch Mountain, Twin Lakes, Bonney Butte and Roaring River through National Recreation Area status. We believe protecting these areas by a NRA eliminates the unnecessary choice between Wilderness and our continued access. These areas need to be protected from development, road building, and resource extraction. They do not need to be protected from mountain bikes."

Bills Include Bike-Friendly Features

Van Winkle thanked the senators for their work in developing bike-friendly legislation. She pointed out that cycling groups are pleased that both the Senate and the House bills include the following arrangements:

• An investment of almost $800,000 in un-obligated special use permit fees to be retained for trails and recreation on Mount Hood.

• Consideration for high-use recreation areas that are popular within the mountain bike community; these trails were left outside proposed Wilderness boundaries to allow for continued bike access.

• A seat on the Mount Hood National Forest Recreational Advisory Council for a mountain bike representative.

• The suggestion that the Forest Service consider creating singletrack trails open to bicycles from decommissioned roads.

• Recognition of recreation as a dynamic social and economic component of Mount Hood.

Van Winkle told the committee that the current Mount Hood National Forest Plan is more than 16 years old, and IMBA and ORMBA look forward to helping develop alternatives to restrictive Wilderness designations that threaten to ban bikes from Mount Hood trails. "We believe that there are more appropriate land protections than Wilderness, ones that will allow for existing recreational user groups, but protect the land, and the trails we so highly value," Van Winkle concluded.