LET’S HAVE FUN, NOT LAWSUITS

Adena Cook

ID-RC, Secretary At Large

You’re flying, skimming across the snowy landscape, surrounded by diamond flakes.  It must be flying if your sled were wings.  You’re aware of friends nearby, but you’ve each chosen your own path.  No one else is around for miles and miles.  It’s just you, the trackless powder, and the sun.

Later, your group finds the groomed trail.  You head back to the parking lot.  Only then do you see other sledders.   This is snowmobiling at its finest in Eastern Idaho.

Winter Wildlands Alliance has been working for years to shut this down.  Most recently, they filed a lawsuit that demands managers review and designate trails and areas as open, closed, or restricted.

This has been done for summer recreation. This exhaustive process has taken many years for summer travel planning, been very costly, and ratcheted up user conflict whether or not it exists on the ground.  For winter, land managers have been allowed to decide locally whether winter recreation needs the same level of review.  Where necessary, winter restrictions have been incorporated.

It’s not enough to satisfy the environmentalists who want winter recreation scrutinized everywhere.

In presenting its case, the lawsuit dredges up a litany of anti-snowmobiling allegations, ancient and disproven.  Its  shopworn assertions  have been a staple of appeals and other lawsuits for many years.   It depicts a polluted, tracked up landscape, crowded and noisy that’s a threat to wildlife and discouraging to others.  Rhetoric throughout emphasizes user conflict.

It describes the complete opposite of the typical winter recreation experience in Eastern Idaho.

For example, snowmobilers typically begin a day’s trip from a parking lot and groomed trail, paid for by snowmobile gas tax and registration funds.  Skiers can use these trails, but should not be offended to encounter snowmobiles there.  Skiers can also use any snow covered forest land adjacent to a plowed road where they can pull off, although most seek parks and areas frequented by other skiers for convenience and highway safety.  Snowmobiles are not common there, and if the area is designated ski-only, are prohibited.

Courts are confronted with allegations on paper, not reality.  It’s up to the land managing agency and the intervening snowmobile groups to counter with real world information.  This is time consuming and costly.  It is a duplication of effort already completed by the local land manager when he made the decision not to examine winter use in detail.

Duplication of effort is a favorite tool of paid conflict specialists who want to eliminate snowmobiling.  They get another chance to dredge up old lies.  Sledders need to work hard at demonstrating what the world of snow, sun, and sparkle is really like.  Besides, it’s a lot more fun than lawsuits.