Interested people who are concerned about our wildlife and the condition of our forest lands: It is now time to get your comments in to the Forest Service. This present FS project is not about logging. It is about road closures and creating ORV trails. These road closures are just old spur (logging) roads for the most part which have been closed for years. They either have a gate or a berm but the ORVs can find a way around them if they wish. Why, I don’t know as you can see them from the open use road. The Forest Service wants to build more ORV trails, one which parallels an existing use road (crazy).
I wish to clarify the name of this project. It is not Darby Lands in any way. They consist of 8 or 9 sections of land in the Little Sleeping Child drainage and in the Rye Creek drainage. These lands were railroad land purchased by Russell (Darby Lumber) which he clear cut. This land was checkerboarded with Forest Service land. The FOB and others arranged for federal money to purchase them for the benefit of the wild game and other birds and animals. This was not intended for ORV trails or motorized vehicles. This complete project area reaches from Sleeping Child Road to Rye Road and east above the old Sleeping Child Burn road. It encompasses 28,758 acres. There are untold miles of roads open in the Sapphires for ORVs and cars. Now, why build more roads just for the off road people? Many ORV people are driving off roads now. I feel more trails would just encourage them to drive off these trails. Also, these vehicles scare the game away from these areas that they may want to use. Also, the other animals such as wolverines, lynx, grouse, etc.
To give you an idea of the miles of roads in the Sapphires from Florence to Sula, it takes a week to drive them and that is just the main through roads and the westside mountains from the West Fork of the Bitterroot River to Lolo would take another week.
How many roads do these people need? Many of them just see how fast they can go and how far they can go in a trip. You cannot smell the flowers and see the scenery this way. So, I ask you folks when you put in your remarks to write “no action” except for reclaiming the old unused spur roads.
You can pick up an EA on the area at the Supervisor’s Office in Hamilton, or phone Ed Snook at 363-7103. It would be best to write your comments and deliver them to the Hamilton office. You only have two weeks or so to get your comments in.
You folks did a good job of getting in your comments on the proposed logging between Lost Horse and Como. Keep up the good work and perhaps we can keep the Forest Service and the special interest groups in line a little.
Floyd Wood
Corvallis