Off-road vehicles have taken aim at Hells Canyon National Recreation Area. Hells Canyon itself is widely acknowledged to be the deepest gorge in North America, measured by the drop from the top of He Devil Peak on the Idaho side in the Hells Canyon Wilderness within the NRA to the floor of the Snake River Canyon below. But the U.S. Forest Service has been unable to find more than half a heart for managing off-road vehicles, while whole-heartedly pursuing logging in the recreation area.
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Wildest Stretch of the Snake River
The impetus to create the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area was to protect the wildest stretch of the Snake River from dams. A series of hydropower impoundments would have inundated what is generally acknowledged to be the deepest gorge in North America, and at the same time written an end to the runs of ocean-going salmon and steelhead trout.
In 1975, the Congress established the national recreation area, which spans 652,000 acres astride the Oregon-Idaho border, in 1975. The designation protected the place gorge, but today an assortment of other threats challenges the area's wildness and its health.
From Wolves to Wolverine
Old growth ponderosa pine and Douglas fir dominate the forests in the higher elevations of the area, while some of the best remaining native bunchgrass communities in the Columbia River Basin dominate the lower, drier slopes of the river canyon. Black bear and elk are common, and winter surveys have found evidence of wolverine, one of Idaho's rarest wildlife species. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game, with its sister agency in Oregon, has begun reintroduction of bighorn sheep. Diseases spread by domestic sheep wiped out the original native population of bighorns.
Wolves are known to use the Hells Canyon area as a travel corridor between the wildlands of central Idaho and the Blue Mountains of Oregon. And in 2002 there was a reported wolf sighting in the recreation area. Hells Canyon will play a critical role in the re-establishment of wildlife travel corridors between central Idaho and northeast Oregon, if we can maintain it intact.
Putting the "Wreck" in Recreation Area: Off-Road Vehicles
Abuse by off-road vehicles is the fastest growing threat to the integrity of Hells Canyon. As a paper policy, the U.S. Forest Service, which manages Hells Canyon, has long restricted motorized travel in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area to designated routes and trails. But the huge increase in the numbers, power and range of four-wheeled all-terrain vehicles (ATVs) have led to more and more violations of the travel restrictions.
ATV riders illegally drive cross-country on the open, grassy slopes of the upper portions of Hells Canyon, tearing out and crushing the native bunchgrass wildlife need for forage. ATVs also spread invasive exotic weeds. Weed seeds can ride for miles on ATV undercarriages, before dropping off and germinating in a new site. Many weed species eagerly root in disturbed soil, a condition ATVs also leave in their wakes as they plow new ground off established roads and trails. Weeds crowd out native vegetation and are useless as wildlife forage.
The Forest Service has dealt with ATV trespass only half-heartedly. The agency has erected some fence barriers, only to see them knocked down and driven over by ATV operators. Signs urging ATV riders to stay on designated routes because of the potential for their machines to spread weeds are routinely driven over or pulled out and cast aside.
RS 2477 Claim: Kirkwood Road
Off-road vehicle riders often use Kirkwood Road, a narrow winding road from the top of Hells Canyon to the Kirkwood Ranch Historic Site, as a "jumping off" point for illegal cross-country travel. Idaho County, at the behest of local off-road vehicle groups, has filed an RS 2477 claim on Kirkwood Road to prevent the Forest Service from closing this road.
The Forest Service lacks enforcement personnel and hesitates to offend local residents by enforcing the law. To compound the problem, two years ago the Forest Service "improved" the Kirkwood Road to deliver a new flush toilet to the Kirkwood Ranch Historic Site. What was once a narrow two-track is now accessible by pickup.
Conservationists have sued the Forest Service to close Kirkwood Road as the only effective means of stopping cross-country off-road vehicle use. The Forest Service has refused, citing a need to maintain "administrative access" to the Kirkwood Ranch Historic Site but also because of the agency’s reluctance to offend local ORV riders.
In 2001, as efforts to closed the road gained momentum, local off-road vehicle clubs petitioned Idaho County to file an RS 2477 assertion on the road, which the county did. The petition claims that Kirkwood Road was originally established by pioneers, though 1902 maps invalidate those claims. ORV users also claim that homesteaders herded livestock on Kirkwood Road, but this occasional use would not meet the criteria legally established for RS 2477 assertions that the route in question served as a "highway" for "public uses." A Utah judge recently agreed that the term "construction" in RS 2477 requires some form of purposeful, physical building or improving, not haphazard construction and intermittent use.
Local jurisdictions bear the burden of proof in proving RS2477 claims. Idaho County, in relying on false information supplied by the off-road vehicle groups, has failed to meet that burden.
Logging
The U.S. Forest Service has aggressively promoted logging in the Hells Canyon. Conservationists have just as aggressively toiled to protect its remaining stands of old growth ponderosa pine and Douglas fir. Livestock grazing has damaged water quality and fish habitat in tributaries to the Snake River.
Our Efforts
To address these problems in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area, The Wilderness Society joined with other conservation groups to develop a citizens' alternative to the plan. We submitted the conservation-based, comprehensive plan to the Forest Service as part of a process to develop an updated management plan for the NRA. The conservation plan would:
- End logging in old growth forests in the area;
- Remove livestock from areas where they now overgraze and destroy streamsides; and,
- Obliterate many unneeded old roads that ATV riders now use as jumping-off points for illegal, cross-country travel.
The Society and its partners will press the Forest Service to include these provisions of the citizen's alternative in the final management plan for Hells Canyon.
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