Puget Sound Mags: Crystal BC Access Meeting with USFS

[Gregbo]

Buster -

KOMO TV now has this meeting on their coverage plan... so someone should be covering it....

[PNWbrit]

Buster - how was the meeting?

[Buster Highmen]

Excised and pasted from "Yellowstone Ban" thread:
>>>>
Yesterday, I spent 2 hours in a meeting with the USFS and the Mount Rainier National Parks administrators regarding the proposed new boundary closure at Crystal Mountain.

While the USFS was gracious and conceded to drop the closure on their part of the border, the MRNP administrators were intransigent. This makes access to Crystal Lakes Basin impossible and Morris Creek very difficult.

While several members of our rocking teenage combo at the mikes repeatedly pointed out that the EIS data specifically documents that user impact on the park is within park management standards, the NP admins insisted that their "gut level" told them otherwise.

Moreover, the MRNP insists that if you buy a lift ticket and use the lifts more than once, you are part of an extension of the parent corporation and you have ceded your right of access to public lands within the park.

But it's OK if you buy a single ride ticket.

No, this is not a Kafka novel.

Most alarmingly, this is the agenda of a parks administrator who has been promoted from head of MRNP to head of the REGION NPs.

So Baker folks, be prepared. It's likely that this NP administration may try to rescind access to North Cascades NP as well.

Then after that? Oh why not Grand Teton National Park?
<<<<

So the USFS will allow access into wilderness and non wilderness areas border Crystal. But the park's position is that because entering into the park after using a lift is an extension of the ski corporations business into the park, it cannot be allowed.

Several points were raised regarding using rental cars or private cars to get into the park. The administrators did not address this, but single out lift users. Moreover, they single out lift users who ride the lift more than once during the day!
At the root of the problem is the philosophic issue of whether I, as a skier who buys a lift ticket, am an extension of the corpus negotium, the corporate body, which operates the ski area.
I reject the idea that I am an extension of Crystals business into the park and plan litigation. I am not screwing around and will need help from you folks.

[PNWbrit]

email for Gail Norton Secretary of the Interior (head of NPS):

SecretaryoftheInterior@fws.gov

From her bio on DOI site "she calls the Four C's the cornerstone of her tenure: Communication, Consultation, and Cooperation, all in the service of Conservation" no mention ismade of policy making based on gut feeling.

email for head of NPS:

Fran_Mainella@nps.gov

Please tell them of your concern over this issue.

[Buster Highmen]

Fellow skiers, please consider sending a note to the email aliases above regarding your feelings as to whether or not you, when you buy a lift ticket, are an extension of that ski areas business into the park.

[PNWbrit]

Bump - please take a moment from your day to bitch to these bureaucrats about this situation.

Help Buster out on this worthy cause.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Good work Buster. It's hard work butting heads with these clowns. If you haven't done so, recruit the media. The FS/NPS seem to act unilaterally untill "the people" raise a big enough stink. Newspapers are invaluable for getting across your story.

[Buster Highmen]

Good work Buster. It's hard work butting heads with these clowns. If you haven't done so, recruit the media. The FS/NPS seem to act unilaterally untill "the people" raise a big enough stink. Newspapers are invaluable for getting across your story.

The USFS was actually very graceful, but the MRNP adminstrators have made it very clear that their philosophy defines BC skiers as a commercial extension of the ski area.
Interestingly, one of the ace legal doods found this nubblit:
>>>>
The second case cited by Mr. * is US v. Carter, 339 F.Supp.1394 (1972). That case involves a boat rental company outside the recreation area that launched its rental boats within the Glen Canyon National Recreational Area and also provided guiding services that would take customers in the rental boats into the recreation area. The court stated:

The activities so enjoined specifically include the boat hauling and launching service and the guide and boat pilot service complained of, but the injunction does not prohibit the mere renting and delivery of boats to the public at defendants place of business in, Page, Arizona regardless of where the renter of the boat himself may take and use the rented boat thereafter.

<<<<
Interpreted in our light, the courts seem to have sided with us.

There's still a very big chance that we will be disbarred from our favorite BC stashes if they involve going into the MRNP. There's a number of kettles on the fire that have to simmer a bit before we'll know if it produces a palatable soup.

In any event, a few of you folks have stood up and helped, everyone from dweebs such as myself to important editors, gifted writers, the hardworking guys at Crystal and folks who do this stuff as a profession.

As for the rest of you who haven't taken the time, give it some thought. Please take the 5 minutes to write to the USFS appeals officer, your congress people or the National Parks Administrators or DOI.

[Zeedashbo]

good job bh. letter will be written after homework is done.

[KQ]

On a related subject:

http://www.monsterslash.org/

[Foggy_Goggles]

Hey Buster, did we missing the comment period? I just got a letter from the FS saying my "appeal" was dissmissed because I wasn't on the record as filling a "comment".

[Woodsy]

Hey Buster, did we missing the comment period? I just got a letter from the FS saying my "appeal" was dissmissed because I wasn't on the record as filling a "comment".

I did too.

They spent $5 to send me registered mail to tell me what they told me via internet AND over the phone.
our tax dollars @ work.

[Buster Highmen]

Request "Interested Party Status" of Chris and the appeals address.

This loaf is far from baked.

[STD]

Just saw this post today, but I sent emails anyway.

Thanks for the heads up, Buster!

[Mcwop]

Weird, when Buster did the original post I sent the email. Today (10/25/04) I get home and there is a delivery note from the USPS for a certified letter from the Department of Agriculture (was not home to sign)? I am like: "WTF does the DoAgri want with me?" Since the Forest Service fall under that department - I wonder if it has to do with the Crystal thing?

Anyone else get a certified letter from the DoAgri? Or, am I in trouble for some Agricultural crime?

[skinnyskier]

Did the MORA people say what they would actually do, like "we will patrol the boundary and cite anyone who crosses into the park without a valid single-ride lift ticket!"? Can they actually do that?

I doubt that there are all that many skilled backcountry skier/law enforcement rangers working in the park during the winter anyway, to patrol several backcountry gates every weekend all season long. Still, it would suck to get a ticket. Maybe one of those right-wing legal defense foundations which I normally can't stand would defend me as some kind of test case...

[Vets]

Weird, when Buster did the original post I sent the email. Today (10/25/04) I get home and there is a delivery note from the USPS for a certified letter from the Department of Agriculture (was not home to sign)? I am like: "WTF does the DoAgri want with me?" Since the Forest Service fall under that department - I wonder if it has to do with the Crystal thing?

Anyone else get a certified letter from the DoAgri? Or, am I in trouble for some Agricultural crime?

I signed for my certified letter today. They spent $4.42 in postage to tell me that they are dismissing my appeal without review.

[Mcwop]

I signed for my certified letter today. They spent $4.42 in postage to tell me that they are dismissing my appeal without review.

Yep, spent a half hour driving to my lovely post office in a part of Baltimore that resembles a war zone in Iraq. They already had sent me the email.

[PNWbrit]

Did the MORA people say what they would actually do, like "we will patrol the boundary and cite anyone who crosses into the park without a valid single-ride lift ticket!"? Can they actually do that?

I doubt that there are all that many skilled backcountry skier/law enforcement rangers working in the park during the winter anyway, to patrol several backcountry gates every weekend all season long. Still, it would suck to get a ticket. Maybe one of those right-wing legal defense foundations which I normally can't stand would defend me as some kind of test case...

I believe that Crystal are obliged to pay for a ranger to patrol the boundary it's buried somewhere in here -
http://www.fs.fed.us/r6/mbs/projects...f_decision.pdf

[Buster Highmen]

Did the MORA people say what they would actually do, like "we will patrol the boundary and cite anyone who crosses into the park without a valid single-ride lift ticket!"? Can they actually do that?

I doubt that there are all that many skilled backcountry skier/law enforcement rangers working in the park during the winter anyway, to patrol several backcountry gates every weekend all season long. Still, it would suck to get a ticket. Maybe one of those right-wing legal defense foundations which I normally can't stand would defend me as some kind of test case...

Not clear how it will be enforced, but the onus of enforcement is placed on the ski area, a private entity with no mechanism for public appeal. It's likely that the enforcement will consist of passes being pulled or possible banning from lift use or even the permit area.

I've already tried some of the legal defense organizations, but they're not interested.

[Buster Highmen]

To those that contacted the USFS, thanks much.
Right now, the USFS has backed off on the boundary closure for the non MRNP boundary. But the park is digging in, claiming that people have cut branches and that allowing skiers who use the lifts into the park is an extension of the corporations business into the park.
It's true that some branches on the ridge traverses have been cut to allow for access. But the number of branches cut doesn't begin to approximate the amount of branches cut by the average camper every summer.
As far as the commercial extension, what's to prevent them from claiming that car rentals that come into the park are not an extension of the rental business, or the hotels/B&Bs on the edges of the park's guests are not extensions or your clothes or socks or your car?

It seems like they're really reaching to keep skiers out when the impact we've had is negligible when compared to other users.

[Foggy_Goggles]

Buster, keep kicking ass. These government machines keep rolling along doing whatever they can to stop the opposition from getting a word in edgewise. You must be the sticks in there spokes.