For the week of June 13 - June 19, 2001

Express photos by Greg Stahl

Project eliminates overused campsites

More than 40 new sites installed at Baker Creek

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"I’ve literally seen people pulled up to the edge of the stream and fishing out of the back of their truck or RV. I’m like: ‘Oh my God.’"

Kurt Nelson, Ketchum district ranger

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By GREG STAHL
Express Staff Writer

Campers returning to the Sawtooth National Forest’s Baker Creek drainage for the first time this season may not recognize their favorite stream-side sites—if they can find them at all.

Sensitive wetlands and stream banks will benefit from the Forest Service’s reclamation activities in Baker Creek, Ketchum District recreation assistant Paul Willard explains. Behind him to the left is a reclaimed road that cut across a fragile wetlands meadow.

The Ketchum Ranger District has given a facelift to the drainage, which extends nine miles into the Smoky Mountains from Highway 75 north of Ketchum. The agency has reclaimed many of the unofficial camping spots and roads that shredded the valley floor.

"People are loving Baker Creek to death, and the results are not pretty," reads a Forest Service informational flyer. "In recent years, the use by people and their vehicles has significantly increased. Heavy use has turned many areas along Baker Creek into dust bowls."

Between 3,000 and 5,000 campers visited the drainage each summer in recent years, said Ketchum district ranger Kurt Nelson during a press tour of the area.

"My kick was last July when I came up here and there were over 100 vehicles right in this area," Nelson said, pointing to a large green meadow. "We don’t consider that to be acceptable use in any form or fashion. Dispersed camping of yesteryear was a whole lot different than what we’ve got today. It has to be managed."

Many of the Sawtooth National Forest’s staff consider dispersed camping to be the foremost threat to the area’s natural resources.

Former roads and campsites in the Baker Creek drainage north of Ketchum are covered in slash piles to help them recover from repeated use. Sawtooth National Forest spokesman Ed Waldapfel looks on.

Forest Service crews began last fall to reclaim Baker Creek’s overused areas. New roads and campsites were built away from stream sides in areas that can better handle impacts. The roads and sites were formed from repeated use by people who inadvertently packed soils and killed vegetation.

"I’ve literally seen people pulled up to the edge of the stream and fishing out of the back of their truck or RV," Nelson said. "I’m like: ‘Oh my God.’"

Such actions are very bad for streams and the riparian system. Vegetation holding stream banks together can eventually be killed when soil over its roots becomes compressed. That leaves loose banks vulnerable to erosion during spring runoff, Nelson said.

The newly established campsites are designated with signs and include metal fire rings with cooking grates. In many places campsites and access roads leading to them are delineated with large rocks or timber.

When completed later this summer, the project will have cost the Ketchum District between $35,000 and $40,000. Including previous work on Baker Creek Road and an expansion to the Baker Lake trailhead, $150,000 will have been spent in the drainage in the past three years.

The result, forest managers hope, will be similar to Corral Creek, which leads visitors to the Pioneer Mountains from Trail Creek Road. A similar project was completed in Corral Creek 10 years ago, and reclaimed areas there have made significant comebacks.

For the time being, however, the Baker Creek drainage looks a little crude. Roads and campsites in the area were closed and rehabilitated by turning the soil and placing large timbers and slash over them.

"It is important that we restore these impacted areas so they will once again be able to store water, decrease runoff and erosion and restabilize the stream banks," Nelson said. "Be patient. Next year at this time, things will look a lot better."

More than 40 campsites have so far been designated in the drainage, and several more may be installed. There is no fee for using the sites.

While packing up from an overnight camping trip just 100 feet from Baker Creek last week, Hailey resident Will Fruehling commented that he didn’t realize he’d slept in one of the newly established sites or that he’d driven to the site on a new road.

Fruehling, who hadn’t camped in the area for several years, said he didn’t really notice the difference. He did notice the slash covering old roads but once he understood why it was there, he understands why it was done.

"It keeps the idiots from driving in meadows and destroying them," he said.

Warm Springs canyon is next on the Ketchum District’s list of areas in need of similar attention, Nelson said. Work there could begin as soon as this fall.

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