The Blaine County Commission has tentatively signed off on a comprehensive travel plan to guide the management of motorized and non-motorized recreation on U.S. Bureau of Land Management lands in the southern Wood River Valley.
The commissioners' support for the plan, voiced during their meeting in Hailey on Tuesday, comes after a series of contentious public meetings held during the past half year, during which local residents lined up both for and against the travel plan.
As part of an assistance agreement they signed several years ago with the BLM, the county agreed to develop a draft travel plan to manage the approximately 160,000 acres of rural lands flanking both sides of the valley. The county agreed that once the travel plan is complete, it will forward it on to the BLM for an in-depth environmental assessment.
At the end of their discussion Tuesday, the commissioners agreed to have Blaine County Commission President Tom Bowman write up their findings in the next few weeks and forward them on to the BLM as their final recommendation.
Titled the "Blaine County Cooperative Conservation Recreation and Travel Plan," the draft plan spells out how the land will be managed in the years to come. Attached to the 57-page document are separate winter and summer recreation maps.
Speaking during the meeting yesterday, Blaine County Commissioner Larry Schoen admitted he was initially skeptical of the county's role in the travel planning process. However, Schoen said that now, he's happy the county was able to take part in the effort, though implementing the plan will still be up to the BLM.
"It is really up to you all to carry it out," he told BLM officials at the meeting.
Schoen suggested that the county begin meeting with BLM officials on an annual basis to discuss their goals for the year.
In all, the BLM travel plan envisions a total of 14 recreation management designations, two related to winter use and 12 related to summer use. During the winter, the county is also proposing to close off large areas to all public use to protect wintering wildlife, though the size of that area has been reduced considerably in recent months as the meetings have progressed.
The winter closure area has arguably been the most controversial issue during the entire planning process.
On Tuesday, the commissioners agreed to recommend that the BLM implement a "hard closure" for select wintering areas on the east side of the Wood River Valley, though they decided to leave officials with the federal agency in charge of setting that date.
"I do agree that a time of the year comes when wildlife are under stress (due to winter conditions)," Schoen said.
While the BLM travel plan does prioritize certain types of recreational use in each of the different summer and winter recreation management areas that are proposed, it doesn't mean other types of uses would be prohibited in each of the recreation areas. For example, while the tentatively dubbed Lee's Gulch-Bunker Hill zone would prioritize horseback riding over other summer uses, motorized recreationists, mountain bikers and hikers could still use the roads and trails in the hilly area west of Bellevue, the BLM's outdoor recreation manager for the Shoshone Field Office, John Kurtz, said last December.
Kurtz said that rather than excluding one or more types of recreational use from the different zones, the plan in large part just prioritizes the recreational amenities that would be built to support the prioritized use in each of the different areas. In the Lee's Gulch-Bunker Hill zone, the idea is to build amenities like horse ramps and hitching posts at new trailheads, as well as to design new trails with equestrian needs in mind.
Motorized recreationists, mountain bikers and hikers could still use those amenities in the Lee's Gulch-Bunker Hill zone, but their needs wouldn't be prioritized in that particular area. The same would go for other areas like the Rotarun West-Cove Creek zone, which would prioritize motorized use through the construction of new single-track and loop trails in the large area west of Hailey.
The County Commissioners did decide to delay a decision on one aspect of the BLM travel plan—what portion of four unmaintained county roads in the Croy Canyon area should be closed—until this spring. The roads being considered for closure to four-wheeled vehicles include Kelly, Bullion, Red Elephant and Democrat gulches, all of which drain from out of the northwest into Croy Canyon.
The commissioners' intent is to view the roads once snows have receded enough later this spring and then hold a public hearing on which portions of the rough dirt roads should be closed. The portions of the roads closed to four-wheeled traffic would still be open to hikers, mountain bikers and motorcyclists.
