Rob Williams said
Thanks for the info on the road decommissioning - too bad - based on that photo it looks like they did it last fall?Anyway, the White Iris trail truly does need more boots on the ground - I did it 2 years ago, and it was pretty faint in places then. I'm sure it will continue to fade away unless more people hike it. That would be unfortunate - the white iris display is BEAUTIFUL if you catch it at the right time.
Interesting note about the re-route of the Old Baldy trail - I had always wondered why the trail took that "detour" and didn't follow the ridge (which would make more sense).
Yes, if the paint was correct it was done 10/28/13. It must've been dropped from maintenance somewhat recently as there was still trail signs at both of the roads TH's. I hope more people get up there from seeing this.
The original route is much nicer, although slower going having to navigate through limbs and brush in places. Much less up and down sticking to the ridge, but the downside is you miss the junction with the White Iris trail.
UnderwaterArsonist said
Shouldn't there be some type of public comment process when they consider closing these roads? After all, this is public land, not just the governments.The lady on the phone basically told me that they can only keep a certain amount of roads open now.
Actually there is a public comment process that was followed. It can be a few years after this that the project is funded and carried out.
Here is the link for current projects on the MHNF. There are no roads currently being studied for removal in the Clackamas Ranger District, but there are on some of the other districts of the MHNF:
http://data.ecosystem-management.org/nepaweb/current-sopa.php?forest=110606#3
This page includes links to some past projects:
Happy to read that there's no roads being closed soon. Thanks, Bryon
I browsed through those docs and didn't see any road closings - certainly not the 4614 road. Did I miss it?
Rob Williams said
I browsed through those docs and didn't see any road closings - certainly not the 4614 road. Did I miss it?
Me neither, the website isn't exactly user friendly either when it comes to searching for specific keywords either.
In fact, I found a plan to decommission some roads up Goat Mountain - Hillockburn area this year as part of the restoration plan from the illegal OHV'ers. For some reason I can't copy and paste from the pdf file but it mentions closing several spur roads up in the area. I'm not familiar with the area so I don't know how much of an impact it will have.