It might be worth a call to the Idaho Division of Aeronautics to see if they'd have any interest in the project. I stopped in to visit with them a year or so ago and they were looking for ideas for a lower elevation airport that would have a longer season than Johnson Creek.

Hello Backcountry Pilots,
If Riggins got as much traffic as the 100 plus airplane events that Johnson Creek has I know the locals wouldn't like it much. I think the key to keeping Idaho's backcountry airstrip's open is consistant "low profile use". The Idaho backcountry airstrips have become an "airborne off-road-park" for a lot of pilots.

It is fun to get together at Johnson Creek as a group, but when 100 + airplanes take off every morning like a flight of locust for Idaho's backcountry airstrips this is not keeping a low-profile. There are inevitable accidents that occur from these events and the commercial mountain flying schools too. Accidents and the over use factor gives ammunition to the government agencies and enviromental groups who want to shut down these incredible airstrips.

My two cents,

James

At Minam I talked with Mike who was the RAF rep for that mission. He agrees with James and ask us all to do this.

Don't post open video's on You Tube or anywhere else. If you post them make them private so only your friends with a link cane see them. The enemies of mountain flying are collecting these videos to use against us.

Good day

So James, will you personally be limiting your use of Idaho backcountry airstrips from here on out?

Good question for all of us, and time for some Plan B places to fly that are under the radar.

Gump

Zane sad: So James, will you personally be limiting your use of Idaho backcountry airstrips from here on out?

Zane, it just makes common sense to keep a low profile. Impromptu airshows at Mile HI, Cabin Creek and such tend to piss people off. These people have the ear of Forest Service and Sierra Club types. I don't want to see any of these airstrips closed! After they are closed they will never re-open.

And yes Zane, I am limiting my use of these airstrips. I now exclusively use these individual airstrips for hunting, camping, and fishing. Not just to see how many airstirps I can land at in a given day. Idaho is not an "airborne off-road-park". Maybe hosting all of these fly-in events ( super-cub, C-180/185 & BCP) at alternating different locations might help?

Good day,

James

I think that keeping a low profile has almost as much to do with basic airmanship as it does the volume of use.

Safety comes first, but it is a legacy I hope will be around in 100 years. I think even 'strip baggers' are perfectly capable of reducing noise impacts departure.

A lot of guys do it: big bore folks take off, then turn the prop down pretty quick. Sort of like the 'no wake' zone in a marina- especially around the busier mixed use areas.

It's hard to show up somewhere with a hundred of anything and not piss someone off.This is definitely a touchy subject.I bet it's just a matter of time before there will be some kind of rule for these strips , something like no fly ins or maybe only a certain amount of takeoffs and landings allowed in a 24 period . Who knows.

Idaho is not an "airborne off-road-park

I thought that is exactly what it is. I would think it should be "Use it or Loose it". Is anyone bitching about it now?

Hey - I think Tim Avery and I know that girl!

Super-Maule wrote:

Zane sad: So James, will you personally be limiting your use of Idaho backcountry airstrips from here on out?

Zane, it just makes common sense to keep a low profile. Impromptu airshows at Mile HI, Cabin Creek and such tend to piss people off. These people have the ear of Forest Service and Sierra Club types. I don't want to see any of these airstrips closed! After they are closed they will never re-open.

And yes Zane, I am limiting my use of these airstrips. I now exclusively use these individual airstrips for hunting, camping, and fishing. Not just to see how many airstirps I can land at in a given day. Idaho is not an "airborne off-road-park". Maybe hosting all of these fly-in events ( super-cub, C-180/185 & BCP) at alternating different locations might help?

Good day,

James

As an avid OHV user I can tell you it is more of a use it or lose it scenario. The eco-nazis do not care if one person or one hundred people use an area they want closed. They feel that ANY use of the backcountry other than foot traffic is too much. Any positive use that generates local revenue is better than clandestine occasional use. Idaho benefits from any tourism revenue and the way to ensure continued access is to keep the money flowing in.
The eco-nazis are perpetually "pissed off" and nothing we do or don't do will change that. There is no befriending them or compromise with them. They want all access severely limited. The only way to keep it open is continued financial support to the local coffers. Work with the Forest Service and add a clean-up/maintenance day to the fly-ins. Show them that we are good stewards of the area and they will support us. Leave the area better than you found it and it will be harder to shut us out.

Alright James, I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to suggest that Californians stay home and make a turf war out of the issue. I'm not sure what the right tack to take on this issue is. I think we're all pretty aware of how lucky we are and so the worst case scenarios haunt us daily. There are certainly a few ways to look at it:

1) We overuse and leave the heavier footprint that we claim not to given our non-driven wheels. Evidence can be gathered that airplanes do leave their mark on wilderness.

2) We underuse and the next time a motion is made to close an airstrip, there's no evidence that is has a practical use or benefit to a nearby community. The utility of backcountry aircraft isn't evident unless it's explained to the layman who would otherwise simply consider it noisy off roaders.

3) We're currently hanging onto the Big Creek Four under the guise of "emergency airstrips." What exactly is the Senator Frank Church clause in the wilderness designation doing for us? Under what regulation with the USFS close these if they're exempted per the original wilderness designation?

4) Gatherings of airplanes, or anything for that matter, even bicycles and horses, in great enough numbers are going to piss people off as someone already noted. In the case of the Idaho backcountry, who are the would-be plaintiffs? It seems to me that the long time residents all understand and embrace the value of aircraft. I think Yellow Pine residents enjoy our business. Exactly who is living near Dewey Moore or Mile High that complains? Backpackers? River runners? The lodge airstrips wouldn't be enjoying these seasonal revenue without us.

In my opinion, and it is often a naive and optimistic one, it would take an outsider in the case of Idaho who is witness to aircraft operations and takes offense to the basic tenet of wilderness being mech-free. We're riding a narrow fence of here: We et to go where other mechanized travel is forbidden, and thus the destinations are always more beautiful and untouched, unlike the garbage dump shooting pits found on so much national forest land.

We know that we are responsible stewards of the land, how to convince and make that known to the would-be prohibitors?

The use plans have variously embraced the strips as 'emergency use' and as 'trail heads in the interior of the wilderness'.

I would think the idea it is an 'airborne off-road park' is entirely incompatible with its history as a wilderness, and frankly, IMHO it takes a casual outsider/newcomer to imagine it as anything else. That being said, it is an irreplaceable privilege to use it as we do. I guarantee the moment the public sees an 'airborne off-road park' in the making in the RONR, it will instantly get regulated or shut down. Tread as lightly as you can. As fun as the flying may be, it is only a small fraction of its value to the dedicated citizen/owner.

Zane wrote:Under what regulation with the USFS close these if they're exempted per the original wilderness designation?

Cabin Creek and other enclaves were specifically protected in the designation. The ranch is no longer there. I stayed in the ranch house as a boy- imagine a hunting lodge with parquet floors, cabins, barns, a real working ranch...running water, beautiful. All gone. The law didn't matter when they torched it, dug a hole, buried the D3 by the strip, and filled it in. It won't matter when they trench strips they want to close, either.

The FS finds value in most of them...hunting revenues for locales, jobs, it looks like good management o the outside world. An airborne off road park will not.

S-12Flyer wrote:As an avid OHV user I can tell you it is more of a use it or lose it scenario. The eco-nazis do not care if one person or one hundred people use an area they want closed. They feel that ANY use of the backcountry other than foot traffic is too much. Any positive use that generates local revenue is better than clandestine occasional use. Idaho benefits from any tourism revenue and the way to ensure continued access is to keep the money flowing in.
The eco-nazis are perpetually "pissed off" and nothing we do or don't do will change that. There is no befriending them or compromise with them. They want all access severely limited. The only way to keep it open is continued financial support to the local coffers. Work with the Forest Service and add a clean-up/maintenance day to the fly-ins. Show them that we are good stewards of the area and they will support us. Leave the area better than you found it and it will be harder to shut us out.

+1

Thats exactly as I see it here in Utah.

Even in Nevada. USFS has shut down a huge section of Toiyabee NF to motorized traffic around Hawthorne and Bodie. These are old roads dating back to the 1850's. All signed and blocked now.

Gump

My subaru drivin, tree huggin kayaker side says there are too many "strip baggers" in the Idaho backcountry. I've gotten pretty upset myself when plane after plane landed and took off at various strips along a stretch of river I enjoy floating. Most of the time it is no big deal but when there is a fly-in going on or a mountain flying seminar the use skyrockets and it totally kills the wilderness whitewater experience.

My two stroke smoke sniffin, diesel drivin side says there are too many "strip baggers" in the Idaho backcountry but I'm one of them so I have to say it is ok and that we have the right to use them as we please.

I think Idaho is turning into a airborne off-road park; I don't think that is going to change till we start losing runways.

Definition of wilderness:

Wilderness or wildland is a natural environment on Earth that has not been significantly modified by human activity. It may also be defined as: "The most intact, undisturbed wild natural areas left on our planet—those last truly wild places that humans do not control and have not developed with roads, pipelines or other industrial infrastructure.

So if it's been developed in any way it's NOT wilderness. It will not be changed back to wilderness any time soon, But your access or use of these areas will be denied unless you can walk to it.

Alright James, I just wanted to make sure you weren't going to suggest that Californians stay home and make a turf war out of the issue. I'm not sure what the right tack to take on this issue is. I think we're all pretty aware of how lucky we are and so the worst case scenarios haunt us daily

Zane & Backcountry Pilots,

I am by no means trying to start a turf with out of state pilots. The fact is that access to these airstrips located within a Federal Wilderness Area is fragile at best. Keeping a low profile and not pissing off the non-flying public is important to future access. I hear things at work, so don't shoot the messenger.

The previous post saying that the Idaho backcounty is an "airborne off-road-park" is BS. More visibility and use (noise & backcountry buzz-jobs) is only going to get these airstirps shut down. What ever happend to common sense?

Maybe stagger take-off times, and limit flights to three airplanes or so? Also support pro-Idaho backcountry flying groups like the Idaho Division of Aeronautics and such.

Thanks,

James

oh Shit.,... there goes my annual fly fishing in the back country... OK Gump... looks like the compound is our only hope...any trout there...