Utah senators back bill to allow mountain bikes in wilderness

While hikers and horses for decades have been the lone travelers in the backcountry, a new bill could put the brakes on a longtime ban on mountain bikes in wilderness areas.

The Colorado-based Sustainable Trails Coalition has been working to amend the Wilderness Act’s blanket ban on bikes and other mechanical transport, but faced an uphill battle without a congressional sponsor.

In mid-July U.S. Senators Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) introduced the Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act to “allow federal officials to determine the manner in which nonmotorized uses may be permitted in wilderness areas, and for other purposes.”

“Our National Wilderness Preservation System was created so that the American people could enjoy the solitude and recreational opportunities of this continent’s priceless natural areas,” Lee said in a press release in July. “This bill would enrich Americans’ enjoyment of the outdoors by making it easier for them to mountain bike in wilderness areas.”

The Wilderness Act, signed into law in 1964, protects areas “where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man,” prohibiting most roads and commercial services and banning motorized equipment, motor vehicles and mechanical transport. The ban on bikes was not added until 1984.

The bill wouldn’t open all trails to bikes, but would let local authorities decide which, if any, wilderness trails could be used for mountain biking.

“This is not a blanket permit. Just as we’re opposed to blanket bans we’re completely opposed to blanket permits. So this is really on a trail-by-trail, area-by-area basis,” Jackson Ratcliffe, co-founder of STC, said. “We allow horses, we allow people to go hunting, have bonfires, why can’t we just ride our bikes on some of the trails?”

Along with mountain biking, the bill also seeks to allow certain motorized equipment or mechanical transports, like chainsaws and wheelbarrows, to be used for maintaining and constructing trails in wilderness. Ratcliffe said he sees this as common sense.

“Just allowing a simple thing like a chainsaw ... I know people don’t like the sound of it, but the Wilderness Act, half of it is for recreation purposes. If the trails are not cleared, people cannot access them,” he said.

Ratcliffe made clear STC is not trying to radically change the Wilderness Act, but rather to overturn the 1984 mechanical transport ban introduced by the Forest Service. The initial definition called for a ban on transport by any non-living power source, he said.

Gabriel Furshong, deputy director of Montana Wilderness Association, sees the bill as doing more harm than good to the Wilderness Act.

“It’s divisive because wilderness is a bedrock conservation tradition. It is as core to American conservation principles as it gets. So when cyclists propose revising the Wilderness Act to allow for motorized and mechanized equipment, then that’s going to be a very controversial suggestion, because it will reverse a half century of legal precedent and conservation work,” Furshong said.

“I think 2.7 percent of the continental U.S. is designated as wilderness. So I think it’s probably a good idea for us to focus on the vast majority of public lands that are purposed for a wide range of users. We do a lot of work on public lands across the board and we really like working with cyclists to improve access for all users.”

More than 106 million acres of federal public land is designated as wilderness, including 1 million acres in the Bob Marshall and the adjacent Great Bear Wilderness in Northwest Montana. The Ten Lakes Wilderness Study area near Eureka has also released plans that would cut 86 miles of mountain bike trail access down to 17. That plan is currently tied up in litigation.

Furshong called allowing chainsaws in wilderness to maintain trails a “solution looking for a problem.” Keeping the land unchanged, he said, is a privilege.

“Wilderness is part of what it means to be a Montanan. It’s part of what makes this place our home. To see country as it was originally created and to feel part of that country, that is a privilege that we should never squander, and it’s one we should protect.”