Our conclusion: The current transportation plans are heavily biased in favor of motorized recreation, with few opportunities to get out of earshot of roads and ORV trails. Even our proposal would leave a majority of National Forest lands close to a road (within 1 mile). Our plan would restore recreational balance; the existing situation is unbalanced and getting worse.
We analyze two regions, the La Sal Mountains (Moab Ranger District) and the Abajo Mountains (Monticello Ranger District). We also give figures for larger regions including all land ownership, to show that quiet recreation opportunities which are hard to find on National Forests are not abundant on nearby BLM lands, National Parks, etc.
In future we will do a similar analysis for all Utah National Forests. In southern Utah, we expect the numbers for other regions to lie somewhere between the numbers for the La Sals and the Abajos. Based on a preliminary look at the data, we predict that for all southern Utah National Forest lands, our plan will leave 2/3's of the Forest within 1 mile of a road and less than 10% greater than 2 miles from a road.
(The "Redrock Heritage Plan" referred to below is a comprensive recreation plan for southeast Utah, including BLM and National Forest lands. See http://redrockheritage.org/. It incorporates the UFN wilderness proposal.)
| La Sal Mountains (Utah portion of Moab Ranger District) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distance from roads | Current Travel Plan | UFN Wilderness Proposal |
| less than 0.5 miles | 69.1% | 47.4% |
| less than 1 mile | 91.1% | 76.6% |
| greater than 2 miles | 0.2% | 2.2% |
| greater than 3 miles | 0.1% | 0.1% |
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| Moab BLM Field Office
(all land ownership, including BLM, NPS, USFS, private, Indian reservation) |
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|---|---|---|
| Distance from roads | Current Management | Redrock Heritage Plan |
| less than 0.5 miles | 77.0% | 59.8% |
| less than 1 mile | 90.1% | 75.4% |
| greater than 2 miles | 2.6% | 12.1% |
| greater than 3 miles | 0.6% | 7.4% |
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| Abajo Mountains (Monticello Ranger District) | ||
|---|---|---|
| Distance from roads | Current Travel Plan | UFN Wilderness Proposal |
| less than 0.5 miles | 54.6% | 31.2% |
| less than 1 mile | 80.5% | 54.2% |
| greater than 2 miles | 1.5% | 19.3% |
| greater than 3 miles | 0.1% | 6.3% |
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| Monticello BLM Field Office
(all land ownership, including BLM, NPS, USFS, private, Indian reservation) |
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|---|---|---|
| Distance from roads | Current Management | Redrock Heritage Plan |
| less than 0.5 miles | 53.8% | 41.8% |
| less than 1 mile | 75.3% | 62.1% |
| greater than 2 miles | 9.1% | 17.8% |
| greater than 3 miles | 4.8% | 8.2% |
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