No FS land access for innercity kids

[j_b]

I learned that the BOLD Mountain School has been banned from the Tank Lakes and the rest of the Northwest’s National Forests. NOLS, private schools, and college outing programs are welcome. They may, in John Muir’s words, “climb the mountains and get their good tidings.” But Antonio’s type? They are forbidden entry to places like Azurite Lake (pictured below), a short day’s travel from the Tank Lakes.

 

The reason?

 

The YMCA does not have a guide/outfitter permit to lead such trips. Schools don’t need them. Volunteer-led groups don’t either. And NOLS got its permit years ago. But BOLD does not have one, and it cannot get one. The Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest is no longer issuing them. Neither are any of the 30-odd other Northwest National Forests, from the Siskiyou in southern Oregon to Idaho’s Nez Perce to Alaska’s giant Tongass.

 

Just so, Big City Mountaineers cannot get permission to take trips into any National Forest in Oregon. Spokane’s Peak 7 cannot take its clientele of largely Hispanic, low-income middle schoolers into National Forests in Idaho or Washington.

 

http://daily.sightline.org/2011/06/20/the-ymca-should-not-need-a-guide-outfitter-permit-a-special-use-permit-a-national-environmental-policy-act-assessment-and-a-business-plan-to-take-poor-kids-into-national-forests/