A fresh path

In many areas, a wilderness designation is highly desirable. It can enhance and protect areas such as the Desolation Wilderness and keep it beautiful for all future generations. In many of those instances, I agree with the designation. However, Friends of Nevada Wilderness and other associated groups go far beyond acceptable limits to access.

Right now, there is a push to designate huge tracts of land in Lyon and Mineral counties as wilderness. Those areas are currently used by cattle farmers leasing grazing rights and small miners with mineral claims. Designating these entire areas as wilderness would restrict access to the point where the farmers and small time miners could not continue their operations. The Friends of Nevada Wilderness cares nothing at all about those who could lose a livelihood because they would not be able to access their cattle or mining claims. The manging agencies of these areas already have the authority to limit activities that would damage the land or cause harm to wildlife habitat. A wilderness designation is not needed.

Because they seem to have a stated goal of designating every single inch of public land as wilderness, I will never support the group and in fact may find myself becoming a kind of watchdog to try and moderate their efforts. Without reigning in this type of activity, we could soon see huge areas of public land almost inaccessible to most people.

This trip was a nice one and again allowed me to take a few snapshots of grand vistas. I did not find any wildlife other than the occasional sparrow or crow so all the photos here will be landscapes.

Hiking the mountain, I found that there is still quite a bit of snow and had to go through that to get to the top. The snow surface is pretty solid but I did break through in a couple of places. Be careful of that and plan your routes with more care than I did! Once I broke through on the downhill side of a rock and ended up well over thigh deep.

Here are the photos! Enjoy!