My thoughts on our use of the forest of north Idaho

I have sat back and read some letters about the misuse of A.T.V.s in our national forest or at least the Panhandle National Forest without hearing mention of the four point three million acres in the lower part of the state of Idaho known as wilderness. The Panhandle is mostly multiple use and that means that it is set aside for many uses such as Motorcycles, A. T. V.s, Horses, Bicycles, Snowmobiles and whatever.. I have been a logger most of my life so I’ve been around the woods in Idaho. I rode my motorcycle in the Malard Larkin before it became part of the huge wilderness in the middle part of the state. I have been hunting the panhandle for a mere 42 years and harvested my share of Deer and Elk. I still walk as many, or more ridges than most hunters, but I must be walking on better ridges than some of the hunters that I have read about as I have not seen any A.T.V. tracks where I’ve been. The country that I hunt is a little too rugged for most off road vehicles.

I think that if the noise or the tracks bothered me as much as it does some people I would kind of migrate to the middle part of the state where there are no motors allowed. I’m sure that nearly five million acres is enough ground for a person to lose himself in the solitude of peace and quiet. You may have to dodge a Wolf or two, and you may have a hard time finding an Elk, it seems like the Wolves like to eat them too, so they aren’t as plentiful as they once were.

I spend my entire work week driving in the woods from St Maries to the Canadian line, and from the amount of traffic that I see up in the woods during the week it is my belief that the huge problem with over use of the forest is more a perceived problem than it is a reality. There may be a lot of use on the week ends and some access needs to be limited but we need to be very careful to remember that we need multiple use for logging, mining and of course recreation. We have to remember that without the logging we wouldn’t be hunting , fishing or just plain getting to where we want to go in the woods. Logging and mining money built almost every road in our forest and I for one am very glad they are there.

Now I want to get back to the nearly five million acres or there about, we all agree that there should be some areas set aside for the future generations to look at and admire but I’m guessing that even in the future we are setting aside more than all but a very few will have time to check out. Five million acres is a huge chunk of land and it seems that it would be better to get some of it back into production to make a few new jobs and help to pay some of the debts of the State with the tax money that is generated.

In closing I think we need as much access as we can keep open so as to keep things spread out and avoid the congestions and erosion that comes with putting every one in the same area.

Don Hull

Coeur d’ Alene