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Alabama Hills Management Plan


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#1 ski3pin

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Posted 17 January 2021 - 04:17 PM

Needed changes are coming to the overused/abused Alabama Hills along highway 395 in California's eastern Sierra Nevada. The plan development process has been ongoing. Here are links to the adopted plan -

 

Alabama Hills Management Plan

 

Maps - Alabama Hills Management Plan


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#2 SunMan

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Posted 17 January 2021 - 05:28 PM

Good to see...we don’t even bother trying to spend a night there anymore. The explosive use that place has seen in the past 15 years is unsustainable. 


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#3 Ted

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Posted 17 January 2021 - 05:35 PM

Good to see...we don’t even bother trying to spend a night there anymore. The explosive use that place has seen in the past 15 years is unsustainable. 

Agree completely.


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#4 craig333

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 12:56 AM

Got to the point I'd prefer to stay in a campground. 


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#5 Taku

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 01:26 AM

Yep - been needed for a long time. Think the first time I stayed there and did some climbing was about 1983 or 84. Don't spend time there anymore. Still a beautiful area, just camp in more out of the way places.


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#6 Wandering Sagebrush

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 03:16 PM

Got to the point I'd prefer to stay in a campground. 

That’s exactly what we did both times we visited.


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#7 billharr

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 03:48 PM

Glad I camped there before the change to campgrounds. Taking the other side for a moment. Most of us like to get away and boondock, some people like to do the same and bring their dirt bikes ATV etc. There are fewer places to camp and ride a dirt bike. And it is people who are the problem. Just too many of us. I have camped in the Utica Union and Spicer Rev area since 1965. It once was an accomplishment to reach these places. In the 70's they put in the Duck Ck. holding reservoir. And they raised Spicers. This made a wide smooth dirt road to Spicers. Guess what, people came, the answer was let's pave the road and put in campgrounds.  Now you can drive your 40 ft motorhome to Spicers and ATV are not allowed. Slick Rock road now requires a license plate to drive it. I am sure the older members on WTW have area they camped and had all to themselves, but that is now just a memory. Guess it could be worse. I have ridden a dirt bike to Elephant Rock it is now part of the Iceberg Wilderness, only walking allowed. I hope the regulations leave some areas for people who enjoy dirt bikes and ATVs.

 

Let the flaming begin.

 

pogo.jpg?resize=900%2C600&ssl=1


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#8 Lighthawk

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 04:14 PM

It's sad the AH have been overrun by the masses who have poor ethics. 

We've taken to other boondock locations nearby, if passing through. 


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#9 AWG_Pics

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 04:28 PM

I suspect all of us with some long term history with the west's open spaces are suffering some level of grief over the loss of favorite places that have now been 'discovered' by the mob. I know I am.

 

However, in time the human hordes will recede and nature's creatures and beauties will reestablish in some new normal. Right now I can see a hummingbird just 10 feet away out the window, along with a half dozen goldfinches, a couple of junkos, some sparrows and such. A swarm of bush tits came through yesterday. All these flying feathered creatures are the dinosaurs that survived the K-T extinction event some 65 million years ago.

 

No great moral here. Moralistic stories are a human invention. Nature does not care about human fantasies and phantoms. But I think the earth will be fine in the long run. Meanwhile, if we are sad, frustrated and suffering, it is pretty much our own darn fault.


Edited by AWG_Pics, 18 January 2021 - 04:28 PM.

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#10 ski3pin

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Posted 18 January 2021 - 04:47 PM

I believe it is a mistake to think of Alabama Hills and other places as "lost". As a place becomes overused and abused - as we've seen at Alabama Hills - management is necessary to keep the area from being the place depicted in Bill's Pogo cartoon above. Yeah, we may not be able to enjoy it as we did in the past, but at least it will still be a beautiful place worth visiting.

 

Over 40 years ago I could drive to any local wilderness trailhead - dirt, undeveloped - and find only a couple other vehicles. Now all trailheads are paved with designated parking spots, and most now have fees to use them. Get there very early if you want to go on a hike. This is a lot better than two or three or four acres of denuded ground with vehicles parked everywhere and thousands of people on the same trail.


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