Should people pay to play in Pisgah National Forest?

PISGAH FOREST - Patrick Scott walks 380 miles for work.

It’s not every day, but that’s how many miles curve, dip and roll through the Pisgah National Forest. If laid end to end, those trails would stretch from Asheville to Montgomery, Alabama, and Scott, the forest’s Pisgah District trail program manager, must oversee them all.

The undertaking is daunting not just for the miles, but for the rapidly growing number of people who take to the trails to hike, mountain bike, rock climb, run, ride horses and use off-road vehicles.

Annual visitation reaches 4.6 million a year, leaving parking lots overflowing with vehicles and trails rutted and worn, with soil and sediment given free rein to run downill and pollute creeks and rivers.

Rehabbing, rerouting and caring for damaged trails comes with a price tag in the millions and would overwhelm the four rangers assigned to the Pisgah District. Trail work already ranks last on the list of priorities, Scott said.

The cost of upkeep has led again to the idea of paying to play in the forest, something that could affect all users or target uses with the greatest potential for causing damage, such as mountain biking and horseback riding.

“Bikes make ruts in the trail and horses make footprints that fill in with water," North Carolina Horseman’s Council President Tom Thomas said. "One of our major things is to keep streams clean. To do that, we keep water off the trail."

The Horseman's Council and Pisgah Backcountry Horsemen are some of the many groups where volunteers put in the back-breaking labor needed to keep trails passable. The equestrian groups maintain 100 miles of multiuse trails in the Pisgah and about 550 miles of equestrian trails in the Smokies.

User fees do exist in some areas of the forest, such as Sliding Rock, the Cradle of Forestry and Brown Mountain OHV Area. Hunters and anglers are required to purchase annual licenses to use the federal and state forests.

There has been no official proposal to extend areas subject to fees, but Forest Service staff routinely field calls and talk to user groups on the subject, Scott said.

For Thomas, if the government is unwilling to put more money into trail maintenance and repair, then users should.

“If we’re actually putting sweat equity, putting boots down on the ground to take care of these trails, and we’re willing to pay fees, then hopefully the general public would see fit to pay them, too.”

Scott spends large parts of his day surveying for damage on trails such as Long Branch, a hiking and mountain biking trail in the Davidson River area, where mountain bikes have made deep ruts in the mud and users have created their own “jumps” by piling up logs.

Other foot-only trails are seeing just as much damage, Scott said, including the Sams Knob Trail in the Shining Rock Wilderness, where trail erosion is knee-high in places.

Constant trail maintenance is important to sustaining them for all user groups, but the key to maintenance is money.

In fiscal year 2017, $53,000 was allocated to trail maintenance in Pisgah National Forest, district ranger Dave Casey said. The year before, $38,000 was allocated for trails.

The Pisgah District incorporates Asheville and Bent Creek areas, land along the Blue Ridge Parkway, the Davidson River area along U.S. 276 and stretches north and west to Max Patch and Roan Mountain.

Along with the Nantahala National Forest, the area covers 1.1 million acres and is considered among the country's busiest forests.

Money for trail maintenance among the four state forests, which include the Uwharrie and Croatan, amounts to 2 percent of the total $19.7 million annual budget, said Forest Service spokeswoman Cathy Dowd. More than half of the budget goes to firefighting.

But trail upkeep isn't left to the Forest Service alone, as many people believe, said Jeff Keener, president of the Pisgah Area Southern Off Road Bicycle Association.

His association maintains all trails in Bent Creek, the wildly popular recreation area southwest of Asheville.

“Most people believe the Forest Service maintains them, but the bridges, every single section of trail, is solely our organization. That’s true throughout Pisgah, trails are maintained by volunteer groups.”

The deep love for Pisgah is evident in the sheer numbers of volunteers willing to put in the work that should be performed by the federal land agency.

In November, the Pisgah Ranger District won the Volunteer Award at the 2017 Regional Forester's Honor Awards for its 400 volunteers across the district who dedicated more than 92,000 hours of volunteer work. This is the most volunteer work across every national forest in the country.

How much is a trail worth?

The Pisgah off-road bicycle association since 2013 has raised more than $400,000 through grants to pay contractors for trail maintenance and repair.

The group also holds trail workdays among its members, who get out with shovels and hazel hoes for what amounts to about 2,000 hours a year, Keener said.

New trail construction costs $5-$6 a foot, or about $30,000 a mile, though costs vary depending on the terrain, Keener said.

“The No. 1 goal is trying to fix water resource issues. When too much water is running down the trail, it picks up sediment and runs down into creeks,” he said.

Many of the trails in the Pisgah National Forest are remnants of old logging roads and railroad beds, which were used to haul out the timber felled ubiquitously across Western North Carolina in the early half of the 20th century.

These roads were cut to be the shortest, most efficient way into a forest. But a straight line up a mountain is also the quickest way to trail erosion and water pollution, Scott said.

As Scott surveys a multiuse trail earlier this week in a dense forest of hickory, tulip poplars and thick rhododendron, running alongside a creek, he points out overgrown berms - caused by constant buildup of trail debris and causing drain entrenchment - and "trail poaching," or trails illegally made to form shortcuts.

Now that sustainability and environmental protection are the standard for trail design, decades have been spent rerouting trails and using the natural contours of the land so they drain away from creeks and rivers.

The Forest Service must approve new trail construction or rerouting to make sure the work is done safely and conforms to National Environmental Policy Act restrictions so that archeological sites, natural resources and other issues are taken into consideration, Scott said.

Forest Service trails are required to be "maintained to standard," Casey said. A trail is considered to be maintained to standard if at least 80 percent of the trail meets the standard for that particular trail. On the Pisgah Ranger District, about 82 percent meet the criteria, but still have sections of the trail in need of work, he said.

But none of the work could be done with the labor of volunteer groups and their fundraising, Scott said. Groups include the Pisgah Conservancy, the Carolina Mountain Club, the Backcountry Horsemen, the Carolina Climbers Coalition, the Pisgah Hikers, Pisgah SORBA and many more.

“Does the Forest Service need to do more to maintain trails? Absolutely. But it’s the largest firefighting organization on the planet and over 50 percent of its budget is used to fight fires. If you subtract 33,000 employees from the budget, thousands of miles of roads, building and infrastructure, trails are dead last on things to maintain,” Keener said.

It can be argued that Pisgah’s dirt is one of the most valuable assets in Western North Carolina, and more should be done to protect it.

According to the Outdoor Industry Association Outdoor Recreation Economy Report released in the summer, outdoor recreation in North Carolina generates 260,000 direct jobs, $8.3 billion in wages and salaries and $1.3 billion in state and local tax revenue.

A study released in October, commissioned by the Outdoor Alliance, a nonprofit coalition of groups that work to protect public lands, found that paddling, climbing and mountain biking in the Nantahala and Pisgah national forests have an economic impact of $115 million for surrounding communities and support more than 1,000 full-time jobs.

The study showed mountain bikers visit the forest about 435,000 times a year, spending some $30.2 million in and around the Pisgah and Nantahala national forests, and mountain biker tourism supports 366 full-time jobs and $9 million in job income.

In short, the sport is an important economic engine to the region, and well-maintained trails are the key to mountain biking.

Proposed forest fee increases

Is it fair to charge only certain groups to play in the forest? Facebook debaters say all users should pay, including hikers, while some outdoor recreationists believe taxes should already cover the cost of using the forest.

Les Love, an avid hiker and trail maintainer, said he "absolutely" supports a user fee, and one for everyone that uses and impacts the forest trails.

Paying to play is not a new concept. The Forest Service already charges fees under the authority of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Act of 1996 and the Recreation Enhancement Act of 2004.

There are fees for certain high-use areas on the forest with special amenities such as Sliding Rock, Whitewater Falls and Mills River, where visitation is high and there are parking areas, restrooms and lighting to maintain.

In August, the Forest Service proposed increasing fees at day-use areas from $2 to $3 per vehicle per day or $15 per annual pass for Whiteside Mountain and Whitewater Falls and in the Nantahala River Corridor from $1 to $2 per paddler per day or $15 for an annual pass to launch on the river.

The Tsali Recreation Area, a vast network of hiking and mountain biking trails in the Nantahala National Forest, has had user-specific fees since the late 1990s, said Logan Free, developed recreation program manager for the U.S. Forest Service.

The campground is $15 per night and the Tsali Trail Complex is $2 per day per mountain biker and equestrian. The trails are open to hikers, but they are not required to pay the fee. The trails have a schedule that split the mountain bike and equestrian use between different days.

The bulk – 95 percent – of collected fees stay in the forest locally and the remaining 5 percent goes into a regional fund, Free said. Each district uses fee dollars for maintenance, projects and personnel costs associated with managing and improving recreation fee sites.

Free said the fees can be used for items such as repair, maintenance, and facility enhancement, visitor information and services, signs, law enforcement related to public use and recreation and direct operating or capital costs associated with the recreation fee program.

“Fee collections play an incredibly important role in recreation management for the National Forests in North Carolina,” he said.

Some examples of Tsali projects in 2017 with user fees include replacement of the waterline distribution, removal of 20 old cement picnic tables at the campground and replacement with 20 accessible, recycled-plastic picnic tables, and tree removal from the Tsali trails throughout the year.

Fees are also charged at the Brown Mountain OHV area in the Burke County area of the Pisgah National Forest, said Lisa Jennings, recreation forester for the Grandfather Ranger District.

A trail pass is required to ride dirt bikes, ATVs, and full-size off-road vehicles on the trails. Fees are $5 per day or $30 for a season pass, which are purchased from local vendors. They must be prominently displayed on vehicle at all times while on the trails.

“We are proposing an increase in fees to make sure they stay open for people to enjoy, to $10 per day or $50 per annual pass,” Jennings said. “Use has been growing. We have about 12,000 people per year. We have about 99 percent compliance. People who go there really understand why we have fees – this is so unique.”

Perhaps the time for fees to pay for local recreation upkeep and improvements is having its day.

Other national forests across the country are starting to implement user fees as their visitation continues to grow. Coconino National Forest in Arizona encompasses the mighty mountain bike mecca of Sedona and its breathtaking red rock landscape.

The Red Rock Ranger District uses the Red Rock Pass Program to access certain high-use sites.

The passes are $5 a day, $15 per week or $20 per year. Approximately $800,000 is raised from the fees each year, of which 95 percent is kept locally for recreation, natural resource protection and visitor services, said Brady Smith, Coconino Forest spokesman.

Two of the other public land agencies in WNC include Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Blue Ridge Parkway, neither of which charge fees except for camping.

DuPont State Recreation Forest in Henderson and Transylvania counties floated the idea of fees earlier this year. The forest has seen exponential growth in the past decade, topping out at about 700,000, while having user fees for mountain biking or horseback riding.

The proposal was shot down by the state legislature.

Most of WNC's state parks including Mount Mitchell, Lake James (which has mountain biking trails), Gorges and Grandfather are free to use. Chimney Rock State Park in Rutherford County charges an entry fee to its "attraction," including specialized trails and concessions.

What would the process be for fees?

Casey said there is not a proposal on the table in the Pisgah National Forest for user-specific fees, but it is something that gets asked about frequently. The Recreation Enhancement Act requires that the public has a say in setting fees, Casey said.

Any proposed fee increase, decrease, new fee, change in fee structure, or fee elimination requires regional and national review and recommendation by the Recreation Resource Advisory Committee, a citizen’s committee that includes individuals from local communities.

This group meets once a year.

Following the advisory committee’s recommendation, the fee proposals must be approved by the Regional Forester in Atlanta. The fee proposal process includes at least 30 days of public participation before final recommendations are made.

The permits might look like a tag or a decal to hang on a bike or horse saddle. Enforcement would also need to be worked out. Forest Service law enforcement is now increasing its presence in Bent Creek to crack down on people not leashing their dogs.

"We need more trail maintenance and we need smart trails, more loop opportunities and the decommissioning of some trails," Scott said. "The reality is the work we get done doesn't correspond with the funding we receive. I've been asked many times why we don't charge fees."