Craters of the Moon Administrative History

Chapter 7:
RECREATION MANAGEMENT

WILDERNESS/BACKCOUNTRY MANAGEMENT

While most recreation takes place within the monument's small developed area, a small amount of recreation takes place within the monument's large undeveloped area. Eighty percent, or 43,243 acres, of the monument's land base is wilderness, while another approximately 18 percent, or 9,287 acres, is considered to be backcountry--an undeveloped natural environment. [11]

Established October 23, 1970, the Craters of the Moon Wilderness Area had encountered some turbulence in its creation, none of which, however, influenced its smooth management. No pressing issues confronted the environment; designation affirmed the "backcountry" management classification affixed earlier to the remote region of the monument. As one of the first two NPS areas with a designated wilderness area, Craters of the Moon was breaking new ground in management. Yet the wilderness classification altered little in past management practices, and the most significant administrative concern revolved around setting down a wilderness management policy--based largely on the pattern of low backcountry visitation.

Wilderness, or backcountry, management predated the formal creation of the monument's designated wilderness area. After proposing the southern portion of the monument for wilderness classification in May 1965, Superintendent Roger Contor established a number of guidelines for managing the area based on a philosophy of primitive recreation. All use required minimum impact practices, a policy still adhered to today. One of the first actions was the closure of the area to vehicle traffic with the erection of a barricade "on the old fire road at Coyote Butte." As Contor noted, the "Tutimbaba," the proposed name, was "as untrammeled and pristine as any wilderness in the United States." Its natural resources were "almost completely unchanged by the influence of man." And evidence of Native American use was "abundant." "Like other wilderness areas," he predicted, "it will offer Americans a chance to escape civilization and enjoy a world where man is only a passing shadow." [12]

One of the most important management considerations was to "retain the solitude, the wildness, and the opportunity for self determination," the superintendent noted. Thus, "we plan to install no trails (other than about 1 1/2 miles of the old fire road), campsites, self guiding interpretive exhibits or identification signs." The visitor's only guides would be a wilderness pamphlet, describing the environment and regulations, and a topographic map. Furthermore, the monument would encourage overnight campers "to use backpacking stoves...rather than campfires, to minimize fireplace and axe scars at the more popular stopping points. All litter and refuse should be carried out just as it was carried in--on the owner's back." [13]

The harsh environment of the lava country, Contor believed, dictated this management direction. Its heat and aridity contributed to a primarily day-use visitation pattern, with few overnight users, and low visitation overall; less than one hundred visitors ventured into the wilderness annually in the mid-1960s. Those who hiked the primitive backcountry tended to be more experienced and practiced low-impact camping techniques, and therefore caused little resource deterioration.

Policy, then, focused on prevention of future impacts. Contor's 1966 resource management plan embodied these principles and the guidelines he had established the previous year. The plan stressed day use over the more disruptive overnight camping with its attendant "camp sites," fires, trash, and resource erosion. Overnight use would be allowed through a free permit system, whereby campers would be directed away from significant and delicate natural features. Along these same lines, the superintendent advocated prohibiting overnight horse use, if necessary, due to the stress horses imposed on the sparse waterholes and vegetation, as well as unique volcanic formations. Because wildlife depended on the scattered waterholes, whose levels seemed to be on the decline, campers and horses were not to use them. In addition, stagnant water posed a human health risk. No special provisions were necessary, though, since the holes were difficult to locate in the lava expanse. As for developments, the plan held to earlier guidelines, stating that the monument would neither build nor maintain trails, adding that numerous wildlife trails and easy topography negated these amenities. Only camping zones rather than formal campsites would be designated, with fires restricted to specified sites. The most important aspect of management, perhaps, centered on visitor education and safety information disseminated through pamphlets; primitive trail signs would show the way, and ranger contacts would ensure, as much as possible, visitor as well as resource protection. [14]

Superintendent Paul Fritz and his staff drafted the first backcountry/wilderness management plan in 1972. This document as well as the subsequent 1976 plan written by Superintendent Robert Hentges reflected much of Contor's guidelines; one stipulation was that stock use was limited to forty horses per party. As in the previous decade, visitation still hovered around one hundred overnight users and governed policy--in that there was no pressing need to institute changes in the program. Hentges offered, though, a few revisions to Contor's standards. To emphasize and increase the day-use pattern and at the same time simplify wilderness access, Hentges built a spur trail from the Tree Molds Trail to the main wilderness trail in 1976; along with entrances at Buffalo Caves and Broken Top, this extended wilderness access to three locations. [15] Overnight campers were still managed through a permit system, yet the Hentges' policy did not call for designating or assigning campsites, or restricting use near specific features. Rather, rangers would take the initiative and suggest sites to camp. Hentges also prohibited wood fires altogether in the wilderness, as part of the monument's fire policy in force by 1976. A main concern involved future visitation trends and wilderness carrying capacity, yet low use and minimum impacts characterized the situation in the mid-1970s. Hikers did not penetrate deep into the wilderness. It was expected that use at some point would increase, but slowly, causing no immediate threat. [16]

As implied by both the 1966 and 1976 policies, wilderness was nearly self-managing. The central factor was the amount and type of use, and until both rose dramatically, policy remained the same. The wilderness area's hostile environment and popularity of adjacent Forest Service recreation and wilderness areas, with their less extreme conditions, operated against a dramatic increase in backcountry visitation. [17]

Subsequent wilderness management plans have retained the major principles outlined in previous documents. [18] Hentges, in the 1982 resource management plan, stressed the continuity in wilderness management. For instance, the permit system formed an important management tool because it enabled monument officials to monitor and ensure visitor safety and activity, to protect water resources, and prevent adverse resource impacts. In more than thirty years since the creation of the monument's wilderness area, backcountry use is still light and this fact still guides present policy in the most recent wilderness management plan approved in November 1989.

This plan, however, advanced the approach of past documents. It recognized, for instance, that the monument has the "opportunity to manage" the wilderness in order to preserve its "wilderness character and prevent impacts, rather than try to restore that character through mitigation of impacts." Surrounded on three sides (the east, south, and west) by the Bureau of Land Management's proposed Great Rift Wilderness Area, 341,000 acres, the monument's wilderness seemed well insulated from external threats. It was important then to institute stricter guidelines for internal use. Although the Limits of Acceptable Change System is the standard program for determining wilderness impacts and management responses, Craters of the Moon's low level of use (still averaging around 120 overnight campers) and near "pristine" wilderness conditions rendered this approach impractical. Instead the plan opted for an active resource monitoring program "to assure resource protection." [19]

Moreover, the document defined three opportunity classes in the monument's backcountry to better protect the resource and "provide a variety of wilderness and backcountry experiences." Of the three classes, backcountry, primitive, and pristine, the latter two applied to the monument's wilderness. The primitive zone, a tongue-shaped corridor about a mile wide and three miles long, enclosed the most commonly-used areas in the wilderness--the Tree Molds Trail south along the Great Rift to the popular camping area of Echo Crater. Although considered minimal, here the most impacts and social contacts occurred, and it is here that the "management strategy was to restrict impacts to previously impacted areas." Therefore, campers were encouraged to use former, yet undeveloped, camp sites. The plan also reduced the number of horses per group from forty to twelve. This change reflected pressure from the regional office's wilderness steering committee, headed by former monument naturalist Edgar Menning, and resulted in a short-lived protest by local stock users. The remaining wilderness area was considered as the pristine class, its use characterized almost as the opposite of the primitive class. It received the minimum of use and impacts, and the management "strategy" was to "disperse any use to avoid impacts." This means campers were encouraged to camp in unimpacted sites, move often, and leave behind no signs of their presence. [20]

Essentially, these classifications recognized existing conditions and stipulated acceptable activities in each. In a sense, the backcountry class did the same thing. This undeveloped and natural environment outside of the wilderness boundaries is made up of those lands buffering the monument's wilderness and the northern unit. In the winter months, mid-November to mid-April, the frontcountry serves as the backcountry, since the loop drive is closed by snow and winter sports activities take over. Although no overnight camping is allowed in the backcountry zone, skiers are allowed by permit to camp in the Caves Area parking lot. Similarly, during the spring, summer, and fall months, overnight camping is permitted in the group campground in the northern unit. Use of the northern unit, considered a sensitive area because it contains the monument's drinking water, was otherwise tightly controlled. In the early 1980s, monument officials began to allow day hikes, and were soon forced to require a permit, not to prevent water contamination but to protect the mule deer herd from hunters. One hunter would take a "hike," flushing deer from the monument, which were then harvested by another hunter on the boundary. By making hiking illegal without a permit, this activity ended, and no permits are issued during hunting season. Although no motorized or mechanized vehicles are permitted in wilderness, beginning in 1990, Superintendent Robert Scott implemented a new backcountry management program, allowing bicycles in the northern unit on established roadways, and subject to the same permit system as hikers. [21]

Although the recent management plan has created some changes, the general rule still applies. Until visitation increases enough to impair wilderness and backcountry resources, there is little change foreseen in the course of management. In a sense, what gives the backcountry its wilderness qualities, a harsh and remote volcanic landscape, assures its continued "pristine" state.

Horse travel in the monument wilderness is a popular form of recreation, ca. 1965.
(CRMO Museum Collection)