Pike National Forest district is converting 340 dispersed campsites into reserved, fee sites in a pilot program that mirrors reservation systems installed at other popular locations on public lands.
The South Platte Ranger District of the USFS just made a major change in management due to the record growth with poor ethics they have been experiencing. Our own Pikes Peak Ranger District is experiencing many of these same impacts. Is this on the horizon for us? Is this the best or inevitable way forward? Are there other ways this can be managed? How engaged are YOU in these discussions and pursuit of solutions?
Here's an excerpt of a recent article detailing this... see the link below for the full article.
Illegal parking spots that become networks of roads pushing deeper into the forest. Piles of garbage left in campsites. Abandoned, smoking campfires. Illegal shooting. And so much poop.
That’s what pushed Brian Banks to the limit. The messes left by the masses have spurred the district ranger of the Pike National Forest’s 450,000-acre South Platte Ranger District to install a system to convert his district’s bounty of once-free, dispersed campsites into pay sites that can be reserved.
“We really consider ourselves the canary in the coal mine for what’s to come,” said Banks, whose district spans the foothills from Mount Evans to Pikes Peak.
For years, the South Platte District was the place for a quick camping getaway. Close to major metro areas and easily accessed, areas around Kenosha Pass, Guanella Pass, Buffalo Creek, the South Platte River and Rampart Range Road are packed nearly every weekend with campers. But this summer was different.
“What we have seen in growth over the last five years is the equivalent of what we saw happen in one summer,” said Banks, who has worked for the district for 18 years, the past five as its top manager. “We were already struggling to manage the capacity and this summer we saw an explosion of users, particularly novice users visiting the district for the first time.”
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The US Forest Service is currently in the process of clarifying and creating policies regarding e-bike usage and guidance on National Forest System lands. 
The Bureau of Land Management and the National Parks Service opened public commentaries back in April of this year to encourage public feedback on the usage and regulations of e-bikes. The commentaries were open for 60 days and allowed public feedback until the second week of June. Responses were recorded and both entities are currently in the process of releasing amendments to previous rules in place. Click on the blog post below to see each entity's official current standing.
