Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
Similar stories government wide. 1300 people at CDC -- the people that track and plan for epidemics. NPS SAR staff cut 50%. NRCS gutted -- the agency that coordinates with ranchers and farmers on area-wide habitat programs and access. Grants to Trout Unlimited and other wildlife groups. US Fish and Wildlife Service slashed.
Federal employee compensation is only 4% of the total US budget -- one of the lowest gov employee per capita ratio in the developed world. The US government was not bloated by any metric. It already was one of the most efficient in the world.
Meanwhile, Tesla was just awarded a $400 million no-bid contract from the Dept of Defense.
No one stopped to consider that cutting government spending is also cutting the services the spending provided. And many of these cuts cannot be undone later. You cannot rehire an experienced and trained manager off the street for most of these programs.
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Log off and get outdoors!
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I wonder when the people will wake up and see that just a few men are robbing the entire country blind - and they're same ones telling you that your neighbor, your trails, your NOAA, and other basic services are "bankrupting" the country. Money is a god to those at the top, and they will do anything/say anything/pay anything to keep people blind and fighting amongst one another.
A nation that doesn't take care of itself and only works to fuel the endless greed for those at the top is not a nation - it's a farm.
Please keep all comments related to the original post, do not go off topic or political, otherwise your post will be edited or removed! Thanks
Professional Sierra Landscape Photographer
I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.
Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member:http://reconn.org
maverick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 17, 2025 5:55 pmPlease keep all comments related to the original post, do not go off topic or political, otherwise your post will be edited or removed! Thanks
While I agree with the sentiment of this post (a lot of emotional comments going off the rails), this is a political issue. If someone posted a list of phone numbers of senators who have control over FS funding, I’d consider it dead on topic. This just *is* a political issue.
But yeah, keep it on this narrowly defined topic and keep it civil even if most of the country can’t.
"Adventure is just bad planning." - Roald Amundsen
Also, I have a blog no one reads. Please do not click here.
Just saw some posts on a FS employee website.
The Yellowstone Ranger District on Custer-Gallatin NF is 1 million acres. Has 3 full time employees remaining.
Hurricane Helene in North Carolina severely damaged Interstate 40 where it crossed NF land. The highway cannot be rebuilt, it must be rerouted. The FS had assigned a team to fast-track the environmental planning and mitigating any impacts. The entire team was laid off. The rebuilding of the Interstate is now halted. You can imagine the economic impact of a closed interstate highway.
Several National Forests in FS Region 3 (Arizona and New Mexico) laid off their entire recreation and trails staff.
The public lands will not be managed until this is resolved. It is currently unclear whether seasonal firefighters will be hired. Every letter and memo that says fire is exempt from the hiring freeze is followed by another memo that says fire is not exempt. If the government shutdown happens in March as expected, and the pay bonus is not part of the eventual CR when it is passed, even the permanent fire staff will quit (Calfire is converting all its seasonal firefighters to permanent and doing a massive hiring and expansion. Guess who those new hires will be). Even if funding is approved in the future, you cannot hire the lost experience off the street. It takes a decade or more of training and development to create a Fire Captain to lead the new firefighters.
OTOH, don't worry if you do not get your desired wilderness permit this year. There won't be anyone patrolling or checking hikers for a permit. Trail quotas and permitting will be on the honor system this year, and most hikers will have more system than honor.
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I did hear from a few people that I work with as a volunteer. Their seasonal wilderness rangers are not getting hired this year, and they lost their only intern. That leaves one wilderness ranger for the entire forest.
Meanwhile, all funds have been frozen, so the contracts to clear and burn high fuel areas of the forest are all cancelled. No pire prevention this year.
And the snowpack is lower than usual. We've had a lot of precipitation in Northern California, but it's been warmer and wetter than usual, so the snowpack isn't as thick as usual. That means an early snowmelt, and a long fire season.
balzaccom wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 7:55 am
That leaves one wilderness ranger for the entire forest.
Meanwhile, all funds have been frozen, so the contracts to clear and burn high fuel areas of the forest are all cancelled. No pire prevention this year.
@balzaccom, do you mean the entire El Dorado NF or just the Tahoe Basin (including Desolation Wilderness) will have only one wilderness ranger? And there will be no prescribed burns or clearing in all of the El Dorado NF?
Control burning is highly weather dependent. There is usually a very narrow window in the spring to conduct burns, with a longer window in the fall. Even if the chaos settles down eventually, it will too late for this spring. You get different results spring burns versus fall. Depending on the overall goal of the burn you plan it for spring or fall.
Meanwhile -- overheard bar talk between a couple ranchers "No one patrolling the forest and no federal wildlife cops means it's open season on wolves". I would add timber and archeology theft to that.
The total budget of all the federal land agencies combined is less than 0.3% of the deficit. I am glad to see they are going after biggest problems.
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Log off and get outdoors!
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balzaccom wrote: ↑Tue Feb 18, 2025 7:55 am
That leaves one wilderness ranger for the entire forest.
Meanwhile, all funds have been frozen, so the contracts to clear and burn high fuel areas of the forest are all cancelled. No pire prevention this year.
@balzaccom, do you mean the entire El Dorado NF or just the Tahoe Basin (including Desolation Wilderness) will have only one wilderness ranger? And there will be no prescribed burns or clearing in all of the El Dorado NF?
I volunteer in three national forests: El dorado, Stanilaus, and Sierra. I don't want to expose any of the staff to any kind of political ramifications, so I will just say that "some staff at some forests" have said that.
