Boondocking emergency question

[zlee]

The NWPS does not govern all wildernesses. State and tribal governments also designate and protect/run wildernesses in the US. Some agencies overlap in areas or run them jointly.

There's an interesting list of wildernesses here, too. (As usual, your results on Wikipedia are only as good as the people writing them.)

It begins with:

Four federal agencies of the United States government administer the U.S. Wildernesses, which includes 756 Wildernesses and 109,478,939 acres (443,045.55 km2). These agencies are:

United States Forest Service
United States National Park Service
United States Bureau of Land Management
United States Fish and Wildlife Service

This is an area larger than Iraq or the state of California. In Alaska, there are 57,425,569 acres (232,393.03 km2) of wilderness. This represents about 52% of the wilderness area in the United States. The National Park Service (NPS) has oversight of 43,890,500 acres (177,619 km2) of wilderness at 60 locations. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has responsibility for 20,702,350 acres (83,779.4 km2) in 71 areas. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) oversees 8,726,011 acres (35,312.91 km2) at 221 unique sites. The Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Forest Service oversees 36,160,078 acres (146,334.64 km2) of wilderness areas in 439 areas. Some wilderness areas are managed by multiple agencies, so the above totals exceed the actual number of units (756) in the system. In addition, some of the 60 NPS areas with wilderness have multiple units designated as such (for example, Lake Mead National Recreation Area).

Some areas are designated wilderness by state or tribal governments. These are not governed by the Federal National Wilderness Preservation System.

[dznf0g]

Even in wilderness areas, you do find some "stuff". I'll speak for BWCAW, since that is the only one I know extremely well. It's a canoe area primarily (some hiking trails, but not used as much as canoe routes)
You must camp in designated sites, in order to keep human evidence of habitation to a minimum impact. These sites have a fire grate, no other fires are allowed. Up in the woods, a minimum of 150' from the shore is a fiberglass...um...stool over a hole to keep human "stuff" confined to small areas.
There's nothing like sitting on the "throne" on a hillside or top and looking out over nothing and everything all at the same time!

It is about 1,000,000 acres and adjoins a Canadian version of a Wilderness Area, called Quetico Provencial Park, also approx. 1,000,000 acres.

[bobnmary]

to paraphrase a very famous marine who said something like "c'mon you guys, you wanna live forever?"-belleau (sic) woods, 1918??

did he say guys or bums? anybody want to set me straight?

but apparently, some things are worth the risk.

[dznf0g]

Originally Posted by bobnmary

to paraphrase a very famous marine who said something like "c'mon you guys, you wanna live forever?"-belleau (sic) woods, 1918??

did he say guys or bums? anybody want to set me straight?

but apparently, some things are worth the risk.

You talkin' about my throne sitting being worth the risk? Well the skeeters are a problem in that "compromised position", but yes it's worth the risk!

[mefly2]

Originally Posted by dznf0g

... This is the reason I chose an EPRIP over a SPOT type device. (That and I'm too cheap to maintain ANOTHER subscription).

I completely understand, your position on phones, ipods, SPOT (maybe, if you're using the "phone home" communication features), etc.

I STILL MAINTAIN, however, it is irresponsible to venture into the "true" wilderness unprepared to summon help on several levels and methods. JMO.

??? EPRIP ???

EPIRB, perhaps ...

[Gene]

Bikes aren't ok in wilderness. They are too modern.

Not all wilderness is the same. The easy to designate areas were done decades ago for the most part. Now interest groups like off roaders and mining interests and vacation home developers, to name some, do not want wilderness and have a big effect on Congress. A road may go deep into the area with some old resorts along the way (Gunflint Trail in the Boundary Waters, for ex.) Exceptions for them are made in some legislation. Negotiations can take many years.

Buying inholdings (mining claims, ranches that were abandoned decades ago) is a good way to get money from the gov't or have access across the wilderness allowed. There's a guy in Colorado who has made a career out of representing people with old inholdings or buying them himself. The same has been done when national parks or monuments are being debated for creation or expansion.

Patented mining claims granted surface ownership (unpatented ones didn't) and the mine may have hardly been developed or was abandoned, and the owners may be divided amongst scores of family members by now, or the county may have taken it for unpaid taxes. Researching tax records and other county property records can uncover this information and if you are willing to learn it, take the time and raise a lot of dust in old books, you may find something that you can use to screw up the wilderness designation process and get paid to sell to the gov't.

For decades public lands authorities set aside even more acres for study as wilderness. Politics, competing interest groups and underfunding stalled the study process and now some want to make just about all the study areas nonwilderness. This is an ongoing battle.

Gene

Gene