The California Desert Protection Act (S7) would bring about major changes in how the desert lands are administered and the level of protection they receive. But these changes would have very limited impacts on the activities of the desert peakbagger. I think we will see that these minimal impacts would be a small and acceptable price to pay for the permanent protection this Act would provide for our desert lands.
Briefly, the "Desert Bill" would create Mojave National Park from lands currently administered by the Bureau of Land Management; transfer other BLM lands to the National Park Service to enlarge Joshua Tree and Death Valley National Monuments, which would be upgraded to National Park status; create 81 new wilderness areas, primarily from BLM lands; and create new wilderness areas within the three new and upgraded National Parks.
Probably the Desert Bill's greatest potential impact on the DPS is the loss of access to peaks due to road closures in the new wilderness areas and National Park units. As far as the wilderness areas are concerned, this is not a problem, at least in theory. By the terms of the Wilderness Act of 1964, there can be no roads, closed or otherwise, in wilderness areas; to be designated a wilderness, an area must be roadless.
In practice, though, the situation is not that simple. Congress has directed that the following definition of "roadless" be used:
| "The word 'roadless' refers to the absence of roads which have been improved and maintained by mechanical means to insure relatively regular and continuous use. A way maintained solely by the passage of vehicles does not constitute a road." |
Routes that do qualify as roads have inadvertently been included in proposed wilderness areas. When such a situation has been discovered, the wilderness boundary has been changed so the road is no longer within the wilderness, or a "cherry stem" has been added -- a thin strip containing the road, surrounded on three sides by the wilderness area. (If you know of any cases in which roads, as defined above, are still included in proposed wilderness areas, please let me know; I will forward the information to the appropriate people so the situation can be corrected.)
Because of the network of roads which form the boundaries of the proposed wilderness areas, and the "cherry stems' that penetrate the areas, it is estimated that 85% of all the wilderness acreage designated by the Desert Bill is within three miles of a road. In other words, our peak access is largely unaffected. Members of the Section who have examined maps of all the areas involved have concluded that with a few minor exceptions, all DPS peaks