GROPe is incorporating a new, as yet unnamed, mountaineering organization! Bruce Gubersky has written the waiver and is handling the incorporation. R.J. Secor is writing bylaws, Rick Beatty is filing with the I.R.S., and Rob Roy McDonald is filing with the Postal Service to get non-profit corp. bulk mailing rates. GROPE is reconvening October 28, 1989. If the Sierra Club has re-instated mountaineering insurance by then, the new organization will remain a dormant shell. If not, GROPE will activate the new organization & start running trips. GROPE, after disastrous election results, plans no further political activity at this time.
Surprise! Your chair supports the California DESERT PROTECTION ACT. We
have a number of deep concerns, such as need for more
group campsites where campfires are allowed, need for more roadside turnouts,
probable over-control of Saline Hot Springs, road closures such as the Eureka
Dunes to Saline Valley corridor, inevitable permits, fees, &
over-regulation problems, and the possibility of having to walk many miles of
flat desert to reach our peaks.BUT - The BLM, while generally doing a good job protecting the desert, has allowed such atrocities as the Barstow-Las Vegas Motorcycle Race. The military is casting covetous eyes on expanding Fort Irwin to gobble up Avawatz, and expanding China Lake to help prepare for WW3. Entire mountain ranges are threatened by open-pit cyanide leach process gold mining, which is profitable with 0.05 oz/ton yields! Population & recreation pressures from the So Cal Megalopolis, Phoenix, & Las Vegas demand that we do SOMETHING to preserve the desert for the mid-2lst-century & beyond.
The Desert Protection Act, now S-11, in the U.S. Senate, has been molded over the last four years by thousands of hours of work by Judy Anderson, Jim Dodson, Elden Hughes, and many others. Support of the Act is official Sierra Club policy. (The Backroad Explorers & La Crescenta Valley groups were censured by Angeles Chapter Excom for printing letters & editorials negative to S-11; if your chair decides to change position, silence will reign in this column!) DPS management & outings people reviewed maps of the proposed wilderness areas 3 or 4 years ago. We red-lined several access roads that we wanted "cherry-stemmed" out of the proposed wilderness areas. Those cherry stems are still there.
Perhaps most important: by actively supporting this bill and working for it, we can address our concerns - and get changes made - or be convinced that those changes aren't that important! Also, by becoming a part of the S-11 process, we can develop the rapport with Park Service Personnel to effect more campsites, turnouts, open 4WD roads, & open hot springs! Some version of S-11 is inevitable & desirable, let's try & shape it to our liking!
DPS Conservation Chair Jim Kilberg, and members Maris Valkass, Marti Washburn, and Bill Faulkner were at the 6-28 meeting of the California Desert Protection League; Maris, Anna, Marti, & Bill. have personally "adopted" wildernesses. More on this elsewhere in this issue and later in this column!-DALE W. VAN DALSEM.