The Associated Press | Posted: Saturday, February 19, 2005 12:00 am
BUFFALO, Wyo. (AP) - Bighorn National Forest officials are considering a new wilderness area just east of the Cloud Peak Wilderness.
The area could be designated as the Rock Creek Wilderness or it could be an expansion of the Cloud Peak Wilderness, the Buffalo Bulletin reports.
Establishing the wilderness area would require an act of Congress. But it's being discussed widely by forest officials including forest Supervisor Bill Bass.
The forest's management plan is being revised, a process that has included taking public comments. Several people have called for more wilderness areas.
Forest officials have pitched the idea to the commissioners of Johnson, Washakie, Sheridan and Big Horn counties, which share the forest.
"Rock Creek has always been proposed as a potential addition to the wilderness," Powder River District ranger Mark Booth said. "Forest Service Supervisor Bass threw that out on the table based on public comments…
"No decisions are made and it hasn't even been through the (forest) steering committee."
The area is already off-limits to motorized vehicles. But Booth said the Johnson and Washakie county commissions don't seem to favor a new wilderness.
"But a lot of the state agencies and others that were presented with the same thought did not essentially voice a big opposition," he said.
The area is heavily forested with lodgepole pine and is thought to be valuable elk habitat.
"We have suppressed fires in there over the years," Booth said. "There hasn't been a big fire so some of the potential habitat in there is kind of limited because of the lack of fire and management activity."
He said the Cloud Peak Wilderness is mainly at high elevations and not easily accessible. "It's not representative of all the different ecosystems that we have on the forest," he said.