EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR SEEKS PROTECTION OF PROPOSED TRACY RIDGE WILDERNESS

 by Joseph Neville, KTA Executive Director

February 10, 2016

Dear Mr. Hatfield,

I am writing on behalf of the Keystone Trails Association (KTA), a 60-year-old non-profit organization whose mission is to provide, preserve, protect and promote recreational hiking trails and hiking opportunities in Pennsylvania.

KTA has a long history of advocacy for the protection of backcountry hiking and backpacking opportunities throughout Penn’s Woods. This includes our endorsement in 2005 of the Citizens’ Wilderness Proposal for Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest—including the 9,700-acre proposed Tracy Ridge Wilderness Area—published by Friends of Allegheny Wilderness.

KTA’s then president, Hugh Downing, stated at the time that “Keystone Trails Association and Friends of Allegheny Wilderness share the same values when it comes to preserving land for minimal-impact recreational purposes. One of the nation’s premier hiking trails, the North Country Trail, traverses the ANF. That’s just one of the reasons Keystone Trails Association is happy to join Friends of Allegheny Wilderness in advocating the preservation of these unique areas of the ANF.”

KTA has learned of a new proposal to open the hiking-only trails of the proposed Tracy Ridge Wilderness Area to bicycle use. We are disappointed, further, to learn that your agency evidently is giving some serious consideration to this proposal.

Please understand that KTA is opposed to the idea of mountain biking in Tracy Ridge because it would pose a perpetual threat to the North Country Trail—which like the Appalachian Trail in eastern Pennsylvania is a much-beloved national scenic trail. We feel this is a threat because of the perpetual erosion issues caused by running mountain bikes on trails that are meant for foot traffic, because of the user conflict concerns that would be a constant presence in this area where hikers and backpackers have always been accustomed to not having to contend with competing user groups, and because mountain biking as a mechanical use is (correctly) not allowed in designated wilderness areas. 

Establishing mountain biking at Tracy Ridge would undermine efforts to have the U.S. Congress designate the entire Tracy Ridge area as part of America’s National Wilderness Preservation System under the Wilderness Act of 1964, which is a conservation priority for KTA. 

For these reasons, and others, KTA respectfully requests that mountain biking ideas no longer be entertained for the proposed Tracy Ridge Wilderness Area. I am confident that you will be able to employ your professional judgment in order to identify more than suitable mountain biking opportunities elsewhere in the ANF that are not located in proposed wilderness areas, inventoried roadless areas, or other such rare and treasured Keystone State wildlands.

Sincerely,

Joseph Neville, Executive Director

Keystone Trails Association