Power Kite Forum - Oregon Snowkiting Crew Troubles!

Oregon Snowkiting Crew Troubles!

f0rgiv3n - 8-4-2009 at 09:23 PM

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/Snowkite-Access-in-Jeopardy

The Oregon Bend Snowkiters access is in trouble, they might end up losing their best place to fly!! Sign if you will!

indigo_wolf - 9-4-2009 at 07:25 AM

Any reason given as to why access might be shut down?

ATB,
Sam

f0rgiv3n - 9-4-2009 at 08:09 AM

From what I have read, it has to do with the "Three Sisters Wilderness" area. And having to do with them flying in a "wilderness" designated area? I don't have a whole lot of info, not even a lot on their site: http://bendkitecrew.com/

archkiter - 9-4-2009 at 08:34 AM

As a former forest service employee, it seems to me that their biggest issue is probably that snowmobiles are not legal in designated wilderness areas. (They state that they use snowmobiles to access the site on their webpage). It is however legal to both fly a kite and to ski and snowboard in wilderness areas so I don't see why snowkiting would be a problem.

snobdr - 9-4-2009 at 08:36 AM

I think this has to do with the Bend crew having a reporter do a story on them, After it hit the paper i guess the tree huggers had nothing to do but try to bring them down. Here are a few links.

http://www.wildwilderness.org/content/view/982/58/

http://www.nwkite.com/forums/t-11994.html

We should all be signing the petition, All in all this is a green sport, we are not causing any damage to the wilderness. And i know none of us want to loose great riding spots.

snobdr - 9-4-2009 at 08:40 AM

They did everything by the book. They used snowmobiles to get to the site but did not cross the boarder onto the land. They were only letting so many riders go out at a time. They did absolutly nothing wrong.

kiteNH - 9-4-2009 at 12:14 PM

Signed......up to 105 and counting. Come on PKF'ers, take 2 minutes and help keep kiting access open for everyone.

kiteNH - 12-4-2009 at 07:33 AM

B
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m
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340 signatures and counting. Help keep kiting access open!

kitedemon - 12-4-2009 at 09:32 AM

I signed too! I don't understand why snow kiting would be a problem??? It is such a low impact activity. best of luck!

indigo_wolf - 13-4-2009 at 02:54 PM

Signed.... does anyone have any numbers/information on how effective this type of online petition is?

ATB,
Sam

arkay - 13-4-2009 at 03:35 PM

It's on the front page of the Oregonian today... (Portland's Newspaper)

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/snowkiters_...

Quote:

So what rule decrees that the public can tear up one slope with a two-stroke engine and can't use the wind to ride up another nearby? The 1964 Wilderness Act does. It says you can't use motorized craft and "other form of mechanized transport" in wilderness.

But that's pretty broad. The Forest Service manual gets into details about just what mechanized transport means, including "any contrivance ... that provides a mechanical advantage to the user and that is powered by a living or non-living power source."

While the agency's rules seem to disallow snowkiting because the kite provides "mechanical advantage," they may not be specific enough, said Terry Knupp, Wilderness Program leader for the U.S. Forest Service. So the agency is looking to amend its rules, posting a note in the Federal Register as early as this summer and then going into a lengthy public process to explicitly ban snowkiting.

csa_deadon - 13-4-2009 at 09:53 PM

450 sigs!!!

macboy - 13-4-2009 at 10:50 PM

Oh man, that sounds bad.......

Bad bad.

Did you guys read through the (mostly asinine) comments? I love how it's spouts "mechanical advantage" as the reason it's on shaky ground yet Mr. Backpacker thinks it' OK for him to be in there. Wouldn't the bag holding all of his gear be "mechanical advantage"?

Maybe it's just me but the ridiculousness goes far beyond comprehension. My boots offer me mechanical advantage when I hike.......

f0rgiv3n - 14-4-2009 at 10:33 AM

Holy cow man... this is DEFINITELY not good. I was just reading that entire article, and then peoples' comments. WOW. It all comes down to this: "we're different, people are afraid of what's different" . Bunch of killjoys. I can't believe that was on the front page of the Oregonian...

csa_deadon - 14-4-2009 at 06:28 PM

Well, to honest. What would you expect from the Daily Fish Wrapper. Rarely do they (The Oregonian" tell both sides of a story. The problem is, if The Peoples Republic of Portland doesn't like it, it's gone! It's been that way for years.

vwbrian - 16-4-2009 at 02:07 AM

Over 500 Signatures email everyone you know on your address list you can ask them to put in something like this

I praticipate in kiting activties. This is the sport that combines two of my favorite sport kiting and snowboarding. with the ridiculousely high prices for lift tickets at the oregon resorts snow kiting will allow me to still enjoy the sport of snowboarding with out having to spend in excess of $100 everytime I go to a Resort. This sport is just in it's infancy and it reminds me of the exact same thing the resorts did in the 1980's of banning snowboarding before it could even get started. You should consider that this is a totaly green sport it is non fossil fuel based. Wind energy sport is a green state is good for Oregons image as a green state that cares about the enviroment. It also causes no damage to the forrest, unlike other gas powered winter sports. Let snow kiters use and access forest service lands that are publically owned. How many hikers or other people even use those area's in the winter time. It seems to me that the issue should be looked at more before a ban is issued. Thanks for listening. Concerned OR tax payer.

USA_Eli_A - 16-4-2009 at 08:27 AM

GOOD NEWS. There is an article in the oregon paper explaining everything. Soon the world will know the truth!

ragden - 16-4-2009 at 09:09 AM

Is there a link to the new article? Inquiring minds want to know!

vwbrian - 16-4-2009 at 08:22 PM

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/snowkiters_...

Snowkiters at Bald Butte flying above Forest Service wilderness rules for now
by Matthew Preusch, The Oregonian Sunday April 12, 2009, 6:15 PM

Andy Tullis/The Bend Bulletin
Steve O'Shea of Bend zips across a snowfield near Ball Butte west of Bend, pulled along on his snowboard by a 12-meter kite. Snowkiters harness the wind with nylon kites to rip across the snow on skis or snowboards.
BEND -- Three years ago, Chris Sabo first saw the colorful kites twisting above the snowy contours of Ball Butte.

The Deschutes National Forest trails specialist was patrolling the boundary of the Three Sisters Wilderness west of Bend on a snowmobile when he came across a group of snowkiters, who harness the wind to pull them across the snow on skis or snowboards.

"I do remember the big question was, 'Is this legal technically?'" recalled Sabo.

That question could soon lead to one of the first changes to the U.S. Forest Service's wilderness regulations in more than two decades.

"It has rapidly made its way up to the Washington office" of the Forest Service, said Shane Jeffries, Bend-Fort Rock District Ranger in Bend and Sabo's supervisor.

The small sport of snowkiting is about a decade old in Oregon, but it's growing. Congressionally designated wilderness areas have been around since the 1960s. The recent intersection of the two demonstrates how government agencies react as the way we play on public lands continues to change.

"Periodically new things pop up on us that we just can't envision," said Sabo.

Andy Tullis/The Bend Bulletin
Matt Willett of Bend catches air with his snowkite near Ball Butte west of Bend.It happened with hang gliding and, more recently, Geocaching -- a GPS-driven treasure hunt popular on public lands. Now it seems it's snowkiting's turn to bow to the bureaucracy.

The sport is basically the winter version of the colorful kiteboarders you may have seen ripping along and above the Columbia River in the gorge.

Snowkiting first arrived in Oregon thanks to pioneers such as Aaron Sales, a Hood River resident and editor of Kiteboarding magazine. Kiteboarders' feet are strapped to a short board, and they wear a harness around their waist that is connected to a control bar, affixed with lines leading to a parabolic nylon kite from 5 to 12 meters in size.

Using the wind as their engine, they carve across the river, launching high into the air off wind-formed waves.

Sales first tried doing the same thing on snow with his snowboard on Mount Hood's Palmer Glacier in 1998, when the sport was gaining ground in Europe but still essentially unheard of in Oregon. Today, Sales estimates there are at least 200 snowkiters in the state.

Their biggest challenge: Finding somewhere to kite. Snowkiters need large, unobstructed snowfields. Frozen lakes work, but the terrain is monotonous. More mountainous areas above treeline, areas like Ball Butte west of Bend, offer excitement and challenge.

"It's above the treeline. It's rolling hills. It's everything you need. It works in any wind direction. And it's just absolutely beautiful," said Tim Carlson, a member of the Bend Kite Crew.

At the butte, a bare plain slopes up to a rocky peak. Snowkiters on boards or skis can carve on the flats or loft huge aerial stunts, drifting slowly back to earth, sometimes hundreds of feet away.

The problem: Mountainous areas above the treeline also happen to be where land designated as wilderness often is. That's the case with Ball Butte, which is just inside the Three Sisters Wilderness near Mount Bachelor.

This winter, Sabo told Carlson and others that they would no longer be allowed at the butte and that he may even have to ticket them in the future. Yet a mile away, just across the wilderness boundary, snowmobilers are free to gun their machines to the top of Moon Mountain.

So what rule decrees that the public can tear up one slope with a two-stroke engine and can't use the wind to ride up another nearby? The 1964 Wilderness Act does. It says you can't use motorized craft and "other form of mechanized transport" in wilderness.

But that's pretty broad. The Forest Service manual gets into details about just what mechanized transport means, including "any contrivance ... that provides a mechanical advantage to the user and that is powered by a living or non-living power source."

While the agency's rules seem to disallow snowkiting because the kite provides "mechanical advantage," they may not be specific enough, said Terry Knupp, Wilderness Program leader for the U.S. Forest Service. So the agency is looking to amend its rules, posting a note in the Federal Register as early as this summer and then going into a lengthy public process to explicitly ban snowkiting.

"It's been over 20 years, I think, since we changed the existing regulations, so that tells you something. It takes quite a big issue," said Susan Sater, northwest wilderness program manager for the agency.

That change could exclude kiters from the more than 35 million acres of wilderness managed by the U.S. Forest Service, and Congress recently passed a bill that added more than 200,000 acres of new wilderness to Oregon, from the deserts east of Bend to the Coast Range.

But there's more to the debate than the definition of "mechanical advantage."

It gets to our ideas of just what, and who, wilderness is for. And the emphasis should be on preserving "wilderness character," said Bill Worf, who as a Forest Service employee helped write the first rules for wilderness in the 1960s and went on to found Wilderness Watch in 1989.

"Since there wasn't snowkiting even dreamed of at this time, that would come under a new impact that would change the wilderness character," said Worf. "There's nothing wrong with snowkiting, but it shouldn't be in wilderness."

Kiters consider their sport low-impact, green recreation. And they are organizing to lobby the agency to preserve access, much like cycling groups do now. Sales recently organized U.S. Snowkite Association to give his sport a voice.

Meanwhile, Jeffries, the district ranger, said he'd like to work with kiters to find some nonwilderness areas in the forest for their sport.

But Sales and other kiters say they've been looking for years, and Ball Butte is the only reasonably accessible place in Oregon.

"It's very frustrating to have these locations that are so dear to us taken away," said Sales.

-- Matthew Preusch; mattpreusch@news.oregonian.com

ragden - 17-4-2009 at 05:27 AM

Interesting read. I am curious to see how this turns out...

rdavis - 17-4-2009 at 06:07 AM

I hope things work out for you guys in Oregon. Snow kiting isn't really possible too much where I live, but I understand the frustration of trying to find a good spot to fly for any type of inland kiting. To have such an ideal spot to fly and then have it taken away would certainly have me upset.

WIllardTheGrey - 7-6-2009 at 03:32 AM

880 in one month not bad

arkay - 19-6-2009 at 06:57 AM

from nwkite

Quote:

Within one week after this news article came out in the Bend Bulletin about snowkiting in the Bend area.

http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090...

The BKC started receiving emails from activists all the way from Santa Cruz California telling us to "Stay out of the Wilderness". We then found this post on the Wild Wilderness Website" from the same people trying to shutdown Dutchman Flats and Tumamlo mountain to all snowmobiles.

http://www.wildwilderness.org/content/view/982/58/

After hours of riding and having one of our best sessions ever yesterday with a steady NW wind at at around 15mph (Unbelievable how this place works on any wind direction). Chris Sabo from the Forest Service drove up on his snowmobile and polity said " BOYS I AM SORRY TO INFORM YOU THAT WE GOT THE CALL YESTERDAY AND SNOWKITING IS NOW ILLEGAL WITHIN THE WILDERNESS BOUNDARY.

We are dumbfounded and cant believe we just lost our local best and only spot to snowkite. We new is was coming but thought at least we would have a chance to voice an opinion or prove our point. But no it's over.

Please send comments and advice to

Tim Carlson
bendkitecrew.com

Thanks and it was unbelievable while it lasted.

vwbrian - 18-7-2009 at 03:26 PM

how do you get to all the comments on this I know i posted one and cant find it on here
lpost comments at both sites the bad guy:moon:

found it it is at the petition site in the signatures
post comment here The good guys :smilegrin:

Kamikuza - 18-7-2009 at 05:02 PM

:no: