Ascending Rock Pass, PCT. Andy Porter, CC BY-NC 2.0
This is the first post in a series about the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is due to expire in September 2015 unless Congress takes action to renew it. The LWCF provides funds for the acquisition of our natural treasures so they can be enjoyed by all Americans.
Since the release of Cheryl Strayed’s bestseller Wild—and the subsequent Reese Witherspoon film adaptation—the Pacific Crest Trail has seen a dramatic rise in the number of hikers attempting the 2,650 mile sojourn from the U.S.-Mexico border, through California, Oregon, and Washington, to the U.S.-Canada border. Drawn by Strayed’s depiction of a restorative trek through the American wilderness, an estimated 3,000 people will try to conquer the trail this year alone. Before the book and movie, a mere 300 would take out permits each year.
But one challenge looms large as hiking boots hit the trail this summer: over 200 miles of the PCT falls on private land, where access can be tenuous and the future of the trail is unclear.
“The trail is basically 90 percent protected,” says Megan Wargo, Director of Land Protection for the Pacific Crest Trail Association (PCTA), in an interview with CWP. “So there’s 10 percent of the trail that still goes through these private lands.”
A number of problems can arise on private land. Some trail easements – an agreement allowing hikers to pass through private land – are only ten feet wide, meaning commercial, residential or energy development can surround the trail on all sides. In a few areas, easements were, unknowingly, never formally written down, meaning the landowner technically has the right to revoke access on a whim.
To create permanent access through the entire Pacific Crest Trail, organizations like the PCTA, in partnership with local, state, and federal partners find willing landowners looking to sell lands that will be permanently protected as part of the PCT.
This is where the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) comes into play.
Photo courtesy of Megan Wargo, PCTA
Traditionally, the PCTA and its partners have tapped into money from LWCF to complete, bit by bit, the trail’s corridor of public lands. Since 2000, Wargo says, $25 million has been used for private acquisitions from willing sellers, filling in more than 17,000 acres of the trail.
Unfortunately, after fifty years in action, the LWCF is slated to expire at the end of September—unless Congress reauthorizes the program. Like thousands of other large and small conservation projects across the U.S., the future of the Pacific Crest Trail is in limbo until LWCF is reauthorized.
“It’s a really achievable goal, to get that last ten percent,” says Wargo. “But what that will require is really having a steady stream of LWCF funding that could come to the trail to pick up parcels every year from willing sellers.”
For the PCT, the efficacy of the LWCF is tangible. Over the last decade, partners have used the program to complete large-scale acquisitions in the Cascade Mountains of Washington added 6,500 acres of previously private land to the trail. Smaller parcels helped bridge gaps in the Klamath, Tahoe, and Rogue River National Forests.
Acquiring private parcels not only helps complete the trail’s corridor, it also increases access for local hunters and anglers, day-hikers, and weekend campers. By creating more “feeder trails” that link the PCT to nearby communities, the trail can accommodate far more than long-distance thru-hikers.
For example, at the headwaters of the Sacramento River in northern California, the PCT winds through a thirty mile stretch that’s half private land. Dotted with alpine meadows, wetlands, and forest, the area would be perfect for local hunters, fisherman, and recreationists—if its public land access was expanded. Near Stevens Pass, Washington, the PCTA found that a private section of the trail wasn’t actually protected by an easement—and now, the landowner wants to sell the plot. With LWCF funds, the land could be acquired and permanently protected; but without sufficient funds a private party could purchase the lands and close public access. The trail would then have to undergo an expensive and time-consuming re-route around the property.
Headwaters of the Sacramento River. Photo by Daniel Mayer, 2003. CC BY-SA 3.0
Expanding access for day hikers and locals is about more than the virtues of getting outside and experiencing wilderness—it’s a boon for nearby economies.
“The economic argument is an important one,” says Wargo. “The PCT brings long-distance travelers into towns all along the trail, but it also attracts tens of thousands of day-hikers and equestrians, which can create quite an impact on the local economies for some of these communities.”
While thru-hikers sleep in tents and subsist on trail mix and energy bars, day-hikers eat breakfast in local restaurants, finish the day over beers at the bar, and spend the night in hotels. For communities adjacent to the PCT—which are largely rural—access through “feeder trails” can provide a much-needed influx of recreation-based tourism dollars. Maintaining and enhancing this vital connection, however, is reliant on the reauthorization of LWCF.
Opponents of LWCF often characterize the program as a big government federal land grab. In reality, it funds projects on every scale of life, in nearly every corner of America, from baseball diamonds to National Scenic Trails like the PCT. It can connect retailers to patrons, form an unbroken wildlife corridor, and challenge everyday citizens to accomplish months-long feats of endurance.
As Wargo puts it, “There are stories to be told throughout the trail.”