Here we go again. The U.S. Forest Service is writing new snowmobile guidelines . . .
New draft guidelines for snowmobile management in the National Forest System will be released [this] week, but advance details remain scarce.
The U.S. Forest Service announced it will publish its “over-snow vehicle travel management rule” in the Federal Register on Wednesday. That starts a 45-day public comment period. The Forest Service plans to release the final rule by Sept. 9.
“We’ve been asking for input or anything else, but we’ve been completely locked out of the negotiations,” said Kurt Friede, owner of Kurt’s Polaris in Seeley Lake and a member of several snowmobile advocacy groups. “How can we find out if it’s good for us or bad for us, when we haven’t been allowed to have any input on it? It creates a lot of irritation.”