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Appendix C Inventoried Roadless Area Evaluations White Mountain National Forest White Mountain National Forest — Final Environmental Impact Statement Contents Forest-wide Assessment of Wilderness Needs .................................... 3 Caribou-Speckled Mountain .................................................................. 8 North Carr Mountain ............................................................................ 17 South Carr Mountain ............................................................................ 25 Cherry Mountain ................................................................................... 34 Chocorua ................................................................................................. 44 Dartmouth Range .................................................................................. 53 Great Gulf ............................................................................................... 62 Jobildunk ................................................................................................. 73 Kearsarge ................................................................................................ 83 Kilkenny .................................................................................................. 92 Kinsman ................................................................................................ 101 Mt. Wolf–Gordon Pond....................................................................... 110 Pemigewasset ....................................................................................... 119 Presidential Range-Dry River ............................................................ 133 Sandwich ............................................................................................... 146 Sawyer River......................................................................................... 159 Table Mountain .................................................................................... 170 Waterville .............................................................................................. 180 Wild River ............................................................................................. 189 Literature Cited .................................................................................... 201 C–2 Appendix C — Inventoried Roadless Area Evaluations Forest-wide Assessment of Wilderness Needs Needs Related to Regional Wilderness Opportunities The White Mountain National Forest is located within a day’s drive of the Boston, New York, and Montreal metropolitan areas, meaning that more than 12 million people can access the Forest within five hours. Populations in these areas and throughout New England are increasing, and visitation to Forest Wilderness areas can be expected to increase as well. More importantly, however, the White Mountain National Forest, the Green Mountain-Finger Lakes National Forest (GMNF), and Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR) are the only locations in the Northeast with federally-designated Wilderness areas. The 114,832 acres comprising White Mountain National Forest Wildernesses are part of a National Wilderness Preservation System totaling approximately 105,687,246 acres as of January, 2004. Of the roughly 106 million acres in the Wilderness Preservation System, 1.6 million acres managed by the USDA Forest Service (USFS) is within its Eastern Region. Further, only 500,000 acres of Eastern Region Wilderness are held outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota. The National Park Service manages approximately 133,250 acres within the same region, and the Fish and Wildlife Service administers another 63,500 acres. All told, then, there is a relatively limited amount of Wilderness in the East outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, with the White Mountain National Forest holding approximately 16 percent of that acreage (23 percent of USFS Wilderness). Within New England, the Wilderness in the White Mountain National Forest is complemented by the 59,598 acres of Wilderness on the Green Mountain National Forest and 7,392 acres in the MNWR. There is also substantial wilderness in the Adirondack State Forest, NY, though this area is not federally designated. Between the Green Mountain National Forest and White Mountain National Forest, there are four Wilderness areas of 20,000 acres or more, and only one greater than 40,000 acres. Thus, there are limited opportunities for recreation in a larger-scale Wilderness in the Northeast, which could then be interpreted as a need for additional supplies of Wilderness in areas this large. It is unclear, however, whether there is indeed a significant demand for recreation opportunities of this type. It is certainly important to have designated Wilderness within reach of urban centers; what remains uncertain is whether the different opportunities for recreation experiences afforded in smaller or larger Wildernesses are important to Wilderness users. Visitor Use Patterns and Trends1 Another factor to consider in assessing needs for additional designated Wilderness is the effect of visitation. Especially in areas like the White Mountain National Forest that are close to urban centers, visitation to 1 Data used to estimate visitor use and use trends is of questionable quality. Estimates included here are based on the best available information at the time of this writing, but should be taken as indicators of possible trends, rather than exact counts or estimates. C–3 White Mountain National Forest — Final Environmental Impact Statement Wilderness areas can be extraordinarily heavy at times. This visitation is likely to grow significantly in coming years as well. In 1998, it was estimated that Wilderness use on the White Mountain National Forest was 119,474 Recreational Visitor Days (RVDs), and that rate is growing 2-4 percent annually (USDA Forest Service, 1998). This is a faster rate than the 0.5-1 percent annual growth that has been reported for recreational use of Wilderness nationally (Loomis, Bonetti, and Echohawk, 1999). Further, participation is projected to increase dramatically in activities conventionally associated with Wilderness. On a nationwide basis, participation in backpacking is projected to increase 26 percent by 2050, and participation in hiking is projected to increase 31 percent in the same span (Bowker, English, and Cordell, 1999). Demand is clearly tied to population growth in the region; within New England, population is projected to increase 30.3 percent between 1995 and 2025 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). During this same time, the population of New York state is projected to expand 9.3 percent (U.S. Census Bureau, 2004). The expansion of population and participation in recreation activities is also tied to changes in transportation and vacation preferences among potential Forest users. Since the events of September 11, 2001, there has been a widely- publicized change in travel patterns. Due primarily to an economic downturn and concerns about the safety of air travel, individuals who might otherwise have taken cross-country flights to participate in outdoor recreation are now more likely to drive to a nearby site instead. Given the proximity of the White Mountain National Forest to the large population centers of the eastern seaboard, this change in travel habits can be assumed to create an increased demand for unconfined types of recreation in the Northeast. It is worth noting here, however, that Forest visitation appears to have been significantly lower in 2003 than in previous years. It is unclear whether this is an anomaly or an indicator of a larger downturn in visitation. Needs Related to Substitutability of Non-Wilderness Lands Increased demand for unconfined recreation opportunities does not in and of itself mean that there is an increased demand for Wilderness. A number of possible substitutes for Wilderness areas exist in both New Hampshire and Maine, including MA 6.2 and other special areas (Appalachian Trail, Scenic Areas, and Research Natural Areas) on the White Mountain National Forest. Currently, 670,856 acres in New Hampshire (12 percent of the total land in the state) and 1,227,166 acres in Maine (6 percent) are held open for some form of recreation by an entity other than the USFS (New Hampshire Office of State Planning, 2003; Maine Department of Conservation, 2003). In both cases, the majority of open land is held by state or municipal governments. However, governmental ownership and management is not the only means by which recreation opportunities can be afforded. A measure of the degree to which possible alternatives may exist is in assessing the number of acres in the New Hampshire Current Use Program. By the regulations set forth in this program, areas of 10 acres or more that are left as open space are taxed based on current use value rather than on C–4 Appendix C — Inventoried Roadless Area Evaluations potential value for development (New Hampshire Office of State Planning, 2003). Landowners are also afforded a 20 percent reduction in taxes if those lands are left open to skiing, snowshoeing, fishing, hunting, hiking, and nature observation. A total of 1,207,742 acres in New Hampshire receive this tax adjustment (New Hampshire Office of State Planning, 2003). What is left open in these discussions is the nature of recreation on these parcels of federal, state, county, municipal, and private land. There is clearly an available land base within which an unconfined experience might be achieved,