The National Park Service (NPS) has released a draft backcountry management plan for Denali National Park and Preserve. Of the four action alternatives, three propose opening portions of the park and preserve to recreational snowmobiling for the first time in park history. NPS’ ‘preferred alternative’ would open an astounding 46% of the park’s backcountry to recreational snowmobiles. Although snowmobiling will not be allowed inside the 2.1 million acre Denali Wilderness, it would be allowed on much of the park’s additional 3.75 million acres that have been formally proposed for wilderness designation.

Despite the current ban on snowmobiles, trespassing machines have become a chronic problem in the park, including noisy intrusions into critical wildlife winter range and into the Denali Wilderness. The proposed plan would simply bestow approval on the illegal snowmobiling. The plan would also open up the northern portion of the park to the noisy machines where there is currently little or no illegal use occurring. The open valleys along the northern wilderness boundary will assure that trespass into this quiet portion of the wilderness will be inevitable.

The plan would do little to effectively reduce the escalating amount of commercial scenic air tours that drone constantly over portions of the park during the summer, including over wilderness. Instead, it would seek ‘voluntary’ cooperation from commercial operators to slightly reduce impacts. The plan would also allow visitor use and congestion in some popular areas to increase, including aircraft landings of scenic tours.
One of America’s wildest premier wilderness parks is about to be transformed into an increasingly crowded and motorized playground.

Please Help Prevent this Tragic Loss of Wild Alaska!

PLEASE SEND COMMENTS to the address at the bottom of this page.

1. OPPOSE ‘preferred alternative D’ as well as all other alternatives that allow any recreational snowmobiling anywhere in Denali Park and Preserve.

2. Protecting wildlife, the natural soundscape, and the park’s unsurpassed wilderness values should be the plan’s focus.

3. NPS plans to develop ‘soundscape standards’ for the park – tell them Nature has already established those standards, and that standard is the area’s natural quiet, without the noise of snowmobiles and frequent aircraft landings.

4. Tell NPS the only acceptable alternative in the draft plan is ALTERNATIVE B, which places greater restrictions on aircraft landings and prohibits all recreational snowmobiling in the park.

5. INSIST that the plan must define "traditional activities’ for the entire park before allowing the use of aircraft, motorboats, or snowmobiles for recreational activities. By law, snowmobiles are only allowed for transportation to "traditional activities," unlike recreational snowmobiling where the snowmobile is an intrinsic part of the activity.

Superintendent
Attn: Draft Backcountry Management Plan
Denali National Park and Preserve
PO Box 9
Denali Park, Alaska 99755
Email: dena_public_comments@nps.gov

Read the plan online: http://www.nps.gov/dena/home/planning/plans/bcplan/bcbrief.html