Every backpacking trip and campout I’ve had this year has taken place in American Fork Canyon. The USDA’s proposed repeal of the 2001 Roadless Rule would wreck opportunities to make more memories under the evergreens with friends and family in this national forest and many across the state.
Granite Flat and Timpooneke campgrounds, Timpanogos Cave National Monument, Tibble Fork and Silver Lake reservoirs, Salamander Flat, Cascade Springs and more are characterized by the surrounding Inventoried Roadless Areas.
Gov. Cox’s support for the repeal is a bow to the MAGA regime’s unpopular attempts to log, mine and sell off our mountains. 64% of voters in Utah oppose building roads on undeveloped public lands. His “active management” rhetoric is misleading. 34% of all fuel treatment activities between 2001-2019 occurred in roadless areas, and the Salt Lake Ranger District is already planning to do fuels treatments on up to 1,324 acres of Inventoried Roadless Areas for the Big Cottonwood Canyon Watershed Restoration Project.
Elected officials are manufacturing controversy around the Roadless Rule, when they should be focused on resourcing the U.S. Forest Service to do this watershed restoration project, open out-of-service restrooms and campsites and fix water supply infrastructure.
My family has frequented American Fork Canyon for generations; it is thanks to the Roadless Rule that we’ve been able to have peaceful and beautiful experiences here. I’m counting on it to continue this tradition with generations of family to come.
Olivia E. Juarez, Salt Lake City