Opinion
Riding out of the Bridger Wilderness after dark, leading a pack string, tired and impatient, suddenly my horse stopped and refused to budge. Aggravated, I dismounted to lead the string only to discover I was about to ride off a cliff band. The lesson is, sometimes we need to pay attention to information being given to us. This applies to riders and politicians alike.
The Trump administration wants to rescind the Roadless Rule, opening millions of acres to road construction. They claim it’s about access and fire management. As someone who’s spent years guiding hunters and riders through Wyoming’s wilderness areas and now volunteers with Back Country Horsemen of America maintaining these trails, I can tell you they’re solving the wrong problem.
Access doesn’t require roads. Every season, Back Country Horsemen and outfitters pack into our national forests with crosscut saws and shovels. We clear blowdowns, maintain trails and pack supplies for the Forest Service. This system works well and will continue to work.
What doesn’t work is the math. The Forest Service already has a backlog of $6.4 billion needed to maintain existing roads. Backcountry roads aren’t interstate highways. They wash out every spring, need constant grading and require endless culvert replacements and bridge repairs. Adding more miles of backcountry roads while existing roads go unmaintained is like a homeowner taking out a second mortgage while the first house collapses.
The fire argument doesn’t hold either. Humans cause 90% of wildfires. Research consistently shows fires are more likely near roads than in roadless areas. The Roadless Rule already allows temporary roads for legitimate fire suppression. What it prevents is permanent roads that become permanent ignition sources.
I learned terrain and threat assessment in the Marines. You identify what needs defending and what threatens it. After guiding hunters and families through these mountains for years, I know what threatens Wyoming’s backcountry: not a lack of roads, but too many of them.
Working with Citizens for the Wyoming Range, we fought hard to pass the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, protecting these mountains from drilling. We understood that some landscapes generate more value intact than fragmented. The outfitting economy, the hunting heritage and the clean water flowing to downstream communities all depend on keeping some country unroaded.
The horsemen I ride with are ranchers, veterans, teachers, folks who’ve lived here all their lives and newcomers who moved here precisely because Wyoming still has what other states sold off. We maintain trails not for pay, but because we believe the backcountry should remain accessible to anyone willing to earn their way in.
Politicians look at roadless areas and see untapped resources. I see the last places where elk bugle without traffic noise, where you can ride all day without crossing pavement or gravel, where the skills I’ve learned still matter. These aren’t locked lands. They’re intact working landscapes that work precisely because they’re roadless.
The Roadless Rule has functioned for nearly 25 years. Like that smart horse at the edge of a cliff, it’s kept us from making an irreversible mistake. Once you punch roads through migration corridors and pristine watersheds, you can’t undo it. The wildness doesn’t come back. We’re not making any more wilderness.
Wyoming’s congressional delegation needs to hear from people who actually use these lands — veterans who found peace in these mountains after serving; outfitters whose livelihoods depend on wild country; horsemen who keep trails open with sweat and saddle leather— not just from those who want to extract and develop them.
Some information is worth heeding. When every major hunting organization, conservation group and backcountry user says these protections work, that’s information. When the only voices calling for more roads come from those who profit from extraction, that’s information too.
After all my years riding in Wyoming’s high country, I know the best parts require effort to reach. That’s not a bug in the system. That’s what makes them worth protecting.
This is information that our politicians need to hear and take to heart.
The draft environmental impact statement was released for public comment in late August. The comment period is currently open and closes on Oct. 6. Please submit your comments opposing the rescission of this rule.
