Upper Jacks Fork...the Good And The Bad

[tanvat]

Awesome trip - sounds like the positives outweighted the negatives though.

To me, the bottom line is that both the Park Service and a lot of mainly local users have completely abdicated responsibility when it comes to the illegal roads/motorized use of the rivers. The Park Service caters to a shrill, irrational minority that denies demonstrable facts and relies almost exclusively on red herrings in response to what should be common sense prohibitions on cutting donuts in the streambed of a federally protected waterway. Crap like that would NEVER happen in most other National Park units. I have the good fortune to be able to spend a few weeks in and around NW Wyoming every year and there is no way in heck that one could get away with driving an ATV down the Snake River or around Yellowstone Lake. Yet here, in our National Park, the Park Service lets it happen and thus perpetuates further abuse of the resource and instrusion on Missouri's last best places. Granted, given the size/configuration of the ONSR it is an enforcement nightmare compared to GTNP or Yellwostone, but its like ONSR doesn't even try.

The users bear blame too - the redneck yahoos and the party floaters alike. Difference is that ATV tracks linger and cause substantial damage to riparian habitats while the noise from the party crowd lasts about 8 hours on a few Saturdays a year and their trash, though unsightly, doesn't cause substantial, actual damage to rivers. And in reality, some of the blame lays with people like me who bitch and moan but don't organize and demand the Park Service do its job. The ONSR needs some active advocacy as is the case with Natl. Parks out West.

Anyway, I plan on going down with the family soon and doing a two nighter on the upper Current. We'll have fun, catch a few fish, let the kids terrorize crawdads and tadpoles and it'll be the stuff the best memories are made of - and I guess we'll just have to accept a few RVs - an old schoolbus if we're lucky - on gravel bars, a few ATVs cutting donuts and maybe, if we're really lucky, we'll get buzzed by some jet boats flying up and down the river, clouding up the river, and breaking the silence from a mile away - just like last time and the time before that....

[Gavin]

Sounds like a good trip thanks for the narrative. Will see how it all shakes out when the new management plan comes out.