Travel plan decision postponed until late summer

The thousands of people anxious to find out where motor vehicles will be able to travel on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest will have to wait a while longer than forest officials recently estimated.

Last week Wallowa-Whitman officials said Supervisor Steve Ellis probably would announce his decision on the forest’s long-awaited Travel Management Plan in late spring.

But on Wednesday Ellis said late summer is now the more likely time frame.

The reason for the delay, Ellis said, is that federal officials have given the Wallowa-Whitman and other national forests a higher priority: Spending their shares of the $787 billion federal stimulus package that President Obama signed into law last year.

In a Dec. 21, 2009, memo to forest supervisors, Mary Wagner, the Forest Service’s Northwest Region forester, wrote: “It must be clear that meeting our promises under (the stimulus package) is our most important task over the next several months. For some forests, delays in certain types of work will be part of what it takes...”

One such type of work, according to Wagner’s memo, is finishing travel management plans.

Ellis said Wallowa-Whitman workers will have to balance their work on the travel management plan with the task of putting together a variety of construction and maintenance projects that will be offered to contractors and paid for with stimulus dollars.

However, the road closures won’t legally take effect until the Wallowa-Whitman prints the official travel map, probably in early 2011.

The bottom line, then, is that all forest roads open to vehicles now should remain open at least through 2010.

Byways smoothing planned

The list of stimulus projects, most of which probably will be done during the next two years, includes rebuilding or repaving sections of both the Elkhorn Drive Scenic Byway near Anthony Lakes, and the Wallowa Mountain Loop Road between Halfway and Joseph.

Ellis said he’s excited about both projects because they’ll afford travelers a much smoother drive on two of the region’s most popular and scenic routes.

The Wallowa-Whitman plans to work on a 10-mile stretch of the Elkhorn Drive, also known as Forest Road 73, from the forest boundary at Gorham Butte Road, past Anthony Lakes to near the Elkhorn Summit.

(Two years ago crews repaved the byway between the North Powder River and Gorham Butte road; that section is a county road.)

Workers will fill cracks and apply chip sealing on about 6‡ miles, mostly between Gorham Butte Road and the Van Patten Lake trailhead road. That section is in relatively good shape.

Contractors will do quite a lot more on the approximately 2‡ miles of byway between the Van Patten trailhead road and Anthony Lakes.

That steep stretch of road is pitted with potholes and cracks, and workers will grind off the existing asphalt and essentially rebuild the road from the ground up.

The project also includes expanding the parking lot at Ski Anthony Lakes resort, Ellis said.

Forest officials hope to have all the work done before the ski season starts in the fall of 2010, said Ken Anderson, Whitman District ranger.

Officials declined to say how much stimulus money has been allotted for the Elkhorn Byway project because the forest has not yet put the job out for bid.

The Wallowa-Whitman also has about $1.6 million from the stimulus to maintain hiking and horseback trails across the Wallowa-Whitman.

Officials have scheduled an open house in Baker City for people interested in bidding on trail maintenance contracts. The open house will run from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Jan. 22 at the Whitman District office, 3285 11th St.

The Wallowa-Whitman will hire contractors to maintain hundreds of miles of trails in the Elkhorn Mountains, Monument Rock Wilderness south of Unity, Eagle Cap Wilderness and in the Hells Canyon National Recreation Area in both Oregon and Idaho.

Forest officials will have maps showing the trails slated for maintenance.

Information about the contracts also will be posted online at www.fbo.gov.

More information about the Jan. 22 open house is available by calling Dan Ermovick at 541-523-1250, or Tom Smit at 541-742-6701.