Winter Travel Plan Follow-up Case

March of 2018 — The Forest Service withdrew its winter travel maps and committed to conduct winter travel planning on each of the three forests listed in our case – the Boise and Payette National Forests in Idaho and a portion of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming. We agreed to dismiss the case based on the agency’s commitments and on July 3, 2018, the court officially dismissed and closed the case.

September 9, 2017 — Advocates for the West filed suit against three Intermountain national forests for being the only in the nation to rubber stamp winter travel decisions that are more than 20 years old rather than create new winter travel plans that regulate snowmobile use based on current conditions and up-to-date science. Since the prior decisions, snowmobile use has increased and the machines are able to traverse deeper snow and steeper slopes, creating greater impacts to wildlife and backcountry skiers and snowshoers.

The Boise and Payette National Forests in Idaho and a portion of the Bridger-Teton National Forest in Wyoming claim – despite clear scientific evidence proving otherwise – that the maps they’ve published are good enough to protect natural resources, imperiled wildlife, and a growing constituency of human-powered winter recreationists.

This case, which we filed on behalf of WildEarth Guardians, Winter Wildlands Alliance, and The Wilderness Society, aims to ensure that wild places, wildlife, and quiet recreation are protected on the forests—and that those forests, like all others across the system, comply with current, hard-fought, science-based regulations.