OCR Text |
Show 15 a winter- summer recreation development which would invite several million visitors a year to a sub- alpine basin country also raises the question of whether mountain soil and vegetation can withstand this mass- type use. Constructive Forest Service policy intended to meet such problems is illustrated by current work in Utah aimed at the comprehensive planning for a National Forest crest zone involved in, among other things, the State's bid for the 1972 Winter Olympics. This zone in any case may eventually become part of a large winter sports complex. Here the critical aspects of geology, soil, watershed, timber cover, logistics and avalanches are all receiving consideration to assure a long- range development plan which will coordinate and protect multiple use values of this crest zone. The basic knowledge for adequate administration of our crest zones in the United States is clearly at hand, augmented by past and present experience in such comparable areas as the Austrian Alps. But even so, questions are being raised today about such problems as cutting timber in sub-alpine zones where this may augment snow avalanche activity. Von Seckendorff 85 years ago could have warned of the problems such cutting will raise. While we do have a plainly stated crest zone policy, the responsibility for its wise execution rests with today's administrators of public and private lands. Austria's experience will remind them that we are wiser to accept Santayana's dictum than to try to demonstrate it. |