Agency backs Steens running camp.

Byline: SCOTT MABEN The Register-Guard

The Bureau of Land Management said Monday that a Eugene-based youth running camp may continue to stage events in the Steens Mountain Wilderness Area in Southeastern Oregon.

The Steens Mountain Running Camp has operated summer camps at the fault-block mountain south of Burns for the past 27 years. The commercial camp's use of canyon trails in what now is a federally designated wilderness was challenged last year by Wilderness Watch, a conservation group based in Missoula, Mont.

The Burns district of the BLM decided that both the Steens Wilderness Act of 2000 and the Wilderness Act of 1964 allow the high school distance runners to participate in the camp's signature event, a dawn-to-dusk trek through the Big Indian and Little Blitzen gorges.

The event, called the "Big Day," occurs twice a year: once each during back-to-back, weeklong camps in late July and early August.

The BLM will issue the camp a five-year permit to use the wilderness area. The agency also will continue working with the camp's directors to lay out routes that best protect the area's natural resources.

Camp director Harland Yriarte said he's happy that the BLM decided to let the camp go on as it has for decades.

"I'm obviously elated about it ... and about the fact that a lot more kids will get the chance to experience wilderness that never would have," said Yriarte, who recently retired as athletic director at Lane Community College.

Wilderness Watch and a few others objected to the daylong runs, contending that allowing groups of about 150 students to run and hike across the rugged, open terrain spoils the solitude people expect in a protected wilderness and threatens to cause erosion and trample sensitive plants.

Officials with Wilderness Watch could not be reached for comment Monday.

The BLM found that the Big Day is consistent with activities permitted by the Steens Act, including promotion of recreation, and by the Wilderness Act, which says wilderness may be used for recreation and education.

"This is certainly an educational event," BLM natural resource specialist Mark Sherbourne said. "The kids come away with a lot better understanding of wilderness values than if they had never gone to the camp."

The fact the camp operated for a quarter of a century before the Steens became a wilderness area also supported the decision to allow it to continue, Sherbourne said.

"We recognize it has been occurring for 27 years. We were able to use the longevity of the camp in some of our monitoring efforts," he said. "We can't find any physical impacts to the public lands that we can associate with the camp."

The BLM monitored the condition of the Big Day route after last year's camps as part of the environmental assessment it prepared for the running camp's permit.

"The paths were fairly obvious directly after the event," Sherbourne said. "But as soon as it rained, (the tracks) disappeared. We found only short-term impacts."

The BLM received about 130 comments last August for its environmental assessment. Six of them were opposed, while the rest supported the camp's continued use of the wilderness.

Another 50 to 75 letters of support for the camp were sent to the BLM outside of the formal comment period.

Yriarte said he hopes that the decision "puts to rest some of the real extremist situations that seem to be happening with what some people want wilderness to be."

Cliff Volpe, assistant camp director and a member of the Sierra Club, said he believes the controversy never would have occurred if Wilderness Watch had taken time to learn about the camp, which emphasizes teaching students about wilderness values.

"I think their entire argument was based on sensationalism, extremism and vilification of the camp," Volpe said. "What they really missed was reasonableness and common sense. This camp's been going on for 27 years. Nobody's ever had a problem with it."

Congressman Greg Walden, the Eastern Oregon Republican whose district includes the Steens area, said all those who worked on the Steens wilderness legislation agreed to preserve historic uses such as the running camp.

"This common sense decision is tremendously good news not only for the Oregon kids who attend the Steens Mountain Running Camp, but for anyone who supports efforts to bring people together from across the philosophical spectrum to accomplish a worthy goal," Walden said Monday.

Walden was the author of the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act of 2000, the legislation that created the wilderness area. He introduced the bill in response to a proposal by then-Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt to designate Steens Mountain as a national monument with even greater restrictions.