Watchdog group battles Steens camp for runners.

Byline: SCOTT MABEN The Register-Guard

Does a large group of young athletes trotting through a high desert wilderness ruin the wilderness experience for others?

Absolutely, says a watchdog group opposed to a Eugene-based running camp's use of the new Steens Mountain Wilderness Area in Southeastern Oregon.

The camp's signature event, a dawn-to-dusk trek through backcountry sagebrush and deep gorges, spoils the solitude people expect in a protected wilderness, claims Wilderness Watch of Missoula, Mont.

"It's really a pretty extraordinary request to be doing something like this in the wilderness," said George Nickas, the group's executive director.

Directors and supporters of the 27-year-old Steens Mountain Running Camp counter that the students have little impact on the wilderness and come away with greater respect for nature and wide-open spaces.

The day spent inside the wilderness boundary is an integral part of the program, said Harland Yriarte, the camp's founder and athletic director at Lane Community College.

"For a person coming to the Steens Mountain Running Camp and not being able to experience what is now labeled wilderness is kind of like going to Arizona and getting only a quarter-mile from the Grand Canyon," Yriarte said.

"Basically what they're proposing is taking the turkey out of Thanksgiving, taking the ham out of Christmas," he said.

Wilderness Watch wants the federal Bureau of Land Management, which manages the Steens wilderness, to refrain from issuing a special-use permit that allows the camp to lead students through the Big Indian and Blitzen gorges on the west side of the fault-block mountain, located about 65 miles south of Burns.

The group, which advocates proper stewardship of wilderness areas, argues that wilderness rules prohibit running camps, endurance races and similar events.

"To make an exception for one camp doesn't seem right to us, and we're concerned it may become a precedent," Nickas said. "If we allow one camp to do it, how can we tell others they can't without appearing arbitrary?"

He also called the camp "an outdoor-oriented commercial enterprise that uses the wilderness as a backdrop for its operation," and that wilderness areas generally are off-limits to for-profit organizations.

However, the camp's continued use of the area had strong support during congressional debate on the wilderness designation. Second District Rep. Greg Walden, a Republican from Hood River, said everyone involved understood that the camp's long association with the Steens should garner it special consideration over strict adherence to wilderness management rules.

"It was exactly the kind of purpose we were trying to protect under the historic recreational use," Walden said. "If you want to think of it as just your grandfather's wilderness area, it's not. This is the first cow-free wilderness area in the nation."

One of the trade-offs for removing livestock from the Steens wilderness was to recognize other traditional uses, including the running camp, Walden said. He portrayed Wilderness Watch as a late-comer to the table that's unaware of the issues that led to the protection of the Steens.

"This is an extraordinarily elitist view that's being perpetrated here," he said. "This isn't what Steens Mountain is about. It's about very divergent viewpoints coming together to solve a problem."

A Bend-based conservation group that long has pushed for protection of the Steens area doesn't share the concerns of Wilderness Watch.

"From the get-go, we felt it was a relatively benign activity compared to lots of things that were happening in the wilderness, especially livestock grazing," said Bill Marlett, executive director of the Oregon Natural Desert Association. "The expectation was that when the Steens was designated, the camp would continue its operation in the wilderness."

The BLM's Burns District is studying what impact the camp has on the wilderness and will issue a report later this month. Miles Brown, field manager for the district's Andrews Resource Area, will decide in July whether to issue the permit, after a 30-day public comment period.

The camp is scheduled for July 21 to 27 and again July 28 to Aug. 3. About 150 high-school distance runners usually attend each week.

"It's a controversial issue, and I have no idea how the field manager is going to react," said Mark Sherbourne, the agency's district supervisor for recreation and wilderness. "It's going to be based a lot on the comments we get."

One option will be to move the route for the main event - an arduous 28-mile run and hike with backpacks called "Big Day" - outside the wilderness. Another will be to keep the usual course but mandate measures to help mitigate the environmental impact.

If the BLM approves the permit, Wilderness Watch could appeal or file a lawsuit. But only a court order would prevent the camp from operating as usual this year, Sherbourne said.

Regardless of what happens this season, Yriarte said he worries that objections will lead to a "slow kill" of the camp over time.

"I think if Wilderness Watch had their way they'd have us on a stair-stepper out in the sagebrush," he said. "We all know that it's the atmosphere and environment and beauty that allows for a really holistic experience."

And the Big Day event, Yriarte said, always occurs on a weekday, when fewer visitors are on the Steens. "Last year we saw a total of three people in those canyons," he said.

Eleanor Gordon, 17, a cross-country and long-distance runner at South Eugene High School, attended the past two summers. "There was a large emphasis on environmental awareness and teaching kids from cities, who are used to running on concrete, the importance of the environment," she said. "A lot of people hadn't had that experience before."

Students are taught to "leave no trace" in the wilderness and are discouraged from yelling out encouragements to each other during the Big Day.

"I think that the benefits of the camp on the kids outweighs the small impacts on the environment," Gordon said. "I think before (Wilderness Watch) has a valid complaint, they need to go observe the area and what we're doing."

The camp was a major factor in the South Eugene girls' cross-country team winning the state championship last year, head coach John Gillespie said.

"It's not the training," Gillespie said. "It's the camaraderie, it's the chemistry and the bonding, what you learn about yourself. It's a lot more than just running a few miles."

A former assistant men's track and field coach at the University of Oregon, Gillespie has attended the camp more than a dozen times, including the past four years with groups of South Eugene students. He compared the experience to that of Outward Bound, the adventure-based wilderness school for at-risk youth.

"You can't have that camp without the Big Day," he said. "That's the wilderness experience that makes people different, because you are able to do more than you think you can."

Cliff Volpe, a Eugene resident who has attended the camp 15 times as a student, camp assistant and now assistant director, said it's not a typical sports camp that only emphasizes training and competition.

"More than anything, this camp is about being a good person and reaching your full potential as a human being," he said.

Kids are taught to respect the land and care for the natural environment, and they learn about the ecology, biology, geology, geography and history of Steens Mountain, Volpe said.

"The philosophy of the camp is that if you have your heart in the right place, and your mind and spirit are focused and balanced, then everything else, including being a good athlete and a good steward of the earth, will fall into place," he said.

Nickas said he's heard those arguments before and they hold no sway with him.

"It's wilderness 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We don't make exceptions for incompatible activities just because they're of short duration," he said. "You can't teach the value of something, in my view, while you're violating those values at the same time. That just doesn't work."

Nonsense, Yriarte said.

"What better place to teach them about wilderness values than in the wilderness?" he said.

"The intent was to be the first cow-free, not the first kid-free, wilderness area."