 Alright, I guess we'll get going. It's six and you're all here. Those of you who didn't hear the joke earlier, Manchester Ranger District had a meeting about this. They only had two folks here up to their meeting, so we're happy to see so many people here interested in recreation on the National Forest, whether it be on Manchester or up here on Rochester or over in Middlebury or wherever. So I'd like to keep this as formally informal as possible. So we have a short little presentation that we'll go through just to kind of set the stage. And then we'll just go where the conversation takes us at that point, listen to any questions or comments or concerns you might have on the recreation site analysis. So if you don't know me, my name is Chris Matrick and I'm the District Ranger here on the Rochester and Middlebury Ranger District. I've been here since 2012. And then Holly, you want to introduce yourself? I think everybody knows you, but do it anyway. Sure, I'm Holly Knox and I'm the Forest Recreation Program Manager. As of recent, a couple of months ago, I was the Rochester and Middlebury Recreation Program Manager. So we don't have any name tags. I mean we couldn't give you name tags, but we left name tags in the closet tonight. So I think many of you know each other, but everybody probably doesn't know everybody. I'm not going to go around the room and have everybody introduce themselves, but maybe when we get to the, when we start to make comments or have questions or something, if you, before you ask your question or make your comment, maybe you could just introduce yourself. Let us know where you're from so that everybody in the room knows who you are. I think there's any more introductory things, anything else comes to mind. I'm going to say things and then Holly will correct me if I go wrong. And then if Holly's talking, I'll interject something and then that probably won't be right. So, can you think of anything else? Okay. So you're here in case you, you know, you might be in the wrong meeting. Just in case you want to be sure, we're here to talk about the Recreation Facility Strategy and the Recreation Site Analysis in particular. It's a five-year strategic plan. It is one thing that it is, it is not, and I'll probably say this a couple of times. This isn't a decision document. This is a strategy. So we can't go out tomorrow and take action on any of the things that, you know, might be in that site, that document right there, the Recreation Site Analysis document, Facility Analysis, until we do NEPA on it, the National Environmental Policy Act review, unless it's some like administrative change. But that would be handled, that wouldn't even be in there. We would handle that in the background. So some things that are contained for the north half, for the Rochester and Middlebury already have, National Environmental Policy Act clearance on it, like all the work coming out of the Robinson Project, recreational work coming out of the Robinson Project that was here in Rochester and Hancock and Stockbridge and Pittsfield, that work's already been approved. You'll see some of that work in the document. You'll see some of that work up there on the map as well. This is a strategy. It's one step to develop like a five-year plan for managing sustainable recreation resources here on the district and the forest. I'm going to try not to read the slide because you're all capable of reading that slide. You know, some of the things that we want to do is we want to use the dollars, your tax dollars as wisely as possible in maintaining the facilities and the infrastructure and recreation that matters the most to you and to the general public and look at kind of either downsizing or in some cases removing underutilized sites, sites that don't get a lot of use. That's not to say that we wouldn't add a facility or a trail or infrastructure in some location if we felt that there was a public demand for that. But we're looking to be sustainable in the long run and that's typically going to mean we're not going to build, build, build, build, build a lot of new infrastructure. But that doesn't mean that we're not going to capitalize on an opportunity to make a connection or to build some infrastructure that we feel is needed in the area that the public would benefit from. It's a balancing act. So as I said earlier, this is not a decision document. So this is just going to guide our thinking moving forward for the next five years and then the actions would require NEPA if we were going to do any ground-disturbing activity. Various levels of NEPA. It could be a quick letter to the file. It could be a full-blown environmental assessment. It's going to depend on the work that we're doing. So these documents are living and breathing. They're not static. So when you leave here tonight, it's out of date already. Once we sign the document, you know, the next day something could come up that could change our thinking about something moving forward. So we can't be stuck in the rut of, like, oh, well, we didn't put it in the rec site analysis. So no, no, no, we're going to avoid this wonderful opportunity that's before us or that we're going to say, well, no, we can't close that because we said in the rec site analysis that we would maintain it. This is a snapshot at this point in time to help us guide our thinking, not the ultimate decision that will be made. You know, this will change over time through thinking about integrated resource projects. You know, we just finished Robinson here in the towns around the office here and now we're looking at telephone gap, which is primarily in Chittenden, Killington, Menden. That will have some recreation proposals that come out of it. Hopefully those are being captured in the RSA as it exists, but that's not to say that they absolutely, everyone absolutely will be. Something could come up in 2021 as we're moving towards the NEPA analysis part of that project that might be added to the rec site analysis. We're hoping to look, if this document is going to guide us and look at the big picture, not just, I mean, I focus on the district, Holly now looks at the forest level, so hopefully it's going to see 30,000 feet and not two feet from the ground. We can, we'll use this to guide us in thinking about downsizing and decommissioning and then also in determining sustainable activities, investments, new infrastructure that we might need and the locations where we provide that infrastructure. If you have questions, you don't have to hold them until I get done. If you want to interject me, I can go on ad nauseum. You know, why do we want this? We can't afford to support a huge backlog of infrastructure maintenance. It's becoming clearer and clearer over time. Our appropriations are not what they once were. You know, the pendulum does swing from being flush to being a little tight on funding. But within the swing of that pendulum, we have to operate and we can't be way outside even the high swing, which I think at some point in the past, all of the national forests in the eastern region were riding high, build, build, build, build, build new infrastructure without any thoughts about the long-term cost of trying to maintain that infrastructure. And we have to be very cognizant of that today, given where our appropriations are at and where we envision them going. And then we want to ensure that, you know, as you, recreation partners and individuals interested in recreation come forward to us and ask us questions about infrastructure that we have and infrastructure that you might be thinking that, hey, wouldn't it be awesome to have a trail that connected X to Y or wouldn't be great to have a, you know, a new picnic ground at some location? You know, we have to have a process for that, which we do have. We also have to ensure that that's affordable and sustainable in the long run, which might mean that, you know, we try to be accommodating. We try to, we'd like to have people approach us with ideas, things that maybe we're not thinking of. But there are times that we're going to have to say, no, we're going to have to pass on that at this point in time. The strategy should help us guide, will help ensure that that's evenly balanced, that we're not willy-nilly about it, that our approach is uniform. So here's our, the steps in this process. So you're engaging tonight with us. And as I said, we've already had one on the Manchester Ranger District. And that's it, right? Holly, there's not going to be another one. Very good. There's also, you can also review it online as well. And you can make comments online or you can make comments here tonight and we'll review all those comments that you, excuse me, that you make. Come on in. There's some chairs over here. There's a pile of chairs right behind me that we can free up, free all sit in. Based on those comments, we might update some of the information in the RSA. We might update some management actions, proposed management actions. Again, remember that those proposed management actions still have to go through an environmental analysis. Just updating them in this document doesn't make it so we can go out and do it. And then we'll finalize the plan, the strategy, and then we'll look for opportunities to implement it as funding, capacity. In my capacity, I mean our staff capacity to do it and opportunity arises. We'll get to the end of five years and we'll look back on this. And I guarantee you there'll be things in there that we have not implemented even though that we said we were going to. So don't think, we would like to think that we would accomplish everything in there. We know from history that we will not. It's just the way it goes. Things come up, priorities change, appropriations change. So we do our best to follow along with that strategy. This is very similar to those of you who commented or were aware of the comprehensive trail strategy that we did a few years back. We also did a travel analysis process a few years back. This is a very similar document to those documents. Only this one's focused on recreation sites where it's a guiding document. So that comprehensive trail strategy, we've moved forward some things. We've accomplished some of those things and some of those things have changed. We've changed our mind about a couple of them. And we know that when we get to the end of five years, not all of them are going to be complete. So we want to hear from you. So this is an open house. It's also an engagement session. You can comment online at that address. The comment period runs from just like we do in our environmental analysis process. We have to have an opening and a closing. So it's February 11th. It started a few days ago. It will run through March 11th. Mail in comment cards. We do have comment cards here. We'll also take the chart notes. We'll write your notes down if you don't want to. But they're not really cards or sheets, right? Those papers are there. That's true. So you can take one of these sheets, write your comment down and give it back to us tonight. You can take it home with you, formulate your thoughts. You can drop it off here at the ranger station. You can drop it off down at the supervisor office. You can mail it back to me. And then we'll use that input to guide the final actions that are listed in the Repside Analysis Facility Strategy document. The next slide just says questions. I'm going to go back to this one to leave that WWW address up there in case anybody wants to write it down and make comments online. So that's all the formalized presentation that we have tonight. Just a couple of things. I'm going to put that map up on the screen. And I'm probably going to get up and back that map up a little bit. So that's a map. Holly, why don't you describe what's on that map? Sure. I could talk about the different things that we have. So this is a draft of the five-year strategy. So in here, all the recommendations that we would like to do at the different sites throughout the forest, not just Rochester, Middlebury, but also Manchester. What we have done to try to make it easier for people who have interest in particular areas is all the recommendations in here are what you see on the map as little comment bubbles. Both this and the maps are online. And the comment bubbles just say at each site what the proposed actions would be in the next five years. I also have some frequently asked questions, not enough for everybody. We are excited that we have a big crowd. I'm sorry, we didn't plan better for it. But we can make some copies of these. And a lot of it is just a summary of what Chris has already talked about. We also have had some questions from people. And I just want to be clear. Chris said it as well that this does not look at trails. This has developed recreation. So it's things like campgrounds. It does include trail heads, shelters, day use areas. But this analysis does not go into any sort of trail management. Holly, when you said website, this is up on the website, I saw the link where you could make comments, but I didn't see a map or anything. Do you want them to navigate? And I can show everybody where it is you're plugged in? You don't get it on the public website. I do. Remember some PDF files feeling that were linked underneath that you pulled up this particular project? We had to scroll down. And it was actually, you know what? I got the MailChimp newsletter from the Addison County bike box. Ah, okay. So that was the link that I followed that actually took me to the e-mail that probably someone would do. So, um... Oh, but it just went to an e-mail. But yes, you know, if you go to our homepage and we can just show you where it's at so people can find it. Yeah, just bear with me for a minute. I will say too, just to kind of summarize a bit what our recommendations are before people are up there. The majority of our sites have recommendations for either no action or for improving kiosk and signage. That's something that we know we want to do at a lot of different places. So that is the majority of our recommendations at this point. Where is it? Oh, it's a big... It was down at the bottom. Yeah. Under spotlight? Oh, yeah, there you go. That's too impatient. So they're right here. There's the link to make the comments to the north half map. So, questions, comments, thoughts, and help yourself to a granola bar? Also, would you like one? Yeah. I had a question that probably... You say that the force can maintain 45 of the 138 sites the region requires to be in the select operation, but then... Are you looking at the draft? You want to tell me what page you're on? Oh, let's see. I was in the summer to do the page. But then, I want to see if... But then it said you could operate them, but you couldn't maintain the same number to the regional standard. So you'd say at some point, if you can't maintain them, then you won't be able to operate them to that standard. Is that correct? It is saying that as budgets go down, we'll have to make hard decisions about where we potentially have to either reduce infrastructure or close infrastructure because we wouldn't be able to maintain to the minimum standard if I'm understanding your question. Yeah, so at some point the 45 sites that are now operated to standard would drop. Or you might reduce infrastructure. Maybe you take out a toilet. There's different ways of accounting for the funding that you may not have. I'd phrase that as could not would drop, right? I mean, because it's an unknown, right? So if appropriations change or business models in the force that has changed, we would define ourselves in that situation. I'm a tend to be a glass half-full kind of guy. So I would like to think that we've been working with colleagues for so many years. She's sort of the same way that we would look at alternative... Before moving to like we have to close, we would look for alternative ways to maintain the existing operation. Could we find a partner? Could we find a volunteer? Could we look at a different business model? Okay, but regardless, both operations and maintenance has to be done for the regional standard for that site, correct? Yes, to the extent that it's possible and that we can fund it, yes. This seems kind of strange, you know. If we haven't got money to take care of what we've got now, why are we even planning more that we won't have money for to take care of down the road? There's been instances where a lot of this stuff has ended up on local taxpayers because it's supposedly such an economic boom to the area that they have to keep it. I can't think of something that would be forest services that would end up on the road. Well, I'm not necessarily... I mean, it comes like federal taxes. You know, specifically forest services with similar setups. I just kind of wondered about that, you know. I mean, the first thing we're talking about is not enough money to take care of what we've got. And this meeting is like, you know, planning more stuff down the road. Think of the... Do you have that sheet, Molly, that has the, like... Summary of action? Yeah. I was making copies of it. I think it's over there. I'll go grab the copies. Oh, Helen's going to get something. I think what you see here, Harlan, if you look at what we're doing on the green overall in Rochester Middlebury in particular is you will see some new things. Mostly that's a tweak to an existing infrastructure. And I can just... I'll just use the... Because you live down there, down on Bingo, some of those decisions coming out of Robinson, you know, like moving the kiosk from where it was to site one and then creating another campsite to make up for the campsite that was lost. So you're ending up at the status quo to some degree, but you have a new action to get there. Yeah. So that's what you're saying. I'm not talking about, you know, things like that. I'm talking about, you know, new trails, you know, new infrastructure. Yeah, we don't have any new infrastructure projects planned on the north end at this point in time. And that's, again, back to my comment about, you know, conditions change, needs change, and we have to be able to be flexible and adapt to those. But at this point in time, you know, we're not planning on building another campground somewhere or, you know, putting in a new shelter on the... a new shelter on the long trail. We're looking to replace the shelter on the long trail but not adding another shelter on the long trail and having the Forest Service have to take on the burden of managing and maintaining that. We do have partner organizations that have needs and desires and we work with them if we feel that that organization is sustainable and supports an activity. You know, one example would be the hut that's at the Chippendenburg campground. That is not a Forest Service facility. That's owned and operated by Verlach Hutz Association. That's a great public benefit, you know, and people get to experience the National Forest by going there. But we have no responsibility for the maintenance or care or upkeep of that facility. So that's kind of a win-win. Providing the property that is on it. Correct. Which was an existing campsite which we didn't have to do anything to. You get a cut of any of the fees? They pay a special use permit fee that goes back into the Treasury. That type of permit, the way it's structured, it goes back into the U.S. Treasury. It doesn't come directly to the forest. Some other permits could come directly to the forest but just to do the structure of that type of permit doesn't come directly to us. So this is what Holly just brought back in. This sheet right here, I don't know, there's not enough for everybody but if everybody wants one, we can make enough for everybody. More copies are coming out. Just kind of look across the top. This is what's contained in the rec site analysis for the Rochester Middlebury District. So it's, you know, improving accessibility, shelter, lean-to modifications, no change to the site. You can read it all across the top. It's broken out into categories. So if you're interested in one aspect or another, you can dive right into that or focus on that. Mark? Chris, yeah, this is good because this, when I was trying to read what was in the document, it wasn't real clear all the time about what was happening. Even the rec site analysis wasn't perfectly clear. So there's column near right development, seat partner, volunteer, music support for two trailheads. The Battelle and then the Cooley Gland, Emily Popter. What type of... So for trailheads, just to give an example, what type of support of partnership would you be looking for there? Because it's not like there's a king crowns or, you know, a toilet or anything like that. There might be a toilet there. I don't remember for sure. What you're looking for is an example. A trailhead support. Sometimes it's even just the presence of people who are there in helping to pick up trash and helping to be around that area because maybe people are coming and expanding, camping where they shouldn't be camping and just helping to make sure that if that's happening, they're dragging in brush and stopping people from doing things that they shouldn't do. Okay, so just like periodically visiting or something like that. And then if I remember correctly, the forest road, they'll go back to Cooley Gland and Emily Popter is in pretty bad shape. Are you guys going to do anything about that? It's a town road. It's a Lincoln road all the way right up to the parking lot. We have been talking with the town of Lincoln. They have some moderate interest in giving up that road. They're contemplating it. So if they were to do that, we would pick it up and we would do some maintenance to it. We may also, we have the ability, not this year, but we also have the ability to put some funding in what's called a roads agreement with the town where we can redirect some federal funds to make some care of town roads and access federal land or county roads or state roads, which we could do, but we were kind of holding off on that hoping that the town will make up its mind what they want to do with that road first. Okay, thank you. Yes, and it is in quite bad shape. Yes. Chris, under the proposed fees, you've only identified three areas of potentially adding a $5 a day or a $20 annual pass. I'm interested in how is it that you came to the conclusion of only identifying those three sites versus some other potential hotspots on the district that might also afford some income to speak and come back to that site to help maintain it. So we were trying to balance not wanting to have all of our sites be fee sites, our neighbors to the east and the west and they put in a lot of fees and they pulled back on some fees and we were looking at places where we have made significant investments or are proposing to make significant investments. Lefferts with the fishing pier, parking lot design, Warren Falls with some investments that we have done very recently as an observation area in the new parking lot and Robert Frost improvements that we made last year and are looking to make forward. Got any questions? And also trying to spread them throughout the forest. We didn't want to have Warren Falls and Blueberry Lake both have a fee when they're in the same town. So what happens if you don't get the fishing pier or the parking lot? Use Lefferts. Got to identify two things that have been works and obviously the funding issues. Right. They hurt them for a lot of things. Without those kinds of prohibitions, does that mean that you wouldn't implement the day you speak there? No, maybe they could help. Maybe that could help in prohibition. Yeah, those two things that wouldn't be required elements for us to charge a fee there. And others, Holly may have said that because I was transitioning over to my computer this one last thing. And other sites that we didn't include were sites where like Texas Falls is a good example, did you say this already? Where the stay time is so short for most people who visit there, they park at the observation site, they get out, they walk across the bridge, they look at the waterfall and then they leave. We felt that a site like that maybe wasn't the best place to put a fee in place. What about Silver Lake? People got hiked in there. Silver Lake has a campground fee on it already. You get a lot of day use there. Do get a lot of day use there. We talked about Silver Lake. We talked about a lot of sites. And I don't remember the specific rationale at this point for Silver Lake, but that is one that we decided not to charge a fee and if one of the reasons it comes to mind is that if someone leaves their car and they walk all the way up there, they see a fee tube, they don't have any money with them anyways that they're really going to turn around and go back down. Compliance might be there. Then you'd be charging a fee for parking at Falls of Lana and not day use at Silver Lake. Falls of Lana doesn't meet any of the criteria to charge a fee at. Silver Lake would be a good one, in my opinion, from an income perspective to everybody who went there paid, but it would be a little challenging from a compliance perspective. In my opinion. In the context of the overall analysis, there has been discussion in the press and elsewhere recently about the Adirondacks, a number of people there, a number of people trying to park a number of people on the trail. Some of the state parks in Vermont they're talking about that. Is that a problem in any place within the domain you folks are responsible for? Parking concerns? Just getting towards too many people, reaching capacity, getting to the point. I'm curious about this because I'm seeing it in various areas. It's a point of interest. I would think it might possibly affect you. I'm curious as to whether it does. I would say there are definitely sites that on given days are exceeding their capacity. Warren Falls is a great example. On a hot July day, it exceeds capacity. You see the spillover into out of the parking lot onto the road. A great day at Brana Gap might exceed capacity, but I think that on a sustained basis we don't see a lot of our sites overflowing capacity. And there are some sites that overflow with parking capacity. Parking capacity is one thing. That's an infrastructure issue. Like site capacity, carrying capacity of the site, that's a different issue. So like Leferts is one as a good example. We are not exceeding the site capacity there, but on a warm summer day I know we're exceeding the parking capacity. So we would look to address more appropriate for what we feel would be the site capacity. And the other place that comes to mind is Falls of Lana. That parking area on Route 53. On a nice sunny day in the summer that is over spilling. People go down to park in a brand barrier and then hiking up. That's another place that we're a little pinched on parking there, but we're talking about maybe getting 10 extra spaces in there somehow to try to get more space. And there is a category where we're trying to expand parking in some of those sites. Falls of Lana is captured as it's called Silver Lake South. So what I'm not hearing, for instance, is actual hitting the limitation of number of people on trails or whatever, but access in general sometimes tends to overflow. There are sites we eyeball. Dear Leap is one where we sometimes worry about capacity of Dear Leap of people, number of people going up there, number of people on the trail, not so much on the trail, but people at the top. Warren Falls is certainly a site that we keep an eye on from a carrying capacity perspective. I mean, I don't know how many of you have frequented Warren Falls, but on a warm summer day you can barely find a place to sit down and you better watch above because someone will be jumping off the rocks above you into the water. So parking there is a good thing. We put the parking in, we designed it for what we thought would be an appropriate capacity but spillover and parking on the street which is beyond our control is what's causing it to be over capacity on certain days. Well, you know, when you promote all this stuff in order to bring the people in you can only expect that they're going to come especially with what we've got. For instance, going up to a dog you know, in the falls. I mean, it was a problem before but now we've got a big wooden it just sucks people right in there now so you get a hot day during the summer you've got traffic up and down the road and that's not a good place to have people parking on the side of the road. Oh, Greville Gulf? I see the same thing happening on Brandon Gap. I mean, on a good day, that parking lot is full and people are parked up and down the road. You know, we're creating these future problems and you know, we've got to start putting the brakes on here someplace, you know. Come on, somebody. I see this happening but I don't know whether this is even under your preview. I live in Pittsfield and I travel River Road in Killington where they put the trail head walk through there. We've got during falls? Yeah, that's us. Okay. I go down that road almost every day and the things that I've seen I can't believe. Buses? There's only parking spaces there which is fine. I have seen fistfights there I've seen people throwing bottles I've seen people fall off that little bridge it's really strange and I've seen people who work in the area stop the car and said because nobody would move the whole road was blocked for a long time and I saw, I knew who she was she got out of the car she screamed at these people and said you know, some of us have to go to work and it was getting very uncomfortable and it was like violence was coming so that's something I see. I've heard that that's the first I've heard about that there. I've definitely seen when vehicles can get backed up and I have seen larger vehicles who have tried to park there I haven't seen the violence I mean I know Bersani but it was like they were so agitated yeah they were so agitated it was it was between somebody who was local and I looked around and there was not a car there from Vermont but I think that day I was parked over 20 cars that I saw there and parked on both sides of the road and this person who was being held up he could not get to work really mad I've noticed that's a sight that we don't have right now any plans to change parking there would be a little bit of a challenge even the parking was there and it was kind of squeezed in and recently expanded because it's such a narrow spot where they're right where the Appalachian Trail crosses that road but it's also a day use destination short hike and it is I mean you're right it's advertised it's the only universal accessible portion of the Appalachian Trail in Vermont so it's something that I think a lot of businesses and the town itself are pointing people to go visit the local newspaper is pointing people there you know it's like the same I used to walk on a dam in Kenton and I would never go over there the drug use is strong there's no quiet it's boomboxes everywhere and it's getting very dirty dog dogs mostly dogs I've had people have you know I've had dogs come at me from the people who are parking it's not a place like do you have thoughts on something you would like to see done there differently if I still ran the newspaper I would stop advertising it I think that's the problem I mean you start putting a big neon sign up saying hey check this out they do and you're getting the whole crosscut I would hope that this stop advertising might be a great help although much of that is not in the power of these folks it's more the model the state has picked up heads and beds, tourists what's the rationale for adding a lean to a Chittendenbrook campfire yeah so that's something that was actually already approved to the Robinson decision and when we did that it was the fact that we have had a really hard time attracting hosts there hosts who do come tend to be people who are camping for the entire six month period and so they tend to leave early so we were trying to find some sort of amenity that we could provide that might make it more comfortable for the host to store things in that aren't getting wet the other one is the Sunrise Shelter Campground is there an actual campground at Sunrise Shelter yeah so all of our shelters are technically considered campgrounds in our database of record so that's the name that's in there but it's Sunrise Shelter I think I asked the same question I saw it on the map is there a campground? I've never seen that yeah it's just the name of it the name of the line so is there any news on the bike trail coming into Big O Road? that portion of the bike trail is not funded currently another question the proposed logging out there is any of that logging being done to facilitate any kind of trails are there any connections so I'll say that I'll say no, logging is not being planned to facilitate trails subsequent to the logging when funding is when funding comes along for that trail it's not to say that the trail might not follow an old skid trail or something like that I just don't want to give you the impression of something now Harlan but nothing is being planned like oh we need to cut this tree and clear this area so we can put a trail in here later to like hook from Big O Road to West Hill it's not only going to be logging it's just kind of curious I've got thinking about it well the Velomut sections that were approved as part of the Robinson project do connect Big O to West Hill and over to Chittenden Brook coming in from here working its way across so yes I mean there is a connection there and that was approved in the mountains down by the cemetery down by Flanders Hill Road where does it go from there going to go I was going to see there is no map currently up on the wall of it the one map is not up on the wall is that map I believe it's going to go anywhere do you have you could probably pull it up I can go find the map Harlan why don't you guys move on if there's another quest or something let me go find that map so I can address and I will say as far as developer creation at bingo the decisions that were approved in Robinson were to add two new campsites where there were old sites and that's because we had site 3 that was closed a few years ago and then taking over site 1 so we're not looking to expand the number of sites just replace 2 that have been closed and then improving some parking that's been done I believe well that has been done for the new where site 1 became kind of the entrance to the campground where the kiosk is going to be put in this year improving the parking at site 6 and site 2 has not been done one of the camp areas so that just entails like a pull off or something like that say that again just entails like a pull off or something like that just making it larger for like courses we're going to have like a vehicle in there an RV wanted to park in there so there was at least a site where you could have an RV not with hookups or anything large enough for parking they're doing a loop is that correct that site 1 can't go on nope it's just a rectangle square for a parking lot that's good very good nice got me all distracted I found the map and I was looking at the map and I was walking down the hallway and I walked right past the doorway here and right into a dark hallway and I just kept going and it wasn't until I couldn't see the map anymore that I realized that I just kept walking I knew that so here's where you're talking about this yellow right here is that trail coming into that parking area so this is where it would go coming out right across kind of slabbing across the hill connecting to the end of what is that 113-114 up on off West Hill what road is that please the name is off where it ends yeah that's near what's the more known name but there's another one like three letters maybe I'll make I'm making that up are there questions or feedback about the site if you haven't seen one of these if you have one in front of you that you're not looking at do that too don't it's coming up in that area not on that road but in that area yeah so we talked a bit earlier it's a five year strategy so it's not right now a decision that's implementing any of these actions a lot of it is not contractor like excavator type work but yes when we do it it's the same process that we need to be abused for all of our projects they put it to agreements with partners anything that we have a final decision to move forward so if you look at one of these I think it will help because you can see that things like improving a key essence appearance contracting that out things like making shelter changes or modifications if we were building new shelters or if we're putting in toilets also at shelters a lot of those are done with green mountain clubs so through their agreement parking lot designs would be things that would be contracted out correct how do you prioritize there's a lot on this list how do you prioritize yes that's kind of the wizardry what this document does is we have somebody who works out in the Washington office he's a data analyst and when he takes all the different figures that we have provided whether it's use and occupancy of a site the cost of things and it helps us prioritize what sites we should focus on first so this is actually done it comes up with a score and I honestly don't know the wizardry of how it comes up with that score but a lot of the data that feeds into it and this is prioritized and so how do you calculate use for falls upon solar I mean other than campgrounds you know occupancy there but how many days how do you calculate that so a mixture of looking at our national visitor use monitoring and seeing how people are using different sites observations of our field going personnel and it's something that has been recorded we didn't just come up with the numbers for this process it has been recorded into our database of record so over time and it's adjusted and sometimes we look at the same pair of different sites if we've added amenities and people are using it more then we'll adjust it so these use figures are based on the last survey that was done a few years ago that's part of the data that helps us determine and we had our survey coming up a year ago it's happening as we speak in 2005, 10, 15 and 20 we have started in October now given that prioritization so there are other things that come into play I mean the system turns out the prioritization based on the stats right through the background without the human factor the human factor comes into play where you know we have a partner organization that you know really wants this to move forward and can help us facilitate something in there earlier than it would normally be prioritized is there a funding opportunity at either externally or internally that we can get a hold of and then help us click something forward the number one priority even if it's the number 25 priority so you know those opportunities being opportunistic about it I understand it's not funded and that they don't know what is really in charge of like trail survey so I'm not sure exactly how to how to bring to mind or you know disclose and like there's flowdown or like trees falling on different trails like there's just like a dropbox at the bottom at the base here and just be like hey like big tree down around this area of the trail but I know people run snowmobiles up and down so it'd be neat if they could connect the trail somehow out to Hancock and have like Hancock for Rochester I know that's kind of wishful thinking and kind of singular in my experience but if that were to be done and you know even open it up to like Nordic skiing or snowshoeing then just kind of have like something to you know people can stay in the valley but still recreate and such as soon as I ride most every day and the wintertime the trail becomes impossible because packing it it isn't much of a possibility but something like someone who was like you know year round hard time full time just like trail survey you know go without possibly a couple of times a week and then you know when he has to break out a chainsaw or she has to break out a chainsaw they could and then the wintertime room trails wishful thinking but it would also be it would be fun in the summertime and it might attract people that are over at Ryker or you know staying somewhere you know but that's just that's really all sure I can address a couple of things in there and you can jump in if I miss any of the points so I think one we are looking at how it is known as the Vellamont we work with Angus a lot I'm trying to look for opportunities to expand including up into Hancock so that's being explored we do have a partner a lot of our trails are adopted by partners almost all of them so we really rely heavily on partners for helping us with that maintenance but trails are either in the Forest Service summer trails or winter trails so the trail that you're talking about is actually a summer use trail so it's not maintained in the winter but you're welcome to report blowdowns to us we if we have staff we do have field going staff too who if they have time to get to a blowdown they will get to it not necessarily on a summer trail in the winter and we'll look to partners to help us we have people who are chainsaw certified so I would encourage you to volunteer with a local partner organization how's that? I move the stones when I can and you know talk to trees here and there and you're always free to see if you notice something if you're out and about on a bike or a foot or whatever you notice something you're always looking to pop it on the ranger station or even just stick a note on the door if we're closed we'll blowdown on this trail and we'll either get it ourselves or we'll reach out to one of our partners to try to take care of it the other thing that you missed is there once was a trail that went from here north into Hancock a winter trail and because it crosses all private land mostly private land we had one landowner who didn't want the trail on the property any longer and that broke the whole connection and it's been dead for how long? 3 or 4 years I don't think it ever was I've been here since 2012 and it's never been open since then there also used to be a trail up high that connected into Hancock across from Texas Falls but that washed out in numerous floods and is not coming back what was the guy's problem then? just didn't want the snowmobiles you guys probably know more about the history there of private land oh that one the salt and snowmobiles are killing them damaging vegetation I will know so I'm certified James operator and I do maintenance on Oak Ridge and around Silver Lake and the point about knowing where the stuff is I've got to almost use metal telepathy to know whether the stuff needs to be worked on so me and some of the other guys from Littlebury sometimes go up there but it really would be nice to have some sort of reporting that works for everybody minimal effort so we are actually looking into that and I don't want to go too down the rabbit hole of trails tonight and I know when I saw that everybody's going to want to talk about trails but I will say that one of the things that we have been looking at is an opportunity that the state has they use apps where anybody who has a smart phone can use an app and report where different things are sometimes it's just hard in the federal government with our systems they don't talk to public apps or websites as well so I think we are looking at different ways to make that more efficient because I agree we have a board back here that blowdowns get reported to us all the time and it's often somewhere in the middle of an 8 mile trail that you have to try to find that blowdown so I can appreciate that for sure and we are also open to suggestions people who are much smarter at apps and GIS types Trail Forks works really well you can take a picture which end of the trail that it's on I didn't know that it's often just not reported to us that way Trail Forks I will say one of the other things that you mentioned was register sheets or something that becomes honestly a maintenance nightmare a lot of places we do have a few register boxes out there they are staffed by volunteers for the most part they pick up the sheets for us a lot of the times but we had more boxes at one point and have gone away from that in consideration of this room there's one group that hasn't really spoken up yet and that's a wildlife and it's a concern of mine as I watch what we are calling progress in our agreement maybe we should be giving them phones with apps so that they can report in too I don't know but it seems like we've walked away a bit from the wildlife issue you can get through the woods about five weeks that's not a long trip with any trail especially community that's kind of why you set aside more of this area so you can go and appreciate you know the log it definitely helps the animals to survive it seems to definitely notice a bump in such a dear population gross populations sun bird populations after we do a harvest five to ten years after we do a harvest wait a couple oh yeah there's an immediate reaction for some species sun birds it takes a little bit longer a couple more years for them to get to grow up a little bit but then they like those edge areas a lot so in Grandville we go up to the Bull Nail Hill and we go up to Bull Nail Hill and then we go over the saddle do you chip a lot on your logging operations or do you just like to lay down it's a mix no I couldn't tell you what the exact we don't it depends on what the outcome is you know sometimes they'll take the the tops that they drag back to the landing and then chip them there chip them into the van if we're doing a clear cut that's being converted into a permanent opening that would be a chip operation probably going to try to take everything to convert it to that permanent opening we don't do a whole heck of a lot of that we have a lot of openings existing but when we do our analysis we determine that we're able to do a permanent opening it's part of Upper White River up on Patterson Brook Road and along the Upper White River Road there are 55-101 we'll see some newly created clear cuts in that there are going to be permanent openings is that just the clear cuts that you're going to chip what's that we don't always chip clear cuts it depends on what the ultimate outcome is they're going to be taking out whole trees are they going to be leaving tops in the woods or they'll leave tops in the woods it depends on what the mitigation for that particular unit is so if it's the soil is shallow to bedrock they'll typically leave the tops in place some of the tops most of the time some portion of the top is coming out attached to the tree sometimes they drag it back in sometimes they chip it on the landing yeah they chip that whole first unit it's just a conversion they're following a two-tracked trailer loads a day I didn't know if it was part of the wildlife you see come back supporting the deer population it's through non-chipping that doesn't seem to have any bearing on it it's just the open ground and that flush of new growth that comes up that pulls deer in an unrelated recreation unrelated to recreation any other thoughts about things that you are seeing back to the recreation analysis hunting's recreation now it didn't warm up hunting would be recreation yeah it just seems like a lot of hunting territory is getting chopped up for a trail for this trail for that we don't need a trail for everything you know people if they want to get up the woods they can't all they got to do is walk and at some point we're going to run out of places to put trails to this is a hang of my cut here we've dropped us and I've been part of the effort of some of the trails I just wanted to applaud their fortunes when they look at new trail users at the same time they're also looking at you know overall trails, many new trails everywhere, just between new trails a big fan trail for the same time I feel like you need to look at if my personal perspective you know big picture wildlife and all that stuff you can't put trails in there coming up something I think before with the job of guiding you know user kind of adapting time they're always changing users are always changing I think with a very strategic for them to try to work with those changes just because they're perfect you know a lot of people out there and a lot of people want to get out in the woods have that experience I think that's important for people where they can't how do you manage that use how the forestry of mental use and how you thought yeah it's a balance and they're losing yeah it seems kind of somebody comes up with a new idea oh great let's do that and it's brand and gap I mean you have 50 cars in there on the weekend you got all those people out there skiing I don't know I don't see any outhouses by the parking area I just don't see how having if you've got 50 cars you've probably got a hundred people at least and that amount of people in an area I don't care if it's just for two hours what does that do to the wildlife you know I mean I agree you know there's yeah those people already ski everywhere out there everywhere else yeah and there's some big 2-2 coming up what the 29th up there I mean they got some big national so we are we are monitoring for wildlife there we've been doing a couple of year studies to make sure that we are not causing undue impacts to wildlife before we consider the possibility of having anymore backcountry skiing but I do want to bring the focus back to here and less about a debate on things that are not what this meeting is about tonight I'm just using that for an example I'm not trying to but I do really want to hear from people if there's other concerns about more feedback on what we have in front of us that's what I'm trying to do Harlan you're talking about trails and this topic isn't about trails the future no it's not about future trails this is about recreation sites like camp grabs, trailheads Brandon that's not a recreation site that one actually is that trail that is that's the new problem what's your details do you have those plans on your computer no I could probably find them we do have plans that have been designed for a while you've seen the large bridge that was just one piece of that project that was implemented so that's accessible but there's a trail that has been designed like it's from the parking lot where the first parking lot with the toilet to that bridge and then on the other side having a little bit of an accessible overlook so it's increasing accessibility to connect to that bridge instead of having to go right down the road and that was supposed to be a temporary fence but there are concerns with it being right next to the road and it exceeds grades for accessibility he's showing you the designs actually if you look up on the screen engineering design right so this is the bridge that's there I believe right here so you can see that there was supposed to be a cross there was supposed to it sort of mimicked the old design that was there the older design but it would be improved so there would be a little overlook just below the bridge there's the trail that I was talking about on this side so right now you walk down the road light it up if it was supposed to come down there's a little promontory if you're familiar with the site the solar rock promontory that sticks out and then come back around so you wouldn't have this road walk you can see that so how are you just kind of formalizing what a lot of people do anyway when I go there I kind of follow that little path down to that promontory but you can't get right now you can't get from here to the bridge without walking up on the road oh that's right you can wander around down here to a point but then you have to come back out this is the existing path that's there we're going more and more to composite but we'd have to be all spec'd out we'd be in the bid pack I would guess it would be whatever's on the Texas Falls bridge and it would be all accessible too may I ask if it's a similar treatment to what just happened at the rock across trail you just drove it yeah it looks wonderful good thank you love it yes it would be very similar and that is part of this too is looking to expand accessibility on the south side of the south ranch in the area at rock across you know we have several higher dollar projects that are in here they're not new they're improvements to existing so it's new in that way it looks new but it's not a new site so Texas Falls but we have our plans for kind of lefers for parking lot expansion and then Robert Frost those are the three big dollar ones right I'm missing one am I right now we're trying to address Robert Frost you know we're putting our eggs in a basket of Robert Frost at the moment it's not to say that annually we don't submit a request to our regional office for funding for lefers bond funding for Texas Falls on the chance that some pot of money will come available and it'll you know one of the analysts down at the Washington office the regional office will go wow this really fits this you know priority that we have and we have money for at this point it's happened to Robert Frost but it hasn't happened at the other two locations so but we continue to seek funding in all three of those sites I would say the large ticket item is part of our commitment to trying to improve accessibility at different sites and I think you look at across the state of Vermont a lot of limited opportunities for recreation accessibility may I ask if part of the applications for those two sites that have not been funded yet ever include the fact that they are in depressed areas within central Vermont and that it would be beneficial to be able to have something that attracts people to those village centers the internal process that we submit to the capital investment process it does not account for local economics we're not even to say how beneficial external processes yes we're even going to local funding sources because I notice that the Hancock businesses are in distress no there's more than 30 seconds of silence they'll call the meeting it to be adjourned other thoughts other thoughts I'd like to bring one thing up I think to sound like a bad person but you folks we're talking about recreation sites you have a recreation site on Route 100 I told you about it before the actual shooting the server intro what on Route 100 by Spring Hill it is an actual shooting range I went through a shooting range safety course the first thing they told us was the legal stuff most people will swear oh no we don't have a shooting range you can't go that way you actually have a shooting range it looks like a duck quacks like a duck it is a duck the same shooting range if you have concentrated shooting you can't say that it's not a shooting range it's an actual shooting range and it is very dangerous you're also building up lead in the soil it is now hazardous waste sites that's legally determined by the EPA and they don't allow it to slack in order to deal with that you've got to do some recycling and you also have to get rid of the danger that is extremely dangerous to the Green Mountain Golf Course Green Mountain Golf Course plus Route 100 and a lot of houses down there are directly in line with the trajectory killing zone and I went in there I've been taking photographs the last couple of years of those trees back there one of them has now been sawed down by bullets this is a live tree the others are getting more and more bullets all the time and there's nothing but blue sky behind these trees where the golf course is down the other side you've got to do something about it I'm a gun rights guy I'm telling you this is too much danger and it has to be dealt with you cannot walk away from this EPA for one thing will go and shut it right down and then they're going to make you guys clean up the left because they have no sense of humor especially with lead and there's a spring right next to it underneath it that people get water out of but the worst part is that somebody will eventually die that's what they taught us and you have a very dangerous range there's only one death they only kill one person and then they get shut down flat it's unfortunate the state had one like that and unfortunately I had to bring it out but they did the proper mitigation to get that place safe and I had to screen the alpha while we get that done too so it was no excuse you can swear it's not a range legally it was a shooting range nobody else got anything to say I'll run my mouth about more time I think maybe we ought to think about instead of expanding things taking care of the things that we have to the best of our ability well I would put forth that we're doing our trails and I'm not a snowmobiler but I was out on a snowmobile today on some trails of the National Forest and looking at the work that we're doing at Robert Frost and the improvements that we made at Texas Falls and other places that we do a pretty good job of taking care of what we have we don't hear a lot of complaints from trailer users about you know under managed trails we opened the meeting tonight with the forecast that we're running out of money to take care of stuff I don't think I said that when I introduced we have to think about sustainability moving forward exactly that's what I'm... you just said that maybe we ought to focus on taking care of what we have I'm just saying that I think we do given the resources that we have we do a pretty good job of taking care of what we have I'm not aware of anything on my district anyways that I would consider an imminent hazard to be poorly managed I'm talking about the future just going by what was said at the beginning of the meeting that we're running out of money I hope when you do look at this that you see the majority of this proposal is taking care of what we have it's making improvements where it's looking at things that are starting to fall into that state of disrepair and just kind of a recognition and prioritization of how do we focus our dollars on what we do have so that's a lot of what this process was was looking at what's out there and what needs updated, replaced, repaired I don't get you to say this is all you given the area that you're covering it's minimized giving the area you've got a big area with whatever you've got on it it's a very small list really it is a lot of it really is what some people might think it was just kind of needed maintenance yes I don't want you to just see the length of this list and think it's all new a lot of it's done to volunteer partners bring a lot of volunteer labor, cash match absolutely we cannot thank our partners of course the rooms would be quiet for a while it's been in that hat now for 10 minutes it's ready to go you think I'm going to dismiss in any minute every time I'm about to oh so many sets final thoughts there you go over thank you all very much