Bunny Flat Winter Access in Serious Jeopardy

I sent the above supes a note explaining that I go to Shasta a couple times a year and spend money there from out of town. And that I won’t if that road isn’t open.

That would really suck. I just sent a similar letter.

Thanks Andy, this is too important to not spread the word. Maybe we should ask those supes why they are funding a campaign to fight the Klamath dam removal project?? So far $.5M of public funds wasted by an unnecessary lawsuit over an issue that the public supports…The county budget to plow the road is 125 grand, a drop in the bucket compared to the economic benefit that it brings to Siskiyou County, not to mention the reason many of us chose to live and visit here…

And btw, freshies today, powder riding in late June!

letter written, thanks for raising the issue, Shasta.

@shasta wrote:

Thanks for the emails, keep them coming. :clap:

Schralph I’m sure many like yourself only spend $ in Mt. Shasta City while visiting the mountain but those dollars benefit the county several times over. Between sales tax, hotel tax, keeping shops open (who doesn’t hit the Goat for a bubbly refreshment :guinness: after a climb), Shasta G hiring guides who live and spend $ here…the ripple effect from Everitt Memorial is huge and the powers that be will only know that if they get a pile of letters.

Yeah apart from the economic effects, I mentioned that the county defunding access via the road is like Mariposa county defunding access to Yosemite. Mount Shasta is the single most iconic figure in Siskiyou County and limiting access would be stupid and disastrous. NFS climbing records can determine the minimum number of tourists that would be affected by this proposal … why hasn’t someone asked to look at their records yet to even get an idea of what is on the table here?

I already got a response from one of the county supes this morning. According to him the issue is linked to re-approval of SRS, which I’m not sure I agree with. However, he did ask me to bitch to Jerry Brown’s office about their proposal to remove plows from Caltrans inventory, which sounds like complete nonsense to me.

@shasta wrote:

Any response is good, even if its dipped in B.S.: CalTrans only plows the highways (I5, 89…) as far as I know. SRS is a funding issue but the bigger problem is, as Shasta G observed, the funds spent on litigation to preserve ancient dams that provide no real benefit to the county.

15,000 average # of summit bids a year. The number does not include day trips where no summit pass is purchased. I’m sure I’m alone on this but there are a few outlaws who end up above 10k on a day trip without purchasing a pass :thumpsup:

Thanks again for the support. Good to hear you hit up Brewer I was tempted that weekend but the warm temps sent me to the lake instead.

The supe mentioned that Jerry Brown is asking Caltrans to defund plowing – don’t know if that is for specific regions or not or statewide. I asked him to forward me more specific information so that I could follow up with my state senate and assembly reps (Sen. Hancock and Assy. Swanson).

As far as # of summit bids, they can see from Nov through mid-July exactly how many are launching from Bunny or the ski resort and take that as a bare minimum number and inflate it by a multiplier (let’s say 1.5) to estimate day trippers. It’s not that hard to take 1 day and send an intern down with MS Excel to go through the records and come up with an estimate.

Temps were warm on 6/16-18 and riding was decent, not epic, not bad. Such an easy fast walk to get to snow, and such a straight shot up the mountain, from Brewer. So much more direct than Avy Gulch or West Face!

via twitter:

Chris Carr‏@shastaguides:
County Supes approved budget authority for plowing the Everett and Castle Lake access roads. Big ups for human powered recreation!