We are Granite Backcountry Alliance, a nonprofit established in 2016 and based in North Conway, New Hampshire. We promote backcountry skiing through glade development, volunteer stewardship, and Ski Kind, which encourages responsible recreation and respect for others and the land. In 2017, we partnered with the U.S. Forest Service to establish approved backcountry glading at Maple Villa in Intervale and Baldface Mountain in Chatham, New Hampshire, creating a new approved use in the White Mountain National Forest.
We also maintain four classic ski trails cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s: the John Sherburne and Gulf of Slides ski trails in Pinkham Notch, and the Doublehead and Black Mountain ski trails in Jackson. These commitments connect generations of skiers through hands-on care of public lands. Our volunteers maintain routes, but the surrounding forest provides the setting that makes the experience worth returning to. If subsequent management decisions diminish that setting, they could reduce the recreational and community value our work sustains, even where trails remain open.
Our network of tens of thousands of supporters, members, and volunteers also create economic stimuli to the communities surrounding these natural areas by supporting various local businesses in the regions in which we work.
We urge USDA and the Forest Service to retain the 2001 Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Our experience shows how forest stewardship and thoughtfully managed recreation can work together. Keeping roadless protections would help preserve the broader landscape supporting that relationship. Please give weight to the volunteer investment, recreation heritage, and local economic activity these forests already sustain when considering whether to remove those protections.