I emphatically oppose the attempt to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule for wilderness areas. I write on behalf of the over 4 million acres of Roadless Rule wilderness protected areas in California. Specifically, I oppose the rescission of the Roadless Rule in two areas: (1) the Ventana Wilderness and Los Padres National Forest in Monterey County, California, and (2) the Inventoried Roadless Areas surrounding and buffering the Desolation Wilderness in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. First, the Ventana Wilderness and the Los Padres National Forest should remain Roadless Areas. These areas of wilderness contain the headwaters of Santa Lucia Creek and the Carmel River. These watershed areas provide critical habitat to endangered and threatened species, as well as providing local water supplies for human use. In addition, peer-reviewed studies have shown that fire ignitions increase four-fold near roads transitting forested areas, versus ignitions in those wilderness areas which are not crisscrossed by roads. The Roadless Rule should be preserved to ensure that the Ventana Wilderness and the Los Padres National Forest's irreplaceable watershed resources are not damaged, endangered and threatened species' habitat is protected, and wildfire ignition risk is mitigated. The second set of Roadless Rule areas that are particularly important to me are the Roadless Areas that abut the Desolation Wilderness in the El Dorado National Forest and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the U.S.D.A. as follows: the Pyramid Inventoried Roadless Area, the Upper Truckee/ Dardanelles Inventoried Roadless Area, and the Caples Creek Inventoried Roadless Area. The Desolation Wilderness and its surrounding Inventoried Roadless Areas represent an exquisite national treasure. I live in the Lake Tahoe Basin and I hike the Desolation Wilderness and its surrounding Roadless Areas. These three Inventoried Roadless Areas protect pristine alpine streams, lakes, and old growth forests. They preserve contiguous high elevation, back country ecosystems in non-motorized terrain. Watersheds in the Desolation Wilderness and its surrounding Inventoried Roadless Areas drain directly into Lake Tahoe, whose water clarity is world-famous. But Lake Tahoe's water clarity is under threat from the soil erosion, watershed damage, and other ecological insults that would result from the insertion of roads into the Inventoried Roadless Areas surrounding the Desolation Wilderness in the El Dorado National Forest, and within the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. I entreat you not to rescind the 2001 Roadless Rule! Instead, maintain the Roadless Rule in effect to protect our irreplaceable wilderness heritage for generations to come. In addition, to more permanently protect our precious national wilderness, I strongly urge the United States legislature to codify the 2001 Roadless Rule into law, by passing the Roadless Area Conservation Act of 2025 (H.R. 3930). I want my children and my children's children to experience what John Muir meant when he wrote of the trackless wilderness: "The mountains are calling and I must go".