October 6, 2026
Dear Forest Service,
Please do not repeal the roadless rule! A week and a half ago my son-in-law asked me if I would go deer hunting with him in the Manti-La Sal National Forest. Yes, we did use the National Forest road to take our camper up to the Manti Community Campground and from there we did use the National Forest roads to travel each day to get to our hunting areas. I do use and appreciate having some roads into the National Forest, even though some of the roads we used during the hunt were in terrible condition. We hit a rock so hard that I felt my back pop all of the way up to my neck. The Forest Service is already stretched so thin that you cannot maintain the roads that are already built-so please don't build any more. I like to hunt as far away from the main roads as possible. I spend hours looking at maps trying to find the remotest roadless areas I can find to hunt in. I hike or take horsed to get to these areas to hunt and fish. On this hunt we drove to the end of the road and hiked. Of course that means a lot of hard work to get a deer or an elk back to the road and to your vehicle if you are lucky enough to shoot one. However, I believe my chances of having hunting success go up the farther I am from a road. The road in the Manti-La Sal National Forest where my Father-in-law liked to hunt was closed by the Forest Service and I commend you people for that and would like to see more roads actually closed in our National Forests. Please CLOSE ROADS, don't build more roads.
These forests are "National Forests," and so the nations public should have a say in how the government manages OUR forests and the majority of the "public" have again and again said they support the roadless rule. I have always lived a short distance from a National Forest and I love these beautiful lands to hike and hunt and fish and camp. I also had a job for over thirty years as a River Commissioner where I distributed the waters from the Uinta and Whiterocks Rivers to the water users along both of these rivers. These two rivers both originate in the Ashley National Forest in Utah's Uinta Mountain Range. I have spent many hours hiking, riding mountain bikes, skiing, snowshoeing, and riding horses for my job to get to reservoirs high up in the mountains. There are nine reservoirs owned by different irrigation companies. Of these nine reservoirs, only three of them had roads that you could drive to them. Even though it took eighteen miles of rough trail to access the farthest reservoir, I wouldn't want to see a road made to it. Roads DO NOT belong everywhere in the forest.
Thank you,
Shane Hamblin