Idaho Wilderness Hearings

Statement:

Mr. McDonald. I was glad to see you two fellows here because I think you're doing your job and it's fine. I gave Mr. Symms a statement here a few years ago. And my concern is about just the roads in the back country. For the crippled veterans—there's quite a few of them around the country—and the senior citizens would like to go out in these places and see the beauty of the country, too. And it's a great experience the young fellows was saying here to go out there. Most of these areas—like, they speak of from McCall to Warrens to McCall to Elk Summit to Yellow Pine and one lake and that's the Cascades. Probably I think it's as beautiful as the parks—Yellowstone Park. But one thing we want to do—I noticed the guys in the back—guides and packers—they brag sometime ago about close a lot of roads. Well, when they close the roads, they close us older citizens out. They close the crippled veterans out. And I think that we have to manage our forests although I—I was 32-427 0— 84 48 746 raised in the back country there. Raised right by Warrens, Yellow Pine, and right through there. And we used to go along and go fishing. And we didn't have to worry about anything. It was a beautiful country and was nothing to bother us. We didn't even have a gun. We had a fishing pole. Maybe just 12 years old or so. And I had quite a few experiences in there. Like, I was the—me and another kid was the second men—white men down on the south fork of the Salmon before the Forest Service built the trail on the righthand side. And we seen where the old Indians had parked—had their tepee poles and Mackey Bar where the airport is now. And we seen the Indian writing and all. And it's a beautiful sight. But one thing we got to think of—and I think they forgot to think about it that I use to work during the summers for the Forest Service. And we was only 12 years old when we started working for the Forest Service. And I been around when they logged. And that surprises me is they've done a real good job in that part of the country of logging. I don't see—I couldn't kick on their logging. They got the timber out and they utilized it. Took it down and put it to market. And the mines in that part of the country got the ore out and the concentrates and shipped them in, and we all live in a wooden house. We all drove a car here today that come out of the mines. Some old miner worked pretty hard getting them concentrates out for us so they could build that car. So we got to think of them, and we got to think of our economy.