Rock Creek - Bighorn National Forest

• There are more than a hundred spectacular granite rock formations, buttes, spires, castles and towers found in the Rock Creek area.
• Rock Creek is extremely valuable to hunters as year-round elk range, important calving area, and serves as an elk corridor from the high country to the Bud Love Wildlife Habitat Unit for winter elk grounds.
• Rock Creek is one of the rare areas (outside of Wilderness) where it is necessary to hunt on horseback or foot--no motorized use has ever been allowed.
•  The Rock Creek area provides excellent fishing opportunities in the South, Middle and North Fork corridors, of which two were analyzed for Wild and Scenic River status during the forest plan revision process in 2005 but were not selected due to the wilderness recommendation.
• The BNF Forest Supervisor supports the protection of Rock Creek as wilderness, and the Governor Freudenthal signed the final plan agreements recommending Rock Creek for wilderness.
•  The economic potential of protecting Rock Creek will provide a large gain to the Johnson and Sheridan communities from dollars spent on tourism, hunting and fishing. Protecting local landscapes retains our high quality of life while providing pristine places for tourism marketing and recreation.
• The Rock Creek addition would add much-needed lower elevation forestlands to the Cloud Peak WA, creating the only protected wilderness as a complete ecosystem from prairies (6,000 feet) to high peaks (10,000-13,000 feet). This area includes vegetative and topographic diversity and it will protect key watersheds and wildlife habitat. 
  

• NON-MOTORIZED: The Rock Creek roadless area has never been opened to motorized use either in the summer or the winter. It is simply too rugged for roads and has too little snow for snow machines. There are few conflicts in this area. The Wilderness Act clearly allows such nonconforming motorized uses where necessary to insure the health and safety of people.
• TIMBER: The trees (pictured left) in the Rock Creek area are predominately small and dense lodgepole pine with a scattering of ponderosa on the edges, making great elk security cover. America’s national forests produce less than five percent of the total U.S. timber supply. Timber in Rock Creek is less accessible, unmarketable size and less cost-efficient than in other government and private forestlands that are readily available in the area.
• ACCESS: The HF Bar has in good faith, opened legal public access from the ranch to the base of the mountain and canyon. It is an accessible and spectacular entrance up the South Fork Canyon of Rock Creek. There are six other public accesses into Rock Creek from the south via forest service roads, from the north on forest service trails, and through the Bud Love state lands May –Nov.
• GRAZING: Livestock grazing, where established prior to an area’s designation as wilderness, is permitted to continue in the Wilderness Act language. “The legislative history is very clear in its intent that livestock grazing, and activities and the necessary facilities to support and livestock grazing program, will be permitted to continue in National Forest wilderness areas (House Report 96-617 on the Colorado Wilderness Act).” Rock Creek has permitted leases for livestock grazing which will be allowed to continue. There are cow camp cabins inside the Rock Creek recommended wilderness (Ginger’s Cabin), and on the outside boundary of Rock Creek on the north (Hepp Cabins).
• ECONOMICS: According to the Act, the “multiple uses” of wilderness include the protection of watersheds, maintenance of soil and water quality, ecological diversity, plant and animal gene pool, and habitat for wildlife, as well as providing unsurpassed opportunities for outdoor recreation activities including hiking, horse-packing, backpacking, hunting and fishing—all critical aspects to providing natural capital that can help communities diversify economies by attracting and retaining new businesses, residents and a local workforce. Wilderness protects scenic backdrops that improve property values, thereby increasing county revenues.
• FIRE, ACCESS ETC: The Wilderness Act allows measures to be taken, as necessary, in wilderness areas to control issues such as fire, insects and diseases.  (Section 4(d)(1)) And any emergency provisions for fire, search and rescue can be accommodated.      
  

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Please help us flood the halls with your letters and emails of support!

Your help is needed to preserve Rock Creek proposed wilderness. Rock Creek can only become safe from development with Congressional designation of Wilderness.

Wyoming’s delegation must be persuaded to act by hearing from a broad constituency of Wyoming and beyond!

PLEASE GET YOUR LETTER FOR ROCK CREEK
TO THE WYOMING DELEGATION IN SEPTEMBER