Mission 07 · Mark Twain National Forest, MO

Blooming Rose

Mark Twain National Forest

Timing

The agency stopped taking comments on September 14. What you find still counts: it backs the formal objections from people who did comment, it goes to the lawyers on the fight, and it is the story.

The sentence we think is wrong

“These roads or parts of these roads are currently not suitable for passenger vehicles due to being overgrown or having resource damage and are impassible.”

The agency wrote that in its own document, under Forest Service System Road Decommissioning. Nobody has been out to check it. A dated photograph either backs it up or ends it.

How you settle it

Drive or walk to Forest Roads 1761 and 1792A in the Blooming Rose area and photograph the stretches marked for closing, showing whether they are grown over and blocked or still open and driveable. A photo of open, cleared, drivable tread with fresh tire tracks would undercut the claim that these roads are overgrown and impassable.

The decision

The Mark Twain National Forest is seeking public objections to a draft decision for the Blooming Rose project on the Houston/Rolla/Cedar Creek Ranger District. The project involves logging, fuels management, and vegetation treatment aimed at meeting goals from the 2005 Forest Plan. Only those who previously submitted written comments during the earlier public comment period are eligible to file a

Read the whole thing, and write to the agency about it

How to record it so it counts

01Find where the road is supposed to start. Photograph it from the junction, with anything that identifies the spot (a sign, a gate, a milepost).
02Walk it. Photograph the surface every few hundred meters and at anything that would stop a vehicle: a washout, a slide, a fallen tree, a stream with no crossing, trees growing in the road.
03Photograph the far end the same way.
04Let your phone record a GPS track if it can (any tracking app). A screenshot of the track is fine.
05Write down whether a pickup could drive it today, and why or why not.

What would count

Start, middle and end, with the track. A single photo of brush isn’t a road that doesn’t exist.
The reason a vehicle could not pass, in a photo.
The date. Roads change with a season.

All of it, with the phone settings, in the field guide

Are you going?

Say yes or no. It tells the next person whether anyone has this ground covered, and it is the only way we know a request was answered rather than just read. You can change your mind any time, and nobody follows up.

Join, then say you’re going

Nobody has answered yet

Before you go

Public land only. Plenty of land inside a national forest or park boundary is privately owned, and that is not yours to walk on. A gate or a closure sign means stop. Check the rules for the specific place you are going, because they differ.
Don’t touch survey stakes, flagging, equipment or anything a crew left. Photograph it; leave it.
Don’t approach crews, contractors or agency staff about the project. Don’t interfere with any operation.
Wildlife at a distance. No drones in wilderness or anywhere they’re prohibited. Stay off closed roads and trails.
If you’re not sure, don’t. Weather, terrain, water, fire and people are your call, and yours alone.

More Than Just Parks doesn’t direct where you go or what you do. Terms.