By Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret News staff writer

      With only two weeks left to comment, Utahns scrambled for one more chance to give Wasatch-Cache National Forest Supervisor Tom Tidwell an earful about how one of America's most popular national forests is managed in the years to come.
      At a public hearing Tuesday at Skyline High School, special interests and members of the public raised a plethora of issues for Tidwell to consider when he gives approval to a final forest management plan, expected early next summer.
      "It is being loved to death," said Salt Lake resident Ellie Ienatsch. "I urge the Forest Service to write a crisis management plan for the tri-canyons area" of Mill Creek, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood canyons.
      On the other side of the issue, "closing off lands discriminates against seniors and the handicapped," said Fred Sorensen of West Valley.
      The draft forest plan outlines a range of alternatives for managing the 1.2 million-acre forest, among them maintaining 32 roadless areas totaling 600,000 acres. Roughly 10 percent of that would be designated new wilderness.
      The proposal calls for banning snowmobiles along the western end of the Uinta Mountains, known as Lakes Backcountry. And it would allow oil and gas exploration on 62,000 acres of roadless forests and allow commercial logging on 30,000 acres (down from 200,000 acres in the current management plan).
      The public comment period extends through Nov. 1, after which forest managers will tweak the draft plan into a final version. Additional public comment will be taken at that time.
      The plan does not set well with conservationists. Save Our Canyons would like to see 40 percent of the forest preserved as wilderness.
      The High Uintas Preservation Council offered no totals but said it wanted "large, intact, contiguous and adjacent roadless landscapes" to preserve wildlife and habitat. It had specific recommendations for expanding wilderness on the north slopes of the Uinta Mountains.
      However, Robert Birkinshaw of Murray argued the forest needs better motorized trails that connect from one location to another. Often, trails go in and dead end, forcing trail users to backtrack, impacting the trail twice.
      Jason Towery with Summit County Search and Rescue agreed that motorized access must be maintained. "On several occasions, people's lives have depended on it," he said.
      For others, motorized access was anathema to what the forest is all about.
      "I am speaking for the insects, fungi and birds with whom we share the land," said Ardean Watts.