Let me see if I can explain this.
1) Everything inside the "trail corridor" is considered dead as far as the harvesting process goes so the "logging people in the DNR don't care so much about those trees. The logging end of things to care if we decide to put in a new trail as those trees are harvestable. We're more likely to get a new trail when there's a harvest going on and logging company can remove the trees that they want from a potential trail. In fact, we're waiting for the next logging operation up there to harvest more trees so that the campground can be expanded.
2) I'm going to quote from an email from Nancy.
3) Luckily at Elbe, we don't have a lot of resource issues related to run off, protecting habitats etc, that other areas have. What's she's referring to with the resources is the loss of dirt around the roots of the trees and the damage to the root structure of the trees. This results in the trees dying prematurely or become unstable. This affects the integrity of the trail, which includes the tight nature and the natural esthetics (you can't just cut all the trees 8' up and leave the stumps- it would be plain ugly).
I grabbed a few pics from various reports to show you the types of things that Nancy does not consider acceptable. I know a few of you will recognize rigs and I'm not picking on anyone, just looking for examples.
Driving up on obstacles on the side of the trail. It should be obvious in this pic how the damage is done when it's done over and over, regardless of how much fun it might be.
This is our buddy that caused all the comotion...
This is not acceptable in any size rig.
These aren't particular to full size rigs, more that I wanted to show the TYPE of resource damage that Nancy is concerned about.