I had a meeting last week with the Forest Service regarding the Blue Mtn course. The agenda for the meeting was to walk the course hole by hole to discuss any issues with each hole and the course in general. They made it very clear, and I want to stress this, that this was just a discussion and that no decisions (or timetables) will be made from this meeting, instead it is a starting point from which future planning and decisions can be made.
They had 3 major issues with the course, 1) parking, 2) a rest season, and 3) serious issues with holes 1, 16, and 18. They also had several minor issues, but most of these had to do with trails from the pin of several holes to the tee of the next hole and shouldn't effect play on the course.
1) Parking - We've known for a while that the lower parking lot, and access to the course from the lower side, would go away and I can say that almost for sure that will happen. They also are suggesting writing a new Forest Order to make parking in the MaClay Flats parking lot and walking over to play the course punishible with a fine.
They realize that the upper parking lots are not sufficent parking, so the discussion centered on building a new parking lot, and bathroom, for the course. We determined that the new lot should be atleast a 40 space lot and maybe up to 50 spaces with a bathroom. There were three areas identified for this: across the road from the current upper parking lot, expanding the current parking lot near the tee of hole 11, or the pin and fairway area of hole 6. Sounded like the third option was the most favorable to them. The course will be re-numbered so that hole 1 will start at the new parking lot and hole 18 will finsh there.
2) Rest Season - The FS really likes the results from the rest that Pattee gets during the seasonal closure up there and wants to probably put into effect a rest season at Blue, too. From a DG point of view, this is obviously not a good thing, but from a resource point of view, it's kind of hard to argue with the amount of regrowth that has occured at Pattee. They are worried that the greatly increased useage of Blue, especially in the spring months when it is easy to do a lot of damage will start to cause large barren areas similar to what we are trying to fix at Pattee. They are talking about a closure from March 1 till June 1. I am trying to talk them down to just March, or at the worst through mid April, but we'll see...
Holes 1, 16, 18 - These were the holes that they had major issues with.
* Hole 1- There is very bad erosion in the ravine between the blue and white tees. Some of this is due to people not making it across the ravine and some of this is due to people parking at the bottom and walking up the ravine to the first tee. The FS proposed moving the blue tee about 200' to the right of the current tee, near the top of the ravine. They will let us cut a couple of treees from the ravine so that the tee shot will still be similar to the current one (throwing through a tunnel across the ravine, but over a much shallower section of the ravine. The location of where the white tee will be located is still up in the air. My opinion of this new hole is that it would actually make the hole a little bit "cooler" and a touch more difficult. The ravine would be fenced off from both the lower parking lot side and from the current hole 1 blue side, and possibly from the white tee side, too.
* Hole 16 (Mirkwood) - Their issue is that the fairway runs down and across a streambed, which for about half the hole, it does. If your not familiar with this hole, this streambed does not, even seasonally, have water in it and doesn't look like it has for a very, very, very long time. I pointed out that there has been very little erosion in the areas they were concerned with, that there were several large trees growing in the bottom of the streambed (at the corner near the basket) that would hold the soil in a flash flood or other natural disaster, that where the fairway crossed the streambed was in a wide and relatively flat part of the bed, and that there was atleast 300 yards of pristine ravine below the hole before it gets to any water. They agreed to discuss it more and to get one of their Hydrologists out to take a look at it. We'll see...
* Hole 18 - This hole will probably be removed as there is really no point in walking down the hill to it (and causing much erosion) just to walk back up the hill (and causing even more erosion).
They do understand the need for an 18 hole course and have offered us space on the other side of the road to expand the course so that it can remain an 18 hole course. No specific holes or layouts were discussed, but they would probably be above where current hole 9 tee pad is, and/or above hole 10's tee. There is a lot of good stuff up there that we can make good holes with and still tie in to the existing course so that we wouldn't lose hole 9 or 10.
There were a few places that they had issues with regarding the trails from the pin to the next tee. specifically, between holes 1 and 2, 2 and 3, and the trail from the tee of 10 to the road.
* Between holes 1 and 2 - physically close 2 of the 3 trails leading from 1's pin to the blue tee of 2 and make the remaining trail nice enough so taht all people would use it. The white tee of 2 could be accessed from the blue tee.
* Between holes 2 and 3 - some trail delineation (logs, etc...) marking a clear trail from the pin area of 2 to the white tee of 3. More water bars between the white tee of 3 to the blue tee of 3.
* Tee of hole 10 down to the road - the trail is becoming very "v'ed out". Possibly bringing in a lot of fill dirt and using water bars to level the trail out.
They also had a small issue with the erosion in the ravine on the green of hole 4, but considered the hole "OK" and didn't immediatly know how to stop the erosion without negatively affecting other areas of the ravine, and specifically "the tree" in that ravine.
They did not like the car bench seat on hole 10, but did understand the need for some sort of bench there and discussed installing one that would be up to their specs.
They admitted that they have changed their minds about tee pads and said that they "could foresee tee pads as being part of the final solution at Blue Mtn."
Again I want to stress that this was just a discussion and that this was just the first step in the process of improving Blue.
The new District Ranger is more open minded to DG and is a ball golfer who has played a couple of tourneys in his day, so he understand the principles of DG in ball golf terms which is a huge step up from the previous District Ranger. I don't want to get anyone's hopes up too high, but I would go as far as to say that he is atleast not anti-DG, which is also a big change in direction from the previous ranger.
For the update and all the time you put in protecting our interests. Somebody give that guy a beer.
Some really good news there, mixed in with some ..well.. bad news
I always seem to be the Debbie downer.. but...
for cripes sakes!!!!!!! -- WTF?!?!? .... So Missoula Disc Golf might be NON-EXISTENT during the months of MARCH, APRIL, & MAY!! Seriously! am I the only one that finds this f-ing ABSURD!?!? I mean, it would be one thing if the closures didn't overlap, but having all 3 courses closed at the same time seems like we're getting the short end of the stick. --- we need to get another course, period (one NOT associated with the FS)
surprised Im the first to vent about this... I struggle to take 3 DAYS off, yet less 3 MONTHS
one and a half steps forward, one step back
Well...Bobo...that was my concern too...April and May are like our training period for summer tourneys...and we would be stuck playing out in Dornblaser or Sentinal fields.
That said...we need to try to work with a resort, city, county, and state to get a new course. I'm sure Maclay would like more traffic up there..its extra $$$ for them...and the state has to have lands that can be utilized for recreation...we need to find out how to petition for it.
I think we need a lawyer too. It's "public" land and we should have rights we can implement... seems like we're getting bullied.
We don't have jack for legal rights. All this stuff is utterly within the FS's discretion, unfortunately. Disclaimer: this is not a legal opinion (although I am supposed to get my bar results in this afternoon's mail...) 
We definitely need another course. And we just NEED to be working w/ city or county (or a private landowner, but then you're looking at $5 a round minimum) rather than FS, like smoke'ems said...there unfortunately just aren't a ton of suitable city/county parks around though like some areas seem to have. Money for baskets is another issue.
I don't think the FS realizes that a shutdown of both courses at once, for any amount of time, would cause massive uproar and disregard of the rules by the muggle legions. They seem determined to get some rest time though so our best option might be to try and find a way to do that while keeping the course open (expand to 24 holes, rest 6 at a time, or something).
...Actually, if we could find a seasonal replacement somewhere in town, we could just transfer baskets from Blue/Pattee to there and might not have to buy 'em...perhaps a 9-holer somewhere would actually be feasible (and a good foot in the door for the future).
Isn't there a state park just west of town? I thought I had heard a mention of a nearby location that could possibly be a good location for a course that's relatively close (somewhere on the Clark Fork River), could that be an option worth exploring? I know there's Beavertail Hill State Park about 30 miles east. I have no idea what that's like but could be another option maybe. Just thinking out loud. Does the University own any other land in town that is not part of the main campus? You might start looking for city owned, or county owned, undeveloped land and start exploring those options. I know there are a couple of huge spread near Post Falls that the NIRDGC is looking into. One of them is county land and an inquiry has already been submitted. Try those options out as well, city and county offices should be able to tell you where there is that kind of land and whether or not it has any development plans.
Had another meeting with the FS last week specifically regarding Mirkwood. They bnrought out their Hydrologist and she catagorized the ravine that Mirkwood plays down as an ephemoral stream - which means that it doesn't necassarily hold water on a regular basis, but does move water in an event, such as a flash flood or a significant rain on top of snowpack. The FS policy for areas like this are to move any activities (hiking trails, logging, grazing, etc...) away from the stream a minimum of 50' and preferably 100', which would mean the loss of Mirkwood and hole 15 as well due to course flow issues.
I was able to (I think) get them to agree to a comprimise so that we can keep hole 15 and part of the area that 16 is in. They are still unsure about the use of the tee areas for 16, but we would be able to use the first half of 16 up to the dogleg left. From that point, we would instead play up and out of the ravine and down the hiking trail (#3.18)towards the tee of 17. The hiking trail will be moved, or possibly decomissioned, so that we can use that area without a user conflict. This would not be the Mirkwood that we all love, but it would still be a very challenging hole.
As for the closure... A rotational schedule, similar to what CD mentioned above, was discussed, but they feel that we need to get a better handle on the holes that we now have before impacting new areas, even for just part of a year. I am still pushing for this option, but not holding my breath... They are talking about a 3 month closure which would start in mid to late Febuary and run till mid to late May. They will make the decision about the rest season sometime around the first of the year.
A very general timetable was discussed for all of these changes. The rest season will probably start the spring of 2010. The hole changes will proably happen in the summer of 2010 as well as the FS securing funding for the new parking lot - and hopefully bathroom, with the construction of the new lot - and hopefully bathroom, in 2011.
To summarize, holes 6 (probably for the parking lot) and 18 (for sure) will be removed and holes 1 and 16 will be changed. New holes will be added, as needed to keep an 18 hole course, probably playing out (south) from the basket of hole 8 and back (north) to the tee of hole 9.
There will be no closure for the Blue Mtn course for 2010. Plans for improving and realigning the course will begin sometime this spring/summer, but as of now I can't be more specific. Also, sounds like the proposed new parking lot will be where hole 6 is currently located.
I don't know all the details, yet, but got the official word today from the FS that we will be allowed to install rubber mat tee pads as soon as we are able to on the holes that will not be changed during the realignment this summer.
Not sure of all the specifics, yet, such as both blue and white tees or just one set; if they'll allow us to us wood frames the way they should be installed; or how much landscaping they will allow on holes like 2 and 10. When I know more, I'll post it, but was excited about finally getting the official word!!
I am excited for the possibilities. Courses, especially on public land are always changing. It sounds like this district ranger can understand why we are passionate about the game. He also seems to understand, though he doesn't need to, the idea of give and take. That is new to the disc golfer/forest service relationship.