Whether it involves new mountain bike trails or separate areas for snowmobilers and skiers, a plan for sustainable recreation being developed by the Deschutes National Forest will start with the question: What, exactly, is sustainable recreation?

“It’s somewhat of a new concept,” said Marv Lang, recreation forester with the Bend-Fort Rock Ranger District. “It’s how you … create a good experience for everyone, every user group out there, and still treat the land well.”

There’s no real concise, concrete definition of the term, said Mark Christiansen, recreation program manager with the Deschutes National Forest. But the idea is to provide recreation opportunities for forest visitors, while ensuring those opportunities will be around for future generations.

For help defining sustainable recreation, forest officials will turn to the Deschutes Provincial Advisory Committee, Christiansen said.

The committee, a group of citizens representing different interests and organizations, advises the federal agency on a number of issues, said Chris Mickle, with the Crescent Ranger District.

“It’s not always a consensus, but they seem to always come up with some darn good ideas,” he said.

This week, the group meets to talk about recreation and visit several popular sites in the Deschutes National Forest. A public forum is also scheduled.

And the Forest Service is curious about what the committee members think about issues like what kind of recreation should be encouraged in the Deschutes National Forest, and which sites recreation staff should focus on, Mickle said.

For example, the number of mountain bikers in the region is increasing, Lang said. Mountain bike technology is changing as well, and national magazines are touting Bend as a mountain bike destination.

“So where do we go next?” Lang said.

And the questions could also address whether to limit different recreation activities to different areas, he said. A new mountain bike trail, he said, might be off-limits to horse riders or motorized vehicles, because of the potential for accidents.

“There’s a finite amount of ground out there,” Lang said. “So are we going to just say this is an area you’re just going to have to share and get along? Or are we going to go beyond that and say there’s going to be some segregation here?”

The committee will look at summer and winter recreation, said Sue Olson, spokeswoman for the national forest. That could include boating, snowmobiling, skiing, hiking — with or without dogs — and a number of other different activities.

Some people might feel the wilderness trails in the area have too many people on them, she said, noting that other forests set quotas for wilderness visitors.

The hope is that the advisory committee can help sort out these and other sustainable recreation issues, she said.

“We’re looking at how much of what kinds of recreation can the land bear and still be maintained in a healthy way,” Olson said.

In several years, the Deschutes National Forest will be updating its forest plan, which outlines how the forest will be managed for the next decade or so — and the idea is to have the recreation issues ironed out before then.

“We don’t want to be fighting battles when we get into forest (plan) revision,” Lang said. “We want to have those answered ahead of time.”

To learn more

The Deschutes Provincial Advisory Committee will meet at 8:30 a.m. Thursday at the Forest Supervisor’s Office, 1001 S.W. Emkay Drive, in Bend. A public forum is scheduled from 9:40 to 10 a.m., after which committee members will take a field trip to visit recreation sites in the Deschutes National Forest. The meeting is open to the public.