The Agua Tibia and Beauty Mountain Wilderness Areas lie along the boundary between Riverside and San Diego Counties, California, just east of Temecula and about 50 miles north of San Diego. Each is a remarkable area, but each remains incomplete—a fact that Congress may soon move to correct. Each area reflects the fundamental story of how our National Wilderness Preservation System is growing, thanks to continued commitment of Members of Congress of both political parties—and to grassroots activism—to see more wilderness protected in every part of our country.
The U.S. Forest Service initiated protection for what was then called the “Agua Tibia Primitive Area” in 1931. The area is dominated by a three-mile long crest that rises from 4,400 feet at the northwest end to the peak of 5,077-foot Eagle Crag at the southeast end. Steep, chaparral-covered mountains give way to stands of fir, pine, and oak at higher elevations. Very hot summer temperatures and a lack of both water and shade make this a desert-like environment, and human use is sparse, even in the winter.
The 1964 Wilderness Act required that National Forest “primitive areas” such as this undergo a study leading to a presidential recommendation to Congress. It was on the basis of such a recommendation by President Richard Nixon that Congress established the Aqua Tibia Wilderness of some 16,000 acres in 1975. Then last March, President Barack Obama signed the Omnibus Public Land Management Act, adding another 2,000 acres to this area.
Agua Tibia; © Doug Steakley
Despite being a well-loved hiking and horseback riding area, Beauty Mountain—which lies east of Agua Tibia—was not seriously recognized as a potential wilderness area for many years, primarily because intermingled privately-owned lands made it hard to see the potential for a large wilderness area. But in recent years, purchase of some 2,300 acres of these private lands by The Wilderness Land Trust, which then donated the lands to Federal ownership, cleared the way for wilderness protection. As a result, another element of last year’s omnibus lands bill was the designation of the magnificent 15,627-acre Beauty Mountain Wilderness.
These two areas illustrate the point that our National Wilderness Preservation System did not emerge fully formed when the Wilderness Act was signed into law in September 1964. Rather, it is a system that is being built-up incrementally, year after year, as Congress chooses to designate additional areas for this most-protective category of our federally-owned lands. From just 54 areas totaling nine million acres in 1964, our Wilderness System has grown to more than 750 areas comprising 109.5 million acres today.
Because each decision to designate Federal land as wilderness is made only by an act of Congress, factors of how Congress operates come into play in each of these decisions. Despite the level of partisan conflict that is often projected by the media, wilderness legislation is usually a bipartisan issue. Another factor inherent in how legislative bodies do their work is that Congress largely defers to the local Representatives and Senators where the lands in question are located. This factor makes it vital for wilderness advocates to organize and expand grassroots support for each proposed wilderness addition.
The 2009 designation of the new Beauty Mountain Wilderness and the addition of 2,000 acres to the Aqua Tibia Wilderness were introduced and championed in the House of Representatives by Rep. Mary Bono Mack (R) whose district includes Riverside County but not the next county to the south. Support by Sens. Barbara Boxer (D) and Dianne Feinstein (D) was also crucial to this bipartisan success.
However, these two wilderness areas remain works-in-progress, as wild Federal lands that could enlarge both areas are located in adjacent San Diego County, in a different Congressional District. Now, we are happy to report that Rep. Darrell Issa (R), who represents San Diego County, has introduced legislation that will add wilderness protection for the southern portions of these two wilderness areas. Rep. Issa’s proposed “Beauty Mountain and Agua Tibia Wilderness Act of 2009” (H. R. 4304) would add 13,635 acres to the Beauty Mountain Wilderness, and 7,796 acres to the Agua Tibia Wilderness, continuing to grow the Golden State’s natural legacy for those to come.
