Expansion of the Trail Riding Community

[bdog325]

I trail ride and so do my family and friends. Me and my friend are arguing that if more people started trail riding and the sport of trail riding was shown to the general through media that the gov. would throw down more restrictions and trails would be ruined due to more people on them.

Let me know what you think!

Edited January 4, 2015 by brom32

[Flagstaff]

I trail ride and so do my family and friends. Me and my friend are arguing that if more people started trail riding and the sport of trail riding was shown to the general through media that the gov. would throw down more restrictions and trails would be ruined due to more people on them.

Let me know what you think!

That is happening now in some areas. On the other hand, more riders, organized and vocal can open up areas. That is also happening.

Mike

[DR.billZ]

Open up more riding areas and lessen the traffic on any existing riding area. Pretty simple concept.

[LovingOffroadPain]

Open up more riding areas and lessen the traffic on any existing riding area. Pretty simple concept.

 

But when the environmentalist lobby shrinks riding areas, there's more traffic on the terrain, thus more "damage" and more need to further shrink the OHV areas.  It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.  

 

I think more people would mean more voices, as stated, and there is power in numbers.  

 

I got an idea!!!  Make motocross ILLEGAL, so they start riding offroad (hopefully) and give more strength to the offroad cause.  

[OCsquid]

Open up more riding areas and lessen the traffic on any existing riding area. Pretty simple concept.

Couldn't agree more However,

Too simple for how orv areas are managed in California when I lived there. The more popular the sport got the smaller the areas got. It felt like our fees were used primarily for building fences lol. When this started I'd talk to the rangers Ect and they would always say the closures were temporary to let the ground rehabilitate and the various trail or hill I asked about would re open in a couple years. I never saw 1 closed area re open. A couple times trails would re route around the spot a bogus arrow head was found by a Sierra club member but that was it. More people , smaller area = dangerous condition and harder on nature. Most people get it.

[Flagstaff]

I'm guessing the issue may vary by region, also state vs. various federal lands. USFS, BLM etc.

Mike

[dukeryder]

I trail ride and so do my family and friends. Me and my friend are arguing that if more people started trail riding and the sport of trail riding was shown to the general through media that the gov. would throw down more restrictions and trails would be ruined due to more people on them.

Let me know what you think!

 

It's a delicate balance.  Back East trails that got tore up by too many bikes got closed.  Out on some BLM lands trails get closed from too little use. 

 

I know that the biggest problem with losing riding areas is most riders aren't involved in politics.  The people that hate us are heavily involved in politics.  They attend meetings at the Ranger District Offices, donate money and are members of lobbying groups like the Sierra Club.  I make sure to maintain my AMA Membership and our local OHV club COHV. If you don't have a local club you should at least join the Blue Ribbon Coalition sharetrails.org. 

 

We should do our best to stay on the trail, and don't destroy the trails by riding them when they're muddy.  Those sniviling, Prius driving Sierra Club types use that as ammo against us by taking pictures and brining the evidence to the Ranger station.

[c-slak]

Couldn't agree more However,

Too simple for how orv areas are managed in California when I lived there. The more popular the sport got the smaller the areas got. It felt like our fees were used primarily for building fences lol. When this started I'd talk to the rangers Ect and they would always say the closures were temporary to let the ground rehabilitate and the various trail or hill I asked about would re open in a couple years. I never saw 1 closed area re open. A couple times trails would re route around the spot a bogus arrow head was found by a Sierra club member but that was it. More people , smaller area = dangerous condition and harder on nature. Most people get it.

In AZ something like 80% of the money received by the government from our OHV registration program has gone into enforcement of the OHV registration program...

Edited January 8, 2015 by c-slak

[BOAB]

This is not a new dilemma, it is something I was helping fight 10-15 years ago.  Here's an op-ed I wrote for Off-Road.com back in the summer of 2003 that spells out what we were going through at that time.  NOTHING has changed.

 

We Have a Right to Be There

by Brad Ullrich, Land Use Editor


"We have a right to be there." Well, yes…maybe…I suppose! That seemingly truthful statement made recently by one of the major competition rock crawling promoters is not as simple as it may first appear.

Let's take a closer look at our, that is OHV users, right to use public lands as we see fit. In the most basic view, public land, proper land use designation, use it for OHVs in any manner that the public sees as appropriate. Hold on there for a minute though, if this were the case there would be no need for agencies such as the BLM and the USFS, and all the thousands of bureaucrats those agencies employ. Whether we like it or not, those agencies along with a couple other federal agencies and numerous state and local agencies have been tasked with the stewardship/management of those lands. The management of our public lands by these agencies is governed by strict laws and regulations that tell the agencies what they can and can't do when they tell you and me what WE can and can't do on those public lands. Recently one of those federal agencies made a rather unpopular decision, and whether we like it or not the decision was made as the agency that manages that particular parcel of public land. What I'm referring to is the recent decision by the Reno, NV BLM office to no longer allow rock crawling competitions at the Moonrocks area that is within their jurisdiction.

"What?! How can they do that?!" you say. Easily. It is their job to manage the land in a manner which promotes sustainability, and in their opinion this type of use is doing more harm to the land than it can tolerate. The decision is appealable, but I'll just bet there is no way that this decision will be overturned.

What is happening here is that in some instances we are using our public lands that are available to OHV use well past the point at which the land can recover from the use it is getting. What is the answer? There are some very easy answers, some not so easy, and some that I hate to think about.

Where the heck am I going with this? What I'm getting around to saying is sort of a continuation of my last op/ed, "Another Endangered Species". Our right to use our public lands is suffering from a sure and steady erosion, and rather than do something about it we seem to be accelerating the problem. Last time, I was talking about the slow disappearance of the "open" designation on BLM lands. But, now I'm talking about something even more immediate, the decisions in the name of land management that in an instant reduce our freedom to use the land, and we are in a tailspin in that direction that pretty soon we aren't going to be able to pull out of.

Let me get back to where I started, and maybe this will become a little clearer, the right to be there. Back many years ago when I first started driving a Jeep on the backroads of southern Arizona we could usually spend an entire day without seeing another vehicle. The land was pristine, it wasn't overused, the eco-nazis weren't breathing down our throats, and you could pretty much go where you wanted. Yes, we had a right to be there, and our being there had little or no impact on the "there" where we were. Not so anymore. Now, it is impossible to go into the backcountry without seeing families piled into their showroom fresh SUVs to enjoy what some of us used to enjoy by ourselves. The SUV explosion by itself has put a huge strain on the backcountry, and in the past couple years there has been a new explosion that, in my opinion, has put the strain in some areas past the breaking point. I'm talking about competition rock crawling.

The competitions by themselves don't do much in the way of wear and tear on the land, what is causing the problem is the 10,000 to 20,000 spectators some of these events draw, spectators crowded into just a few acres, along with the vehicles they came to the event in. And right here is where I take exception with the promoter's statement that he has a "right to be there". Mr. Promoter, in my somewhat narrow and self centered view of things, NO YOU DON'T. I have a right to be there driving my Jeep or dirtbike alone or with a small group, on established roads or in an "open" area in a responsible manner. But an event that pushes the sustainability of an area far beyond what it can take does not belong there. What we are doing with competitions that draw thousands is giving the eco-nazis the ammunition they crave to shut us down completely. Something has to be done, and it has to be done very quickly. The Reno decision, along with the new LRMP in Farmington, NM are just tips of an iceberg that has yet to reveal its truly massive self.

What other sport can grow in popularity and by doing so ring its death knell? None that I know of. We can fight the eco-nazis and their self serving sneaky tactics until we drop, but shooting ourselves in the foot with BLATANT overuse of areas such as Moonrocks, Chokecherry Canyon and other popular rock crawling venues is going to have a much larger impact than just the restriction of rock crawling competitions. The eco-nazis get ammo to further their agenda, and the agencies get life made easier by us handing them reasons to exercise their "discretion" in management of our public lands.

What is the answer? You know darn well what the answer is, no matter how painful it looks. And a big part of the answer lies in the rock crawling competition promoters seeing their responsibility, and trying to do something about it. What "it" is, I'm not sure. But what I do know is my responsible use of the backcountry is being threatened, and I don't like it one bit. It was bad enough having people that watched a commercial of a Toyota or a Chevy driving over the terrain like Mad Max go out and buy an SUV and behave in a manner that is totally contrary to treading lightly, but now we have thousands of people completely trampling areas until there is not a stick of vegetation in site, and cryptobiotic soil that takes generations (if ever) to return after being churned into acres of dust. Have I gone green? No, dammit, I just want to continue to ride my dirtbike and drive my Jeep in the deserts and forests that I use responsibly, and I don't want people that can't see the forest thru their ignorance messing this up for me.

Selfish? Hell no. Is my attitude going to make some people mad. Hell yes. But I hope this attitude of mine is going to make a few people at least think before they act. We are getting squeezed into smaller and smaller areas by the actions of a few, then the strain on those areas puts them off limits, too. Pretty soon, driving and riding areas are going to be hard to come by, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

 

(This old op-ed is no longer archived on ORC, but Pirate 4x4 still has a lot of my old stuff, here's the link to this on Pirate:

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/land-use-issues/147998-we-have-right-there.html )

[Rooster72]

It just doesn't make sense to me that areas are shut down due to to much erosion, damage to property, irreversible whatever. It seems to me that there is enough National Forests, Rain Forests and an unbelievable amount of land that is unaccessible without a helicopter on the planet for anybody to worry about it. Freaking tree huggers, just mind your own business and drive your piece of shit hybrid off a cliff already!! Rant over and yes I will be riding WFO through the Ocala National Forest in Florida in T-minus 12 hrs and approximately 30 minutes!!!

[cwr12]

We have very active volunteer programs here in UT with the Forest Service and the BLM as well. With many local groups that adopt and maintain the trail systems. It's up to us to take care of the mountains and desert here. I guess we're lucky enough to have those oppurtunites or just alot of people who actually give a sh*&t. I started into it as helping to pull the wagon and putting back into what I enjoy. But now its much more than that and I have had some really good times and met alot of really good quality people. Next week is the yearly BLM potluck for all the volunteers to attend and our monthly winter time user group meetings for our canyon with the Forest Service start on the 13th. If you want answers to anything, get involved and it will really open you eyes as to whats really going on, don't just go by what someone else tells you and form an opinuon from there. Join, donate, participtate.

Edited January 9, 2015 by cwr12

[Sierra_rider]

IMO, a lot of talk about erosion and sustainability of the land is complete BS. A few years back, the Forest Circus started enacted seasonal closures during the winter because of erosion concerns. This argument might have weight if they closed it during wet and muddy spells, however they just throw a blanket closure date of Jan 1st through April 15th. We're in a drought in California so there really hasn't been a whole lot of precipitation, definitely not enough to close the forest down for more than a couple days. The dirt is perfect right now, but we can't legally ride it now. On top of that, they allowed some logging during the closure a couple years back. Whtat was some singletrack, was turned into a skidder trail. Obviously it has nothing to do with the environment, it's all about control and who has the most dollars to throw at them. That's why I ride whatever trails I want whenever I want. Hell i even cut some new ones whenever I feel like it. Call me an outlaw (I prefer the term civil disobedience) but I realize that any hope we had of legally defeating these people is lost in wacko leftist states like mine. I'm going to exercise my rights whether they approve of it or not.

[Truman Sparks]

Put these on every trail sign you see:

Edited January 9, 2015 by MrCarts