Okay,

I guess I just have to put in my---. I work with rangers who "patrol" or take care of some public lands. My coworker rangers associate with large private timber companies and other public land managers.

I have been very annoyed with all the gates and burms that have been put up in recent years to effectively halt 4x4 use of logging and other roads through various lands. I do not have as big a problem with smaller private land owners putting up no trespassing signs(Although, it seems to me that the ones putting up the no trespassing signs are new land owners that moved here from out of the northwest!)

In talking to my fellow coworker rangers, the issues they say are the erosion caused by 4x4 trucks. They are (for now) allowing the small 4 wheelers that are less than 50" wide, and snow mobiles. (plus hikers, bikers,& motoscycs & horses)

But they are attacking the 4 wheelers as well and really want them off trails also. What they will not admit in the media or in a public forum is that "erosion" means they really do not want even a single blade of grass disturbed! You know the "man bad" nature good, thing. Some do not want to even hear a combustion engine in the next county over, or anyone except hikers.

A ranger told me part of the problem is 4x4er's and 4 wheelers, that tear up the ground. But I think that should be okay. But he has had environmental (there it is) extremeeys talking in his ear and talking at conferences. Some extreme greenies think the mud/ruts destroy and harm the water sheds--

Well like some one else said horses, elk, deer can do a lot of damage as well.

Another problem is the junk people leave. (I just brought back 20 alum cans from the out back tonight among some other junk that some camper/hunter/4 wheelers left out there)

The rangers say we also have many more 4x4ers and 4 wheelers than we had 20 years ago and this is harder on the signs, roads and amount of junk clean up required. So the need to be more careful---

I have done much hiking and biking in my days but I enjoy the off road stuff just as much.

Bottom line you must form a club or association so you can go to meetings and have input in the public land use debate. The public land managers are required to put together master plans. These master plans can set the stage for 25 plus years of how the land is used (That means whether you or I can drive our 4x4 or not through it.) So if you care about your fun you better get your thing together and fight for your fun. The Serria(sp?) club sure is. The sierra club wants you gone the sierra club is at all the land use planning meetings.

Man, to me, this is sinking dry subject stuff but you must get involved or they will pass law and make plans to exclude 4x4 activities on the land you pay a part for.

Get with it guys I think our public lands can stand some torn up grass and mud--- don't you?

 

First off it shouldnt matter where someone moved from where to where they own the property.......Plus your attitude of go out and tear up the grass and mud is what is pi$$in off all the enviromonkeys.....what ever happened to "tread lightly" and all that good stuff

 

Unfortunately, if you tear up grass, and the next person tears up grass, and the next, and the next, and so on, you get the problems that keep us out of these areas. Playing in the mud is fun, but do it in areas that are designated for it or on your property or with the permission of the land owner. Like noted above, he used to let folks go on his property, but a few idiots can spoil it for everybody. How many places that you used to be able to hunt at are closed because of this. A few idiots can really screw it up for the rest. Nothing pisses a land owner off more than to go out to the property that he paid for, that he pays taxes on, that he maintains, than to find it torn up by a few guys that happened to find a place to squeeze their vehicle in.

Don't be stupid with this. Sometimes just ASKING someone if you can go on part of their property can do a lot to change the bad image that crap like this does. Prime example, when I lived in Upstate NY I asked a local farmer if I could cut through his property to get to some other trails on the ATV. He tells me sure you can, you're the only person who has ever asked my permission to do so. I also told him I'd be willing to maintain some of the area. He says don't worry about it, go right ahead. So you go slow, keep the noise down, and try not to disturb his property.

A slow, quiet ride on a trail or property is better than looking at your big, angry, loud truck sitting in the driveway.

 

BFR250SD,
At least theres someone on here with some common sense

 

i think, that if it wasnt for the trash, the empty oil bottles, beer cans, and watnot, they probablyl wouldnt mind it, but they leave all that evidence that they were there.

 

im kinda stuck in the middle here. i agree with pro, cause i rarely believe what the news reports is 100% factual. it seems like all their stories are biased in some way (99.9% to the left!). but i think guys should just respect the land, wheel all you want but clean up after yourselves. if we all do that i think we would have a good chance of defending our trails. its all the garbage left behind that lets the tree-huggers shut down the trails!

adam

 

It's not even even about the tree huggers being upset. I dont' want to go out and see that crap either. If I wanted to look at oil bottles and busted up signs, I'd go to the dump. I go out so I don't have to see that crap as do all the other folks on the multi-use trails.

I mean how hard is to pack out what you brought in. You have a truck, throw in the back. I remember the thread not too long ago about what tools to bring wheeling. I have an idea, bring a trash bag. What's hard about that. But instead, we leave it out in woods, the areas that we want to use, and we wonder why the rest of the public hates seeing trucks and ATY's out on the trails. We beat ourselves up with this crap.

 

Well, that is your opinion.

Short version: My family has a fair amount of land. Had it for coming up on 50
years. Many other adjacent property owners. Multiple 4 wheelers, 4x4s etc. use the roads through the property. 10 acres comes up for sale. Family from south of the Northwest buys it. 1st thing they do is put a gate across the road cutting off 10 miles of private recreation road that has been open for years. They don't live here; they only come once in a while. Needless to say the gate has been torn down many times.

So, yes it does matter where someone is from, what there attitudes are, what their contribution to the area have been in the past. What their taxes have paid for in the last 50 years.

I could give many other examples of area property with similar situations.

wow good ???

I would never be on some one else’s private property if they have posted a no trespassing sign. I have turned around many times.

BFR250SD/ dsldandually / do you belong to any use groups, have you had any input to land managers, do you own land your self, do you help clean up other idiots left behind trash, do you pack out what you pack in, it is great you asked permission.

 

You would turn around at a no tresspassing sign, but you would rip down the fence that they put up on their property. That's brilliant. And I even have to wonder why they would want to close the area off. Great job.

If it was for sale and you wanted to use it, here's a suggestion. BUY IT.

As far as land use groups, No, I don't belong to any of them. Do I own land, Yes, I do. Do I allow it to be used, Yes I do. Do I pack out what I pack in, everytime and yes some other folks crap too.

Nobody's perfect around here, but a little consideration for others using trail systems is necessary to maintain our ability to use it as well. If you don't own the property, it's not a right, it's a priviledge.

 

Maybe I wasn't clear. The trails the 4x4s are on which they showed is BLM public land owned by us, the taxpayers. Those trails were formed from existing logging roads. Wheelers have been using those trails for about a decade. The local pd knows many of the guys that go up there and have never issued a citation. Why do you think that is?

I don't know anything about the atv'ers & hunters who are going "off-trail" or ripping down the "no trespassing signs", there is no private land near the blm/wheeling trails up there that we use. So, I can't comment about them since its outside my personal experience.

As I've said, there ARE bozos up there, as there are everywhere. My problem with the story is that it portrays 4x4'ers as the problem and that we are tearing up the wilderness, which is not the case.

 

i haven't figured out yet why anyone here is arguing? why is this an issue amongst us? if we have differnet views on land issues we are only hurting ourselves.

i agree with pro that a logging road is a loggin road and really there isn't much to do to make it worse and the news is ALWAYS biased BUT theres a lot of very naive folks out there that would believe that blinker fluid exists much less a biased news cast!

its pretty freaking simple if you see trash ANYWHERE pick it up! for god's sakes we need a better reputation or wheelin may become non-existent.

it's really sad, last time i came out of Tellico i drug back 3 garbage bags FULL of trash. in fact i remember going off on a family of four riding fourwheelers and just leaving their picnic trash like it was a restaurant! i got called some pretty choice words but did the dad sure look like an azz in front of his kids!

yes we have ALL done things we shouldn't me included but what matters is that we know better and try to do the right thing and that we realize we are sometimes wrong.

once again i can't fathom why ANYONE here would disagree with another on this issue! if we dont agree on any other subject this is the one we need to agree on!

-cutts-

 

I don't think anybody is argueing, just debating a hot point about our sport. The discussion had shifted over to tresspassing over onto private land (which is WAY wrong) and I just wanted to clarify that the trails in the story were on public lands. Although they didn't make it sound that way, did they?

Yea, it drives me nuts when people litter on the trails also. Although, up here, I don't see much trail litter, but I do see a bunch of illegal dump sites. Really burns me up. They probably blame the illegal dump sites on us too

 

Pro that wasn't trail litter, it was that Samuri you ran over thinking it was a small rock.

Yeah, I hate the steriotyping we get. I can't count how many times I have been told I was a redneck just because I have mud tires and a lift.

Chris

 

I don't worry about people who look down the barrel of loaded firearms. Natural selection weeds those idiots out pretty quick. Besides if He's got it pointed in his face that constitutes a safe direction in my book, and makes the rest of us safer.

Broke Bronco It's alright to be a Redneck. Next time someone calls you that thank them and tell them, they could've been something too had they tried

Pat

 

Yeah, I don't know where the issue of private property came up? That is a whole other story. The issue here is one group of public land users trying to deny another group of users access to the same land. The issue of litter, destruction, tresspassing, etc. is common sense and should be agreed on by all that it is no good. The issue of having equal access to public land is the hot topic, and as was stated earlier, if there is not a united voice present at EVERY land-use meeting, you will lose access to those that ARE there that don't share your views on recreation. It amazes me though that we can hotly debate it here amongst like-minded people, but no one here has attended a land-use meeting to defend your point against those that seek to deny you access. How many of you looked up your local BLM manager to find out when the next meeting was? How many of you called your Off-Road Club President to recommend attending these meetings? How many of you tried to organize anything to fix this problem? I can't speak much for off-roading because I have been out of it for years, but I do give $100's of dollars to IMBA each year, I do attend land-use meetings as part of SDMBA, I do volunteer at trail clean-up and maintainance events. This situation mirrors that of the situation that is going on in the world of mountain biking, and IMBA and other volunteer groups are making a difference and gaining access back. All I'm saying is that if as much energy and passion went into fixing the problem as it did in this thread, it would get better for all involved.