Posted on 05/09/2014 12:59:18 PM PDT by george76
The May 10 All-Terrain Vehicle (ATV) ride into restricted Recapture Canyon is still moving forward, threatening a collision between local residents and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
The ATV ride is planned by a group of Blanding residents in an attempt to force the BLM to make a decision on who has jurisdiction within the canyon, which is just east of Blanding. Motorized access to the trail has been in dispute since the BLM forced its closure in 2007.
San Juan County Commissioner Phil Lyman, who has planned the ride, does not plan to back down to mounting pressure from the BLM.
In an April 28 letter to Lyman, Lance Porter, the manager of the BLM Canyon Country District Office, wrote that “any motorized use within the area is a prohibited act and violators are subject to civil and criminal penalties.”
The letter adds that the “BLM will seek all appropriate civil and criminal penalties.”
...
The conflict is receiving more and more attention due in part to recent events at the Bundy Ranch near Mesquite, NV. The conflict in Nevada, regarding grazing rights on BLM land, led to hundreds of angry citizens converging on the ranch to take a stand against what they call an intrusive federal government.
Whether the Recapture Canyon ride will receive the same support is not yet clear. Lyman originally planned the event locally, previous to the Bundy Ranch incidents, but has since invited participation from across the U.S.
...
Because of the potential for a showdown similar to Nevada, media outlets have picked up the story.
Additionally, environmental groups and other supporters of the closure may show up to protest the ATV ride.
(Excerpt) Read more at sjrnews.com ...
Have been backpacking several times in the country in and around this canyon. Very beautiful and remote. Very interesting archeological sites, etc.
Something you don’t often hear about on this site is that the BLM is widely castigated by liberals and enviros for being too friendly with local ranching and business interests, allowing too much grazing and too many ATV trails, etc.
So they get it from both sides.
As with many other places out West, it belongs to the People.
The people need to be charging the ATVers 10 bucks to ride the trail. 500 bucks if they get off the trail. 1000 bucks for spinning donuts
I suspect that the ATV’ers “fees” already cover the budget of the Statist “controllers”.
Hope you didn’t miss donating to your favorite environmental wacko club!
Maybe you should take it up with Hebert?
Here's the reality: within a short distance of this event there are 2800 miles of ATV trails that can be used. But for the malcontents nothing is ever enough.
For most of them, it is not about how many trails there are available to them. They just don't want to be confined to a trail. For them, staying on the trail is boring. Their ATV is a carnival ride and they want the thrill of "tearing up the desert". In fact, you can use that phrase in a You Tube search and find many videos that ATV riders post of themselves doing exactly that.
Is this canyon off the San Juan river downstream from Bluff?
Maybe it’s the difference in living in Texas which the Gov’t owns 1.9% of and Utah which the Gov’t owns 57.4% of.
In Texas the amount of land open to the public for recreation is very, very limited. The biggest area in Big Bend Natl Park in far west texas, a long ways away. The irony is that Big Bend was a State Park that the State gave to feds in 1942.
Adjoining that was the Big Bend Ranch, also quite large. When this ranch came up for sale in the late 80s, the state bought because they didn't want the Park to buy it. Texas was mad that Big Bend had been given a UNESCO listing. That hasn't worked out. They spent a lot of money and never could develop it for tourists so it is little used.
But as you mentioned Utah has a lot of land for recreation use by the people that live there close by plus they have a huge tourist business from outstaters who spend a lot of money. In fact, there was a planned event close to this posse comitatus planned trail ride that the tourists, a fairly large group of veterans, canceled rather than take a chance of conflicts with the posse comitatus.
Its been reported in the media, that in this local area, there are 2800 miles of ATV trails for public use. They have that one trail that goes from the Mexican to Canadian border that passes thru Utah.
Recapture Wash starts in the Blue or Abajo Mountains NW of Blanding, runs east of Blanding and into the San Juan some miles upstream of Bluff. It’s an unusually long watercourse for the area and varies from a deep canyon to an arroyo running across flat terrain. If I remember correctly, parts of it are trailless and others have jeep or gravel roads through them. But it’s been over 25 years since I’ve been there.
That area of the world (south Utah) is the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I miss it.
Environmentalists have often successfully sued the BLM and other government agencies to force them to take a stand against ranchers, farmers, and recreational users. BLM and other agencies do catch it from all sides, I think what the main issues are is the government should not have control of so much land in the West to begin with, and the BLM and similar agencies should not have their own Army, much less use it against citizens.
I can’t argue with that.
My personal experiences with BLM personnel have always been very positive. I believe most of the on the ground guys are trying to do the best they can, in a really tough spot. That’s probably different from the headquarters guys and especially the political appointees at the top.
My most personally disturbing contact while backpacking on BLM land was with a rancher who insisted he owned the land and had the right to kick me off it because he grazed cattle on it. Thought for a while the confrontation was going to turn violent. Kinda scary, since I wasn’t armed, and he most likely had a gun in his pickup.
kiss it pal..!!
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