Posted on 07/05/2004 6:34:20 AM PDT by John Jorsett
LOS ANGELES – The Bureau of Land Management substantially increased the amount of public land open to off-road vehicles in Riverside and San Bernardino counties by approving 1,500 miles of roads in the Mojave Desert.
The decision made Friday affects 1.3 million acres in the Mojave Desert and covers a large portion of critical habitat for the endangered desert tortoise. But officials said they made efforts to avoid sensitive areas.
"We don't have to close every road in critical habitat, but we do determine how sensitive the area is and what the impacts are," said Jan Bedrosian, a spokeswoman for the bureau.
Conservationists said the ruling recognized illicit roads that only exist because recreational vehicle users went off-road illegally, and predicted it would hurt the delicate desert environment.
"Everything that was out there on the ground was designated as open, and a lot of it was created by illegal roads," said Daniel Patterson with the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, Ariz.
Environmentalists and off-road enthusiasts have long butted heads over whether more desert land should be opened to recreational vehicles.
Owners of all-terrain cycles and other vehicles complain sensitive desert land is all too often off-limits to them, while environmentalists argue the BLM caters to off-road vehicle users at the expense of protecting habitat.
Jetski-of-the-land ping!
Like they'll stay on the roads this time either.... These wankers live for ~new~ ground....
Look at all those horse trails! lol
You sound like my daughter, who sees horse trails in every landscape! Set up a few jumps, and she's in business...
Having grown up in SoCal ('spans alot) it seems to be just natural habitat to me. ;)
What about both of the endangered lizards? The little mouse? The fleas? Oh, the humanity....
You are unimformed.
I spent three years on the BLM RAC in Nevada. It is a fact that when adequate routes are available, maintained and enforced new routes are not created.
Also, there are areas that have "open route" designations, like the one in your photo. Those areas are literaly open to travel across open terrain, road or not.
Mainstream eco-kooks know this yet lie to present the same mantra you do.
And you?
I've spent a lot of time in the woods too. The real fact is, dirt bikers love to climb up the part of the hill no one has climbed before.
I am glad to give them pieces of ground to ride on. It keeps them off the rest of it, we hope.
Those are illegal alien footpaths. And this being California, space alien landing pads.
If it's not an open riding area or private land then the riders are likely breaking the law.
What are these areas you refer to?
Man, you guys (and gals) are so lucky out west. In my state of CT, we have ONE small legal spot to ride out ATV's....it's pathetic.
A decision sure to enrage environmentalists, esp. those who don't want human activity on any federally owned land. Or state land. Or private land. Well, the dirty little secret is that they really think all land should be owned communally as in communism.
...just look for piles of horseshiite, and the wafting aroma that accompanies it!
Where's it at? I'm gettin my kid a new dirtbike.
All of the Mojave in SoCal outside of the following:
Military Reservations
Wilderness Areas
Wilderness Study Areas
National Parks (not always limited)
National Monuments
Mojave National Preserve
The eco-kooks wanted had the entire desert closed down except for a few "open route" areas which comprised less than 1% of the whole area.
This change would have never happened under an aLgore administration.
Why don't you just get him a couple of pounds of calcium carbide and tell him to keep it cold in an ice chest?
I'm up in Western Washington State, Near Olympia, and it is State Forest. Working timber land. Open to the public and a great spot. I know I sound cynical about the ATV crowd, but I am a back-country (horse) trail rider and there is a reason for it. It's an aesthetic difference, with some bad history that makes it more like a rivalry between the two hobbies.
They've got the forest divided in half, Half for motorized vehicles and half for non-motorized. A great solution really, in concept. The horseman share their side with hikers and mountain bicycles, and for tactical reasons, the hunters, just because of the noise on the other side.
We can hear them when we are our side sometimes, and it does change the whole mood of the outdoors, but it's a big place and we can get away from it too.
The trouble I've had really is that on each side there are camp spots. The horse camps are nice camps. Large campsites with corrals, and the horse-campers are quiet by temperament. The bike camps are loud, with a different kind of crowd, drinking at night and loud music, and well, loud bikes buzzing around camp. So the bikers that want quiet come and camp at the horse camps. They can use the bikes on the road in to camp. And do. They want quiet alright, until it is them coming and going, or their own music. So the horse folks complain. We ask them for quiet. When we are off riding, our horse trailer tires get slashed.
We could be allies, each fighting to protect our access to public lands. But they are different cultures, in the woods for different reasons. and we have come to see each other as the enemy. Slashed tires will do that to ya.
I don't know what the rules are in the bike side of the mountain, but the whole place is chewed up, not just trails through it, and I also don't know if there is a rule on the horse side, but there is a ~ethic~ to stay on the trail that is enforce through peer pressure and common understanding. Because we are all there for the peace and beauty, we keep it that way.
So wheres the gas station? :)
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