Free Republic

Three people were killed during an off-roading tour of Colorado’s San Juan Mountains when their Jeep plunged over a cliff on Monday... Arizona tourists Diana Robles, 28, Ofelia Figueroa-Perez, 60, and hired driver Don Fehd, 72, were all killed when their 2022 Jeep Gladiator drifted off the edge of Ouray County Road 361 and landed hundreds of feet below... The vehicle first fell 100 feet to the bottom of a cliff... It then rolled about 140 feet down a rocky embankment, ejecting Fehd... ... Before the crash, Robles, a Yuma nurse, had reportedly just snapped a picture of the iconic...

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service completed its biological opinion on the much-awaited recreation management plan for the Imperial Sand Dunes, one of the country’s most popular off-road areas in eastern Imperial County. The opinion does not require temporary environmental closures stay closed but requires more monitoring and analysis of the endangered desert tortoise and the purple-flowered Peirson’s milk-vetch. Environmentalists say the opinion and the soon-to-be-released management plan will be challenged in court. “It’s really a sad day for anyone that believes in balanced land management or using good science,” Center for Biological Diversity Desert Ecologist Daniel Patterson said. “Here...

LOS ANGELES, March 28 — Federal officials are proposing reopening land that had been off limits to riders of dune buggies and other off-road vehicles in the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, which in recent years has been the site of virtually unfettered chaos on holiday weekends. A proposal drawn up by the Bureau of Land Management seeks to reopen 49,310 acres of dunes that were closed to off-road vehicles under a settlement reached in November 2000 between the bureau, a coalition of off-road clubs and three groups of environmentalists, who were concerned about the damage being done to endangered...

Land may be reopened for off-roading 03/29/2002 By JENNIFER BOWLESTHE PRESS-ENTERPRISE The federal government is proposing to reopen thousands of acres of the California desert's most popular off-roading area, a move cautiously applauded by Inland recreationists and harshly criticized by environmentalists. Reversing a Clinton administration decision, U.S. Bureau of Land Management officials said Thursday they want to allow vehicles back on nearly 50,000 acres of the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, 100 miles southeast of Palm Springs. Nearly one-third of the dunes was previously closed to vehicles to protect an endangered plant in November 2000. "This looks like yet another...