Public "Land" shut down with no discussion

That particular link is now coming up with a "page not found" error. Here in upstate NY, the winter has been so mild, the ice is too thin, in many cases, to support snowmobiles and there are PSA warnings about it, Heck, there isn't even any ice on the Hudson river, and most years the Coast Guard has to run an icebreaker on the river to keep the channel open for ships and barge traffic. Are you sure it's not just related to that?
 
Hurricane Creek Rd.

That's a popular spot. Surprised I haven't seen more uproar about it online. From what I can find it seems like the gate is for seasonal closures January through April. A lot of areas in GA are closed during this time frame as it's when the area is most susceptible to damage due to heavier amounts of precipitation and very little vegetation.


That particular link is now coming up with a "page not found" error. Here in upstate NY, the winter has been so mild, the ice is too thin, in many cases, to support snowmobiles and there are PSA warnings about it, Heck, there isn't even any ice on the Hudson river, and most years the Coast Guard has to run an icebreaker on the river to keep the channel open for ships and barge traffic. Are you sure it's not just related to that?

Unfortunately it seems to stem from complaints from a small number of residents who recently moved to the area. When I say small number I mean one guy and his wife who own one of the 10 houses that adjoin the lake.
 
That's a popular spot. Surprised I haven't seen more uproar about it online. From what I can find it seems like the gate is for seasonal closures January through April. A lot of areas in GA are closed during this time frame as it's when the area is most susceptible to damage due to heavier amounts of precipitation and very little vegetation.




Unfortunately it seems to stem from complaints from a small number of residents who recently moved to the area. When I say small number I mean one guy and his wife who own one of the 10 houses that adjoin the lake.
The gate just went up maybe a month ago. The one visible from the road is open but I spoke to someone that claimed they drove in and found another further in that was closed. The current MVUM has no info and I have emailed the ranger district for more info. Will start calling later if no response.

Edit: Just got a response. Not a lot of detail, "We have not initiated the seasonal closure and are allowed to travel until further notice" . I dont know what the seasonal plans are yet but will try to stay in touch.
 
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Washington State DNR closing an area near Darrington WA know as Church Camp road. When we first started going there it had a access road to the Sauk River. Over the years illegal trails were built which led to the closer of the entire area. Mostly ATV/UTV trails. Had a few gravel pits that built up with shooter debris and spent casings as well. A few local clubs held clean ups spring and fall but it wasn't enough.
 
Guys and gals, kid's, anyone with a little skin in this game...I've been on the front lines of the land use battle in the past. Both Machelle and I finally gave up...now we do the best we can to educate, volunteer our time doing something tangible (DRV desert clean ups for example), and follow the Tread Lightly principles of off pavement travel.

The problem as we saw it in our area (SoCal)...it's easy for the Center for Biological Diversity, the Steal the Area...I mean Sierra Club, etc, to set up a booth in front of a grocery store and show tire ruts, destruction of trails, litter, etc and blame it all on off-pavement vehicular travel. They get the signatures from the sheeple that put "measures/public opinion" inputs into action. When public meetings are held, the "closure is management" folks are united, have a couple thousand signatures on some unread petition...the off pavement crowd (that bother to show up) is fractured into the special interest groups...and we have them all in SoCal...adventure travel, rock crawlers, sand cars, desert racers, (cars, side by sides, quads, motorcycles), Glamis/sand guys, etc...each group has their own agenda and can't get along well enough to join together for a common cause.

One of the easy interweb causes for me to irritate damn near everybody with is REI...lots of cool gear...ABSOLUTELY ZERO SUPPORT FOR ANY OFF PAVEMENT VEHICULAR TRAVEL. I get it, I purchased an REI branded tent that met my needs quite nicely back in the day. Then came the good old interweb and we could all see what everyone else was doing, and I discovered REI's politics...been on my REI rant ever since...generally losing that battle. They have cool gear, meets the need, etc. To humor myself I put duct tape across the REI logo on the tent!

There will be enough open ground to satisfy my needs for the years I have left in this game whether it is on this side of the fence or in Baja. As off the shelf 1000HP electric "off roaders" become the thing, I fear that access to public lands will become more and more restricted. Roger Norman proved that you can't keep the tires on a trophy truck with 1000 horsepower through the desert...too much wheel spin shredded the tires. Give a guy 1000HP and a warranty...come on...even a die hard hyper miler Prius driver would have to give the throttle/rheostat a squeeze to see what it will do.

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Can't find the video of that run.

Now...desert racing...land use...same sentence...certainly. Desert racing in the US is so highly regulated that I no longer found it to be enjoyable as a logistics guy. For a chase/crew dog, our access to get to a broken race car became so limited that it became too frustrating...I could see my broken race car, but due to BLM regulations I couldn't go help them. Oddly, these days we are usually at a stationary pit with BFG for the Baja races where mobile chase crews are almost a requirement.

<pot calling the kettle> Get out from behind your keyboards, interweb petitions, etc...find an organization/club/group/random collection of people that hate each other, what ever...and actively DO something to help the cause.
 
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unfortunately these activist are more funded, more equipt with resources & have more passion for there cause than offroad communities. These activist know how to paint the false narrative to the public characterizing the off road vehicle recreation community & the damage it causes to the public lands, here's the word they so proudly portray "environmentally" damaging.
We all seen, experienced things we do not like that bother us when running trails, litter, bullet holes in signs, horse trails damaged by offroad vehicles, bathroom vaults damaged or graffiti & vandalized to cut gates\fences as some examples. I'm not saying the offroad community does "all" this, but I have witness motorcycles, atv's, utv's on designated horse trails & hiking trails or driving thru the woods making their own trails which only hurts the offroad community more & gives these activist more to pursue closures. There are some great offroad organizations like Tread Lightly that emphasize good common sense behavior. IMO there needs to be more public out cry from the offroad community in a positive way showing what good it does, what it offers, why we do what we do, & how each of us build your own adventures. We also need to condemn & turn in those who are not good representatives of our community. I know I & the wife have done this a few times turning in those who are ruining our public lands by these types of bad behaviors.
 
^^^^Too many commercials displaying highly capable off the shelf vehicles doing stupid things...the folks new to the game think that's what they are supposed to do! We've all "been there, done that" then we learned better. It's up to us as a group to educate/inform/lead by example for the people that are new to our lifestyle of what is right/wrong.
 
^^^^Too many commercials displaying highly capable off the shelf vehicles doing stupid things...the folks new to the game think that's what they are supposed to do! We've all "been there, done that" then we learned better. It's up to us as a group to educate/inform/lead by example for the people that are new to our lifestyle of what is right/wrong.

:tread
 
Hurricane Creek is a nice road. The wife and I drove thru the mountains from Dillsboro NC and some how got on HC and then followed it till it put us on I40 E. Still not sure how we got on it but we had a great ride thru the mountains!
 
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