9.4 mil acres in Southern Utah

[DesertRose]

What could be more important than personal rights?

A higher good - things we cannot see, feel, or touch, the things God made, which do include us, but never intended us to be the arbiter of all. We should be stewards, not destroyers or users.

The world would be a better place without humans, for sure.

I (nor, I think Jonathan) am not anti-human; personally I am awed by the accomplishments of mankind and think we belong here, and that since we came from the Wilderness, we should remember that as our legacy. As the highest (I know, questionable) lifeform with a complex culture, we have an obligation to act on things that mean more than the individual.

 

[Jonathan Hanson]

The vast majority of arson occurs right off the main highway. Not sure which firefighter told you they don't need dirt roads in the backcounty? After the largest fire in the history of the United States, the one in my backyard (literally), they graded MORE fire service roads and repaired existing ones to make it easier to move equipment.

It wasn't a firefighter, it was a full study by the U.S. Forest Service. I quote from an op-ed I published in the East Valley Tribune:

The Tribune’s claim that roads provide necessary access for fire crews is either ignorant or deliberately misleading. According to the Forest Service’s own studies, large, destructive fires occur much more frequently in roaded and logged areas than in roadless areas. Human-caused fires are almost five times more likely to occur in roaded areas. One need only research recent large fires in Arizona to confirm this. Recent catastrophic fires on public land are the direct result of a century of road-building, narrow-minded logging practices, and misguided fire suppression policies, all of which added up to forests comprising mostly kindling instead of mature, fire-resistant trees.

So your second comment on the causes behind recent catastrophic fires is right on: We caused them with bad policy.

I have never seen this arguement used by a pro-access group.

Um, huh? It's a mainstay of every anti-wilderness platform I've ever seen.

The world would be a better place without humans, for sure.

Do I sense a whiff of sarcasm here? For the record, I believe humans are the only species on earth capable of fulfilling the potential of the very meaning of Life itself: to learn and explore. Does that mean we have to trash everything in our wake?

I'll turn the argument around. We are the highest form of life on the planet, the only species with the potential to reach space and probe the mystery of the universe. We are also the only species that can comprehend the ramifications of the concept of selfishness. Yet many of us embrace selfishness under the banner of "personal rights," thus betraying in actuality a complete ignorance of the term. A right inevitably carries with it responsibility - something unacknowledged by those who only argue for self-fulfillment.

There should be a cry for managed (did I say funded too?) OHV areas to alleviate the presure near urban centers. 95% of OHV users are content to drive their quads around close to home and never venture too far away.

I totally agree.

 

[calamaridog]

A higher good - things we cannot see, feel, or touch, the things God made, which do include us, but never intended us to be the arbiter of all. We should be stewards, not destroyers or users.

I know where you are going with this but it doesn't get the bill passed committee.

I (nor, I think Jonathan) am not anti-human; personally I am awed by the accomplishments of mankind and think we belong here, and that since we came from the Wilderness, we should remember that as our legacy. As the highest (I know, questionable) lifeform with a complex culture, we have an obligation to act on things that mean more than the individual.

We humans have many complex cultures, most of which are based upon consuming vast resources.


Don't get me wrong, I don't necessarily disagree with you in theory, but the scope of the discussion has gone beyond practical application

I think the "back to basics" issue is that if you wanted to preserve several million acreas of new wilderness you could do that by creating a consensus amongst all interested parties. The point that I will continue to make is that you can compromise, or you can have status quo, where neither group truely has consensus enough to push their agenda too far.

In the meanwhile, I will continue to support multi-use with my money and my mouth to counter the radical environmental movement and keep the issue somewhere in the center.

 

[calamaridog]

It wasn't a firefighter, it was a full study by the U.S. Forest Service. I quote from an op-ed I published in the East Valley Tribune:

The Tribune’s claim that roads provide necessary access for fire crews is either ignorant or deliberately misleading. According to the Forest Service’s own studies, large, destructive fires occur much more frequently in roaded and logged areas than in roadless areas. Human-caused fires are almost five times more likely to occur in roaded areas. One need only research recent large fires in Arizona to confirm this. Recent catastrophic fires on public land are the direct result of a century of road-building, narrow-minded logging practices, and misguided fire suppression policies, all of which added up to forests comprising mostly kindling instead of mature, fire-resistant trees.

Fire suppression is mostly done to safeguard property, including assets owned and opporated by the government and most of the roads are mainly for that purpose.

Don't take this the wrong way, but I'd be more interested if you quoted the actual study not an article in some paper that may or may not have read the whole study and misquoted it. I can draw different conclusions as to where to lay the blame versus "blame the road".

Regardless of all that, most of the fire service roads near me are closed to unofficial traffic.

So your second comment on the causes behind recent catastrophic fires is right on: We caused them with bad policy.

We continue to cause these problems with bad policy. Frankly, most people, including land managers, have never seen a forest in its natural state after hundreds of years of mismanagement.

Um, huh? It's a mainstay of every anti-wilderness platform I've ever seen.

I'm not really into the anti-wilderness scene I guess

Do I sense a whiff of sarcasm here? For the record, I believe humans are the only species on earth capable of fulfilling the potential of the very meaning of Life itself: to learn and explore. Does that mean we have to trash everything in our wake?

More than a whiff And no, we shouldn't trash everything in our wake. As a matter of fact, I always leave my campsite cleaner than when I found it.

I'll turn the argument around. We are the highest form of life on the planet, the only species with the potential to reach space and probe the mystery of the universe. We are also the only species that can comprehend the ramifications of the concept of selfishness. Yet many of us embrace selfishness under the banner of "personal rights," thus betraying in actuality a complete ignorance of the term. A right inevitably carries with it responsibility - something unacknowledged by those who only argue for self-fulfillment.

Humans will most likely cause their own extinction so I'm not so sure how highly evolved we are. As far as personal rights, people hold different "rights" to be higher than others.

I totally agree.

OMG:victory:

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Just rolled in from Southern Utah, enjoying many of the areas I will be "protected" out of if the AWRA gets its way... a sad glimpse of the future at every corner.

I guess I can agree to disagree... I gave it countless hours of thought this weekend, and I have realized I may never understand some of your viewpoints.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow the trails you were on today might need "protection" from the "damage" that is OK to commit today

 

[DesertRose]

Just rolled in from Southern Utah, enjoying many of the areas I will be "protected" out of if the AWRA gets its way... a sad glimpse of the future at every corner.

I guess I can agree to disagree... I gave it countless hours of thought this weekend, and I have realized I may never understand some of your viewpoints.

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow the trails you were on today might need "protection" from the "damage" that is OK to commit today

I really do feel bad about your position - where did you go, do you have a map of your route? We've gone there a number of times as well, I bet we've been to the same places - it's truly beautiful. I would like to understand the specifics more.

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

I thought a lot about it this weekend too.. I did about 550 miles, did a lot of the same route that Kurt actually did... Anyway, it was one of the most spectacular (probably the most spectacular) drive I have ever had. I did Lake Powell to Capital Reef to Grand Stair Case, to Boulder-Dixie Forest (which is a forest that spills into the rock of the desert - literally unreal) to Torrey, Loa, then back through the Swell home.. In Castedale I rounded the corner of one of the most spectacular areas ever (the western side of the Swell) and came across this. Literally in the most serene areas ever.. I suppose these things need to go somewhere, and maybe the desert is the best place for them, but this is the sort of protection I had in mind personally...

(that is the swell in the background)

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I really do feel bad about your position - where did you go, do you have a map of your route? We've gone there a number of times as well, I bet we've been to the same places - it's truly beautiful. I would like to understand the specifics more.

Now I am even more confused... how can you support something when you don't even know what trails it will potentially doom? I have to admit that I don't know the full implifications of the AWRA, but I do know many of the trails that could be "swallowed" with a Wilderness designation. I think a large portion of the AWRA supporters have no idea the amount of land this will essentially "lock-up" and funnel those motorized users to other land, the "over-impacting" those areas, a means to an end I suppose. I don't know how many of the involved trails will be outright closed, versus "cherry-stemmed" into the Wilderness and then closed at a later point (as has happened soooo many times with other Utah Wilderness & WSA's. I have attempted to get more detailed maps and info from the UWC, to no avail yet.

Trails that are involved:

Moab Area:
Behind the Rocks
Moab Rim
Pritchett Canyon (already borders a WSA and has been petitioned for closure as such numerous times)
Fins/Things
Porcupine Rim
Lockhart Basin Road

South of Moab:
Arch Canyon & Hotel Rock - Arch Canyon would be closed to motorized use, not sure about their plans for Hotel Rock. Arch Canyon gets less "impact" from a years worth of motorized use as it does from a single rainstorm. After spring floods the area has amazingly sparse human "impact" noticibable to the eye. (we ran both of these trails last month as part of the CM07 Pre-Run)
Comb Wash and Butler Wash Trails - Not sure how they are changed other than any & all spur roads would likely be eliminated. (we camped here Thursday, ran the entire trail last month)
Johns Canyon and Johns Canyon Overlook Trail - Both are inside of the Grand Gulch AWRA proposal.
Cottonwood Wash Trail & N/s Elk Ridge Trail - They look "cherry-stemmed" on the map, but any spurs/off trail campsites could be goners.
Burr Trail Spurs ie. Upper Muley Twist Trail - Upper Muley Twist trail specifically looks as if it would be a goner, not sure about the Wolverine Loop Trail that spurs off south of the Burr Trail.

Kanab Area:
Pinnicle Trail
Big Hill Trail
Savage Point Trail (we ran this Saturday)
Toms Canyon Trail
(All these look like they would be completely closed as part of the Vermillion Cliffs AWRA proposal)

San Rafael Swell Area:


[I will continue to update the information as I have time and get answers back from the UWC]

 

[DesertRose]

Now I am even more confused... how can you support something when you don't even know what trails it will potentially doom? I have to admit that I don't know the full implifications of the AWRA, but I do know many of the trails that could be "swallowed" with a Wilderness designation.

I have been through every map for all the Wilderness proposals currently being put to the legislature for Utah . . . so I do know which areas very specifically, and I've driven a lot of them though certainly not all of them.

But what I didn't understand from your post was what specific area you are talking about being closed that you said you just drove through - it's a big area, southern Utah - and I just wanted to get a specific and personal view since you said "eat drink and be merry" etc.

And when I wrote much of the time about supporting Wilderness, some of us were talking about ideology as well as specifics. Yes, I'm much more likely to support any Wilderness designation than are you, I'm sure.

But I do know the Swell - which is about a million acres total. At least 2000 miles of roads will remain open in the Swell, even if the wilderness legislation goes through. So I'm just not clear on exactly which roads that are your personal favorites are going to be closed.

[And by the way, when we were last at the Swell, it was clear that there was some serious problems caused by ATVs - and not by regular 4x4 and overlanders. I feel that the main problem with the whole push to make new Wilderness is that we are seeing extensive intrusion into previously un-roaded areas by ATVs - quads, buggies - and so areas that used to be wildlife habitat and places to get away from mechanized travel are now open to everybody. There is a fear with the booming ATV market that this will only get worse. We see it ourselves all over southern Arizona.

I'm really sorry that legitimate, conscientious 4x4 recreationists get penalized by the ATV bozos' behaviour, which in general is really quite awful. Every weekend we get them around our place, tearing around, ruining roads, making noise, trespassing, going off road - it's awful.

As we said earlier - the emnity and polarization is making it impossible to compromise, on either side.]

 

[cruiseroutfit]

I thought a lot about it this weekend too.. I did about 550 miles, did a lot of the same route that Kurt actually did... Anyway, it was one of the most spectacular (probably the most spectacular) drive I have ever had. I did Lake Powell to Capital Reef to Grand Stair Case, to Boulder-Dixie Forest (which is a forest that spills into the rock of the desert - literally unreal) to Torrey, Loa, then back through the Swell home.. In Castedale I rounded the corner of one of the most spectacular areas ever (the western side of the Swell) and came across this. Literally in the most serene areas ever.. I suppose these things need to go somewhere, and maybe the desert is the best place for them, but this is the sort of protection I had in mind personally...

(that is the swell in the background)

Now you need to wheel through the middle of those areas Time to convert that van to 4WD

If you think the road north out of Boulder is awesome, go south to Escalante. You travel one of the coolest highways in the state of Utah IMHO. Hells Backbone is a paved road along the ridge of a mountain, shear cliffs on both sides

I didn't snap any pics of Scenic 12 this time, but from last December when we were in that area:

 

[DesertRose]

I thought a lot about it this weekend too.. I did about 550 miles, did a lot of the same route that Kurt actually did... Anyway, it was one of the most spectacular (probably the most spectacular) drive I have ever had. I did Lake Powell to Capital Reef to Grand Stair Case, to Boulder-Dixie Forest (which is a forest that spills into the rock of the desert - literally unreal) to Torrey, Loa, then back through the Swell home.. In Castedale I rounded the corner of one of the most spectacular areas ever (the western side of the Swell) and came across this. Literally in the most serene areas ever.. I suppose these things need to go somewhere, and maybe the desert is the best place for them, but this is the sort of protection I had in mind personally...

(that is the swell in the background)

We've been by that area, too - yes, that's a big monster, and I think one of the major causes of particulate pollution in the National Parks aroudn there, though not sure of that.

 

[durango_60]

I unfortunately do not have the time to adequately research the subject myself but I would like to chime in with a big "Thank You" to Kurt for all of the time and energy you put into keeping our existing trails open.

While I respect the opinions and appreciate the passion of both sides of this discussion I am bewildered to find such an argument on a site dedicated to Overlanding. Why not spend your resources battling ATV's as it is obvious that they are responsible for the majority of the abuse of the land? Is this issue all that different than the effort that got PWC's(jet skis) banned from many parks?

 

[cruiseroutfit]

...I'm really sorry that legitimate, conscientious 4x4 recreationists get penalized by the ATV bozos' behaviour, which in general is really quite awful. Every weekend we get them around our place, tearing around, ruining roads, making noise, trespassing, going off road - it's awful...

I agree on many levels that ATV's seem to cause alot of the visible "impact" that we see in these areas. But Wilderness doesn't stop stupidity, nor does it fix the real issue at hand, rather IMHO it increases it.

Utah has huge OHV community, and it is growing faster than you would beleive. I don't have numbers here in front of me, but in the last 5 years alone the number has doubled. And that number is registered OHV's only, so it doesn't take into account any of the full-size (Jeep, LC, pickup, etc) users.

If you were to talk with the ATV groups here in Utah, they seem to think the problem is just as much ours (4x4's) as it is ATV's, while I disagree on many counts, its probably pretty equal proportional to the amount of each user. We have some VERY active ATV and snowmobile associations througout the state... while I agree they are the "majority" of the problem, I don't know that pointing the finger at them will do alot of good in the long run.

Money spent on all this Wilderness effort (both the for and against sides) could have gone alot further by focusing on education and law enforcement. Sadly this doesn't seem to be a priority...

 

[dieselcruiserhead]

This is going to sound a little cold hearted... But I personally have very little love for ATVs. Especially for quads, unless actually needed on a farm... Using quads recreationally to me is most stupid in my opinion.. Dirt bikes are pretty cool, but man do they tear things up. Of the 10 or so times I have seen times where people were doing things they shouldn't on the trail (IE not on the trail, tearing up cryptobiotic soil) it is usually by dirt bike users. Just Friday one came zooming by us a good 15 feet off the trail, thinking he was being nice by bypassing the trucks on the trail..


I can/do understand how unity helps a lot but these guys and some of the more violent and/or reckless off roaders with bigger engines and who roll a lot, etc, seem to be much more of the problem. I think if these guys didn't exist, things might be a lot more easy for us. Even Edward Abbey & such drove a jeep.. ..and used it..

 

[cruiseroutfit]

This is going to sound cold hearted but I personally have very little love especially for quads.. Dirt bikes are pretty cool but man do they tear things up. Of the 10 or so times I have seen times where people were doing things they shouldn't on the trail (IE not on the trail, tearing up cryptobiotic soil) it is usually in dirt bikes. I can/do understand how unity helps a lot but these guys and some of the more violent and/or reckless off roaders with bigger engines and who roll a lot, etc, seem to be much more of the problem. I think if these guys didn't exist, things might be a lot more easy for us. Even Edward Abbey & such drove a jeep.. ..and used it..

Don't get me wrong, my views are often synonymous... It’s a hard battle on all sides. I am sure there are pro-Wilderness advocates that don't like the fact they refuse to compromise, I would even consider allot of 4x4 users in that category. But at the end of the day... if it’s not "all right" it’s not "alright"… AWRA must be either buried or heavily revised.

Last year alone I visited the Southern Utah area nearly a dozen times, and this year will eclipse that number... each time I go I find 10 more places I want to check out. The shear beauty and remoteness of the area make both sides so passionate for its well-being albeit with different ideas to "protect" it.

I've seen the damage ATV's can cause offroad, but then again I still think the problem is pretty minor all things considered. In all my travels this last weekend (~200 offroad, 900 on road), there wasn't really one area that stood out as "damaged" by OHV's. Sure some rogue tracks could be seen here or there, but a southern Utah spring can erase alot of stupidity thankfully!