I've seen more roads (and I mean roads, not just "two track" and dry wash bottoms, but many actual graded dirt roads in good shape) closed in the last two years than the previous ten or eleven years combined. Roads in any form are definitely not considered wilderness quality as per when wilderness was defined by Congress back in the day, or in any logical sense of defining wilderness. The government already somehow has the power to change the truth of the exsistance of the road or its historic human imprint, delete it from your maps, and tell you no you can't use that road anymore. Enough is enough, petition gladly signed!
http://www.sharetrails.org/public-lands/?section=HR758_petition
(re-copied link for benifit of re-posting this elsewhere)
Originally Posted by yossarian19
Unpopular view here, I suspect, but I'm all for the federal protection of our land. The Forest Service and BLM leave plenty of 'wheelin road -- but I'd hate for *all* of our federally owned / public lands to be engine accessible.
I love hiking, I love hiking in wilderness areas, I hate hiking on roads, I purchased a Jeep years ago so I wouldn't have to park a car extra miles from a remote area of interest and waste all that time hiking in on boring to hike jeep roads. I could settle for mountain biking some of them in some rare cases, except wilderness designation and it's evil twins "wilderness study area" plaguing this neck of the woods, and the "administrative closures" which are now finally happening every where to the roads within the last huge national monument crammed down our throats do not allow for any use other than the misery of hiking a perfectly good jeep road.
(long but I believe logical post, with photos)
If you blow all of this off with "oh this must be a good cause because it's environmentally responsible sounding to make all these monuments and wilderness areas therefore why should we fight against it?" Or if you watched the new and very glossy high production value extremists adds on TV lately showing a family in the wilderness that has to be saved and feel the same way "oh that sounds like a good cause". Then it shows me you care more about your perception of being green than you care about being informed of what is really going on. And that you don't have a clue that chances are exellent that if you make plans of ever visiting these areas yourself with your young family or recreating responsibly in the way Americans have enjoyed for generations your going to be very disappointed. If you are so unconcerned as to remain ignorant, you need to stay out of it altogether rather than blindly support the wilderness extremist view. So educate yourself, and start to give a true care about true wilderness (most of which has been very well protected and none of which is in any serious immediate danger and all of which can be further protected by much more balanced and thought out means rather than sudden maximum protection should the need arise in the future). You have bought the lie that we want all the lands to be engine accessable, and you have bought the lie that the land is in danger of all becoming engine accessable.
Want an example? Here is an example! The Wahweep Toadstools. You used to be able to drive up Wahweep wash and easily see them and walk over to them. Any family with family members at nearly any age could do this. From my first trips to the desert and even still today the national park system and BLM will educate you on how to properly travel in the desert, everyone knows a dry wash offers the best routes and least impact on the land particularly in areas of microbiotic soils or similar sensitivities. Wahweep wash is very broad and dry much of the year, and when it floods it can flood big, cleaning up arroyo cut banks with a nice flat plane, erasing any trace of past use (even BLM signs flush in to Lake Powell in this case), natures perfect way of cleaning up.
The BLM a few years ago closed Wahweep wash to (historic) motorized travel, as a Wilderness Study Area.
Even then You used to be able to drive to the middle of Wahweep wash just north of the toadstools on a perfectly good graded road connecting straight over from the Brigham Plains Road (Named after Brigham Young) & Cottonwood Canyon Road, and make a short hike down the wash to see them, many families could still do this though only those fit enough for the short moderate hike in fair weather. This was how I visited once back in 2008.
That connecting road is now an administrative road of the GSENM and is closed to the public and you may be ticketed if you are found driving it,
...Is what they will tell you should you in inquire about it at the local Paria Contact Station and other nearby Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument visitor centers. Well if that graded road is closed they also must have closed the perfectly good White Sands Road that connects from Big Water running northeasterly up to that now administratively closed connecting road?
(sarcasm on) No big deal i guess, just another scenic jeep road we can pretend isn't there so we can study it as a wilderness study area. Nobody wants to see that view of Chimney Rock or those other toadstools from it either anyway do they?(end sarcasm)
So now if you want to see the Wahweep toadstools, you can get there only on foot and only if your fit enough to hike the six plus miles there and that much back again through a broad boring not that scenic sandy wash or up one of the boring to hike administrative roads to reach them. By the way, the best light on the toadstools is early morning, good luck. If your paying attention that means that you better get in shape and gear your family up for a long hard physical adventure. Got young ones? hope you can carry them on your back and your camping gear too! And tell grandma too bad (sarcasm on) unless she is one of the wilderness grandma's that are so few but now so well favored by the government.
Want another even better example? Arch Canyon!
http://www.expeditionutah.com/featured-trails/arch-canyon-hotel-rock/
Here is a young family visiting Angel Arch a mile past the end of the road deep in Arch Canyon.
If the Red Rock Wilderness Act passes or any National Monument plan the extremists are also pursuing you can kiss this scene goodby. This is living proof that the glossy ad on TV is a bald faced lie. The road in Arch Canyon is high on the environmental extremists hit list. There is no way that the young family I photographed there would ever get to see that beautiful Arch all that way up ten miles of that beautiful canyon if the Red Rock Wilderness act were to pass. SUWA lies, the truth is your family can enjoy the public land now but won't be able to if it is locked up as wilderness. Lies, that is how they get funded, don't fall in to that trap.
SUWA reps, college kids from back east who had never even been to Utah let alone the lands in question, came to our door while my brother-in-law lived with us. They promoted the wilderness act and the organization and he not knowing better and thinking it sounded like a good environmental cause decided to write them a check in support. I got home from work and he told me about it but was worried that they had never been to southern Utah. I said lets see what lands the act will close as a wilderness area. As we looked at the map online I simply pointed to a few of the mountainbike trails he had always wanted to ride down near Moab that were within the proposed wilderness areas and therefore that he would never have an oppertunity to ride as a bicycle is not allowed in wilderness designated land. A little truth was all it took and he called his bank to cancel the check then called SUWA to express his concerns and ask to be removed from any record of support. SUWA lies, don't fall in to that trap, that is how they get funded.
Want another example? Horse Canyon, a county bladed road off of the Wolvarine Loop Road also on the GSENM chopping block and missing from newer maps but still clearly there in 2009. I could unfortunately go on and on and on...
My own Aunt came over the other day and asked me how I felt about Easter Jeep Safari. An event held by responsible clubs who teach proper trail etiquette to new offroaders every year who come to see the natural beauty, not to destroy it. I said you mean a few jeeps enjoying the old uranium mining roads around moab? She said I think your lying, that they don't drive on old roads. Your saying I didn't drive those roads? (she knows I've taken my Jeep to Moab on several occasions) Mom said well she is an environmentalist, but said to her sister that I was too, my Aunt nodded (she has seen and complimented my outdoor photography) but said she still thought we were out wontonly tearing up the land.
This really brought home how clueless the vast majority of the public really is on this issue. All the media or extremists have to do to slant it is show a little bit of the spring break atmosphere on that hill next to the city dump or some of the offroading on private land such as Area BFE. I hope my aunt would realize that I could take her there and show her the unquestionable difference between the narrow ribbons of old roads we drive and the untouched land we respectfully stay off of that stretch in vast acres beyond the narrow ribbons for as far as you can see. And I would hope that she would with reason and logic care enough to briefly read up on the history of Moab and know how it boomed during two Uranium mining rushes not all that long ago. And I would hope that she would apologize to me for not asking me about the truth of the situation or otherwise investigating it for herself (how hard can it be to look up the history of Moab online?) instead of being satisfied by some environmental organization influencing her with extremist enough views to the point she would think me a lier, family even?
It's an issue close to my heart that has been at the forefront since the recent holiday and my vacation to southern Utah the week before.
