Dirt roads off-limits in Eldorado National Forest
The annual seasonal closure of as dirt roads in the Eldorado National Forest takes effect this week.
Rainfall, soil moisture, road and trail conditions, and weather forecasts are factors that trigger a seasonal closure earlier than Jan. 1. The roads will remain closed until at least April 1.
The seasonal closure is designed to protect roadbeds and watersheds from damage and to protect water quality. A minimal three-month closure period from January 1 through March 30 was designated for the harshest part of the winter in the Eldorado National Forest Travel Management Plan. To maintain flexibility, going into the dirt road closure early or extending the closure is determined based on current conditions at the time. Last year, conditions were so dry the roads were only closed for the mandatory three-month period.
Roads subject to seasonal closure are identified on a map that is free-of-charge and available at all Eldorado National Forest offices and online.
And the Eco Nazi’s continue. Pretty sure the ground is frozen and can’t be damaged.
Protect the “road” during the harshest part of winter. You do mean the road under several feet of snow on top of a frozen ground. Sounds like yet another Government involvement where it’s not wanted or needed.
More bull from the Forest Circus.
Drive around some of the Hope Valley dirt roads and you will see what happens when the gates are open. God forbid the roads should be open when the land is wet and the land is at its most fragile. On the road up to Armstrong Pass, there are many shooting galleries constructed in meadows where the fragile wetlands have been destroyed by ORVs driving across them. Guess that’s freedom for you but that kind of “freedom” doesn’t work for most of the taxpayers who are footing the bill for preservation of public lands.
Thank you Forest Service. You face an increasingly ignorant, and, in some cases (as we all know) increasing harassment from folks who wall themselves off from the complexities of reality, and believe they have the credibility to attack y’all.
The Forest Service protects our public land which we all own and have a stake in; if you can’t support them and instead consider yourself in opposition to their management on our behalf, then you’re probably part of the problem – likely a big part.
To Copper Says: Which we all own? Yet they restrict us? You have been smoking the dung you are trying to sell. You USFS will not restrict me from my public land. Yes, the same land you enjoy working in
Blue jeans i am pretty sure that activity is illegal but your nanny state with redundant laws will continue untill you cant even walk in the woods. Her name is Karen Schamback from snowlands network and some inside govt groups. Read up on her and pray you never get hurt or old cause with her help you wont be able to access any areas by vehicle you did as a kid. Gotta love liberals getting rich off of taxpayer money and taking our lands from us at the same time. good luck
business owner: Thumbs up to you.
Keeping the public off their lands is the number one goal of leftists who infest federal agencies from top to bottom. All lands in a state should be state owned and the federal agencies closed for billions of savings.
As an alternative line of thinking, consider taking the middle road (figuratively speaking). Certain soil types in the forest trails and roads are decomposed granite and can be quite resilient. Other heavily used trails and roads turn to powder in summer and mud bogs when saturated. Many riders will steer around the bog, thus making the trail wider and wider. Deep ruts can also form.
In order to strike a compromise between OHV access groups and conservationists, the forest service, BLM and, in certain cases, district courts have negotiated settlements that allow the continued use of trails during less impactful seasons, thusly avoiding the possibility of completely closing trails and roads due to substantial damage. OHV user groups do not want a repeat of what happened in the El Dorado Forest a couple of years back when access was severely restricted.
If you ride, please stay on the trails, observe the closure signs and consider joining an access advocacy group such as the Blue Ribbon Coalition. Again, the key word here is compromise and maybe we can all get along.
If you value access for trails for motorized and non-motorized use it’s important to be organized and membership in a group like the Blue Ribbon Coalition is a good idea.
You people are amazing. The roads are a muddy mess already going into winter and are going to get worse. This closure is for roads below about 7000 feet that never freeze solid and get trashed. This is just being responsible for a couple months. The roads are all opened back up for spring turkey.
Pretty obvious you folks are flying your couch too much and not getting out into the woods.
“Eco Nazi’s…” “Forest Circus…” “nanny state…” “liberals getting rich off of taxpayer money and taking our lands from us at the same time” “leftists who infest federal agencies”….It’s the Sunday Night performance of the ‘Cliven Bundy All Star Circlejerk Country Symphony’ with his RubyRidge Rhythm Section! aka “Amateur Hour”. Wonder what they’ll do for an encore….
Hmmm..its truth, sometimes it hurts. When environmentalists groups sue the forest service and win not only do they get their closures but they get reimbursed for their fees by the usfs and make a very good living at it.
Moral hazard…completely fair and logical. However the enviro groups have closed so much since i was a kid that folks like me are very weary of any closure
..red lakes is an example. Couple years back by decree with no discussion in the public forum it was closed to snowmobilers. This is happening everywhere which is why the blue ribbon coalition is growing on a national level.
Be conservationist and educate folks how to minimize impact and have it around for generations. Dont be an environmentalists and ban activity outright, not to mention profit from it. cheers.
Hmmm….had to reread what u said…pretty clever and funny actually…encore
I remember off-roading to little known Bassi Falls in the 80s and early 90s. Big ruts and puddles before you hit the granite. Big freaking deal. Nature was fine with that old road for 100 years. Now it’s gated, signed and attracts clueless day-hiking bay trash tourists by the thousands with their SUVs, crappy attitudes and litter. But thank you forest circus! Which is worse..really? We still off-road down to Slab resovoir and the old Deerfield lodge foundation, same knarly muddy almost impassable rutted wagon road..nature is flourishing all around that old road thank you very much. You want effective change?? Knock down every house in the Keys and the crappy marina and restore the upper truckee river watershed, or stop building in the basin. Keeping people off of old logging roads is the same kind of self righteous elitism that ruined the access to wilderness on the east coast.
Bassi Falls is beautiful. Didn’t know they’d fenced it off. Not surprised though. I’ll bet you were going earlier than late 80s or 90s. By the late 80s the place already looked like a Toyota parking lot! The couple of times I went there (not big on 4-wheelin’, myself) there were ridiculous numbers of people there, mostly in Toyota pickups, which we were driving also!
We also used to camp on the backside of Union Valley, on a little peninsula that occasionally became an island when the hydro people started messin’ with the water level. In the early days, we rarely saw anybody there, but then it became nightmarishly crowded, and the Forest Service had to build a real campground because of ‘sanitation issues.
Can’t stop people from invading our favorite ‘secret’ places. Whatever people like to do, government will always jump in to regulate.
Tahoebluewire, DougM and copper, Tahoebluewire, There have been lots of of dirt roads closed around here. So. Shore was full of em’. You could ride a dirt bike all the way from Meyers to the top of Kingsbury without ever being on pavement. High meadows trail got closed years ago which leads to Star Lake, the last portion being very steep and rocky. Rough ride!
I’m glad some of that was closed off because a few buffoons wrecked it for everybody. Riding their dirt bikes or driving Jeeps thru meadows and streams and really doing damage. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted!
DougM, Your comment on the comments was… well? , very good. Kae wrote that very well and expressed what I believe alot of us “regulars” are thinking as did you. Keep on reading and commenting!
Copper, I’m of the belief we need more Police and Firemen and city workers in this town and the city of SLT should live up to the promises it made to employees from all those years ago. If the city wants to alter the retirement package for future employees , fine,but don’t pull the rug out from the long time, hard working old timers. Never go back on a promise!
It’s just the way I see things.OLS
OLS how do you propose to pay for those retirement packages? What areas do you want to cut or do you propose we raise your taxes. Please be specific.
Slapshot,I would start by reducing the retirement packages for NEW hires and leave the CURRENT employees and those retired as is. I would also say we need a full collection of TOT. It’s my feeling, alot of people are’nt payin’ what’s owed to the city and I would also like the city to raise the percentage rate on the TOT. I would like to see better utilization of city owned properties, the parks and rec. complex, better use of El Dorado Beach with more concerts , the airport could be used along with the terminal for all kinds of things, Bijou Community Park could be used more. With using what we already have it will generate a cash flow to the city thus allowing for greater expenditures for improvements and additional employees.
Just a few ideas,. Lets build on what we alrready have, OLS
Rather than increase the Tot, after all the tourist already pay over 65% of our general fund. The Locals don’t pay their fair share but act like the general fund is on their backs. how about we just increase the sales tax .25% when the state wide increase sunsets. No one will ever notice and even with this increase the tourist would still be paying 60%
reloman, Interesting idea about increasing sales tax!
Many people I know are having a hard time getting by as is but you just may be on to something.
As long as it does not hurt local business or our struggling local population, it might be worth a try.
I’m afraid the rammifications could have a negative affect on folks but it’s worth looking into.
Now lets raise the minimum wage! OLS
I too agree with Moral on this. ‘Business owner’ stated ‘Be(a) conservationist and educate folks how to minimize impact and have it around for generations. Dont be an environmentalists and ban activity outright, not to mention profit from it. cheers.’
If anyone is stealing ‘Our lands’ it would be corporate extractive polluters. Their lobbyists have infiltrated the government enabled by Koch-brothersucking ‘Wise-Use’ pimping Congressmen and Duck Dynasty style NASCAR Armageddonist sheep, egged on by the cynical media whom they also influence and sometimes own. They profit WAY more, and do FAR more damage than the sue happy ‘environmental groups’…even when those groups are headed by egomaniacs and ‘misguided souls'(except for PETA-though I agree with them in theory once in a great while, usually they’re methodology and rhetoric is just plain Whacked-truly they’ve turned into a caricature of them-self). In my opinion. Cheers.
The sad thing is that no matter how much you try to educate people there will always be an element that feels as though they are entitled to be the ‘exception to the rule’ when it comes to their impact on a given place. Individuals and corporations.
We need to take a longer view of what’s good for an ecosystem, not just whether or not we can 4 wheel or snowmobile where we want when we want.
We are free to be responsible or irresponsible, and when people (or companies) use their ‘rights’ to behave ‘irresponsibly’ there needs to be consequences. I remember one August about 5 years ago, driving up to a Hope Valley lake midweek…it was deserted except for me and the local critters. Some genius had tried burning a large log in a makeshift firepit…and just left it smartly smoldering when they vacated the area. A brisk steady wind. Took me over an hour to get it completely out, carrying water from the lake in a 1 liter bottle. Sometimes the government NEEDS to jump in to regulate.
Hmmm sure is smart and very informed not to mention clever. fantastic job, i have now been succesfully swayed to think your way.
Sarcasm?
When one starts their day with a breakfast of Carnation Instant Wingnut, followed by foxNfools TV, 3+hrs. of hate radio and on and on down the crazy train, sarcasm becomes beyond irony. Public lands can be abused if certain user’s instant gratification is threatened by the damn gubmint.
One time engagement. i dont watch fox news or listen to “hate” radio. i dont call people names because i disagree. name calling happens when one wants to escape facts and for me and most out there shows that any productive conversation is over. sarcasm is a baiting technique i have learned to expose folks like yourselves. We can agree to disagree. Liberals like yourselves always want to add more laws to restrict everybody because of the few bad apples. leaving fires burning and riding through meadows is illegal and punishable by fines, jail, and/or property forfieture. But you folks always want to make us live to the lowest common denominator. I for one teach my children to rise above the rest because they are exceptional and the “bad” folks are a small exception. However if you want to name call and attack i am sure your ranks will swell because of all the people whos hearts you have touched. Good luck in your fight against…everybody that doesnt think just like you. God bless you in your journey.
Who do you think you’re kidding? That’s a pathetic attempt at denying the obvious source of regurgitated concrap. Gov’t regulation is a necessary part of civilized society.
Lots of illegal campfires every summer in Desolation. Better close it to hikers.
Yes and as soon as we meet 1984 standards the better for us all. The many people can’t make decisions that are best for the world, so should be telling them what kind of work they will be doing for life and who they shall marry as well as think. Yes this will best for all. Over regulation is best for all no matter the personal cost for the one.
Oh contrair mr murphy. An educated, moral, free individual is what is necessary for a civilized society.
OLS, to reply to a post you made a bit upstream of me, I remember in the seventies, as a dirt bike rider of modest skills, being invited by some friends to ride up to High Meadows. Once up there, they proceeded to charge into the wet meadows, enjoying themselves charging through the meadows, attempting to throw mud on one another. I’d bet that the tracks are there today.
I, shortly after, became a street rider, largely influenced by the criminal ignorance of the folks I was riding dirt with.
As a street rider I had tremendous fun, over thirty years progressing through 5 different street bikes, putting about 5000 miles a year on each (somewhat limited by living at Tahoe and parking the bikes during the winter) and always regretting the damage I participated in, albeit as an observer.
Although I would prefer that the bureaucracies that manage our public lands always make decisions with which I agree, I realize that they respond to all sorts of influences. Had they had some sort of kiosk at High Meadows, or even a pay phone, I would have gladly made a complaint. But kiosks and pay phones don’t belong in the wilderness any more than dirt bikes ridden by idiots.
I support the Forest Service because they do the best they can under circumstances that most enforcement agencies, especially including local police, with which I’m most familiar, have to face only minimally.
Did you mean “au contraire”? (“It appears Mr. Ringo is an educated man….”-Doc Holliday in Tombstone)Few things are more dangerous than a ‘bit’ of education, especially when coupled with narcissistic self-righteousness. Sadly, we have a society that does not value education, or morality, but DOES value narcissism and self-righteousness. I happen to think both are necessary(educated, moral free thinkers and government regulation)- we need regulation to keep those who lack morality from using their education to profit at the expense of others. Wasn’t it Rick Santorum(that slick, frothy dribble of a college educated catholic) who suggested that the average American did not need the elitism of a college education, calling Obama a ‘snob’ for suggesting such blasphemy? What does a ‘bit’ of education impart? It gives you information untethered from context. And that, monsieur ‘chef d’entreprise’, creates small minded petty people who are willingly duped into thinking only of their wants and desires, confusing them with needs and rights; pitting peon against peon while the laissez faire power players pee-on us all.
copper my first off road bike was a street bike. I put a knobby tire on, a little 100cc Yamaha twin. It worked in the dirt kinda,without much ground clearence, what with the downswept pipes, but I made do with what I had.
The hot dirt bikes of the day (late 60’s to early 70’s) were Bultaco, Hodaka and my personal favorite? a BSA 441 Victor!!!
Still got the old 750 Norton Commando in the garage to this day. Don’t ride it any more, it’s too damn dangerous!
As much as I hate to see public land shut off from the public , I will say, over the years I saw alot of damage to the meadows and trails from off road use, be it from dirt bikes or 4-wd vehicles.
Hopefully nature will repair what man has wrecked.
A few bozos ruin it for everyone else, hence the road and trail closures. OLS
I rode and raced dirt bikes for years and the loss of public lands for riding has been going on for 40 years. Riders never organized politically always left it to someon else and gave the issue away. Forty years later you have the situation we now have. It’s better in some states then others.
Having been part of the group fighting for the rubicon to stay open 12 or so years ago I learned a lot. Being an avid offroader, snowmobiler, and outdoor lover I want everything open for me. But I am responsible and take care of the land I am enjoying. I started to see that many people are not that way. I became understanding of the need for some closures and some rules. The rubicon was basically self govern by the responsible users, then one day the numbers changed and we were out numbered. I do not want to see the closures and the rules but I have to be real about the problems that are out there. My sacrifice of my time out there during closures pays off when I do go out there and see trails in good shape, well maintained and respected. I Hope my children will see the same things out in this amazing area we live that I enjoyed with my father.
Ban landslides and drought! Honestly, I’m a liberal, but I grow weary of people telling me what I can do in a national forest. Unless I’m burning it down, leave my dirt roads alone. Turn you focus to the forest service and the myriad of screw ups they perpetuate year after year. You are the same chuckleheads that anthropomorphisize dogs. I have seen first hand dirt roads built in the 40s almost disappear as nature reclaims the forest. We are but a blip.
^^awesomeness
Hmmmm, I agree, totally…
Flat (Earth) says “Eco Nazi’s.” Really! These are dirt roads, it is winter. Get a clue.