Problems on the rise in Moab - Trail Closure Alerts!!!

[Herzog]

Informed from the following thread:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=128287

We are having a concerned citicen meeting against BLM land closure policies on April 7th at 7pm Grand county court house.

they are looking at closing all trails in Grand County that are not "official jeep safari trails".

Anyone in town at that time needs to please show up.
we can fight this if we just get a tad more voices against the enviros here.

LETTERS NEED TO GO TO:
Grand County Court House
Grand County Council - Attn Rex Tanner
125 East Center st.
Moab UT 84532

rex is the one who is going to start this meeting to hear the peoples voice on BLM land closure policies, namely closing existing trails.

this will probably be met with resistance but if done right could be a short battle that will be won.

I would state that you are concerned that the Moab area is slowly losing its public land accesses that have been used for years to see remote locations of moab, and used to challenge recreationists.
and then the other side of the coin:
the fact that the BLM has represented interests of a select few that know nothing about the loss of recreationalists due to reduced and non-challenging trails.

elaborate on your own if you will..would you want to come to moab to run trails like poison spider all day?

we need to keep all the trails that we have and not be limited to landgrabs that will not allow us to make more. (touch lightly on that one )

we have a meeting on april 7th about this and I will post follow up info then, as well as more info soon.

they have determined that any and all trails that the red rock 4wheelers do not use for jeep safari are not "dedicated" trails and are to be determined illegal..how can they take what ANY organization does as a rule..

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Great post Herzog, this needs to be addressed ASAP. Some members of the U4WDA are working on it, but all the help we can get would be great, start letter-writing and pick up the war-dialer.

 

[Greg]

Would anyone be intrested in writing up a general form, that people could print off, sign and mail??

That would make it easy for ton's of letters to be sent!

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Originally posted by Greg
Would anyone be intrested in writing up a general form, that people could print off, sign and mail??

That would make it easy for ton's of letters to be sent!

That idea was suggested, but it was theorized that those do little good. I guess they think that if a politician gets 1000 copies of the same letter, it really doesn't convince him/her of anything.

Personally I think it is better than nothing but if you have a second, write something up real quick.

 

[Greg]

Good point.... I'm lazy, I guess!

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Originally posted by Greg
Good point.... I'm lazy, I guess!

Me too...

It really is easy, I just quicly typed a letter and will be sending it ASAP... please do the same everyone... OR ELSE!... yup thats and threat...

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Anyone else know anything more on this? I know there were a few different people making some phone calls.

 

[Floppy Hat]

Here is what I heard from Nuber on a different list:

Ok, here's the skinny, as I understand it, for the EJS trail rumor.

The roads in Grand County are NOT under attack as indicated, and there is not anything on the agenda for the council meeting on April 7 to limit trails to only the EJS trails. (ALL 4x4 trails nationwide are under attack, but that is on a larger and more general scale and a subject for a different discussion). The "limit to EJS trails" tactic has and will be used, and is a legitimate issue, but is just not the case this time.

What is at issue are portions of EJS trails that are not YET formally recognized, specifically, Escalator on Hell's Revenge. The recent article in the magazines may or may not have helped the issue. Technically, they can't close escalator since it has not been opened. There is a process to go through to get sections recognized on a trails like Hell's Revenge that are not in "open" areas, that is, areas open to cross country travel. The very existance of trails like Hell's Revenge and Golden Spike are proof of this process working. There are some folks working hard to get these new sections recognized.

Long story short, since the county coordinates with the BLM to monitor the Hell's Revenge / Sand Flats area, they MAY discuss restricting traffic to recognized, established routes, but they will not be discussing closing down Non-EJS county roads. Grand County is in favor of opening roads.

Still, it is always a good idea to attend these meetings and give your input.

Locked and loaded,

Brett

 

[Herzog]

Thanks for clearing a lot of that up for us.