Please email the BLM at : oma_trans_wild@blm.gov they wish to know: The BLM is also interested in knowing: What kind of OHV(s) do you ride? (ATV, motorcycle, UTV) Where in the county do you ride? (location description by latitude/longitude or township/range/ section) When do you ride in the area? (spring, summer, fall, winter, year-round) Why do you use the routes? Why are they important? How are routes used - recreation, competition, access? Are there other issues or concerns? My email stated: In response to your questions 1) I ride a off road motorcycle 2) I've ridden all over the area but mainly stay within the Heminway, Reynolds, Silver city and fossil creek areas. 3) I ride all 4 seasons in these areas 4) I use these routes for trailriding with my family and friends and I think thats very important. 5) I use these routes for trailriding as stated above. I don't want any of this area shut down to OHV users as I don't want any areas shut down to other responsible users i.e.. horsman hikers etc... I am a registered voter and I cast my vote on land use issues. I DON'T WANT PUBLIC LAND TAKEN AWAY FROM OHV USERS! Sincerely Kevin L Miller The website is: http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/prog/Travel_Management/travel_management.html While I don't ride all of it and don't think they give a rats ass what I say... maybe it will help...
Nice post. i got my notice in the mail yesterday and will be commenting ASAP. Motosapiens has been/currently is doing much work on this issue.
Hopefully everyone in southern idaho was aware of the public meetings on this issue back in october and november. I don't think it can hurt that idaho parks and rec is trying to inform those many folks that don't pay attention to stuff like this. In a nutshell, the hemingway/murphy area is already done, trails are designated and much of it is already signed (with varying degrees of accuracy, lol). this process won't affect that area at all. Now they're going to do roughly the same thing in the rest of owyhee county, including the popular grandview/oreana/mudflats area. I spent some time with the blm mapping folks, trying to get an idea of how complete their trail inventory is for the areas I ride most. I found a number of obscure, fun, hard-to-find trails that they didn't know about, so I spent a few days collecting data, and submitted detailed gps info for those trails along with my excellent and carefully thought out reasons for why those trails should be designated as motorized routes. I also got a copy of their competitive use map, which lists all the routes that have been historically used for racing and are currently still available for racing. I stressed that it is very important for recreational and resource reasons that EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE TRAILS STAY OPEN TO COMPETITIVE USE!! We need to have enough trails to be able to rotate them around every few years and not overuse a handful of trails until they're destroyed and no one wants to ride them. IMHO, we are in a better position with this area than we were with the murphy/hemingway area because there's alot less population pressure, fewer riders, fewer other recreationists (hikers, bicyclists, equestrians), a much less dense trail network, and a long history of competitive use. There really aren't any resource-related reasons to close *any* of those trails as far as I can tell, although there are a few places in the mountains where a minor re-route would be good for long-term sustainability. Another point to make is that just because a route doesn't appear heavily used doesn't mean it's not highly important to ohv-ers. The seasonal nature of riding in that area allows lots of recovery time in between heavy-use periods, so many of the popular washes will show zero signs of motorized use at certain times of the year, or after precipitation events, or even high winds. Due to the terrain, soil, population demographics and history, the grandview/oreana/mud-flat area is particularly well-suited to concentrated recreational motorcycle use, and I urge the blm to designate every trail that is currently in use. I also threw a few flags up on sections where a turn-off is difficult to find, or a route is hard to see for a short distance, to help us stay on the historical trail in those situations and get them a little better burned in and visible. FWIW, I spent some time talking with the decision-makers, and got the impression that they were not particularly disposed to just closing stuff for the sake of closing it. If we can show a reason a trail should be open, and there's no overriding reason to close it (bald eagles, wild horses, other such crapola) then it's likely to remain open.
