Let me try another approach.


Sound good?

On Enmity and it's consequences:
Personally it has only been harmful to my mental health to engage in this thread. I'm sure those who have disagreed with my statements found my participation hasn't been pleasent for them either.

We should all stop playing the blame game. Simple as that.

 

Mud Hippy. No blame here. Just a quick question. Nobody in oregon has ever heard of Tread Lightly and it doesnt make sense...okay...but here is my question...
Well really a couple of questions probably by the time I finish typing...

1) How does ignoring a problem help you? If I come into your house and start taking your possessions because you aren't holding on to them, and you just ignore me, all I need you to do is make the effort to hold onto your stuff, and I cant take it, but if you dont hold onto it, i'll take it outside with me, and come back for more, now if you just ignore me, and keep not holding on to your stuff, will you still be okay ignoring me once I have taken everything and you have no more stuff? Just because you ignored the problem doesnt make it go away... You still have no stuff. Like it or not. This is the same thing happening with the 'greenies' they are closing our trails, they are taking what is OURS. All we have to do is take care of it and put in the maintenance to 'hold onto' our trails. If we just ignore what they are doing, does that protect us from getting our trails closed? No it just makes us blind in denial.

and 2) no one in your area knows about Tread Lightly!, okay fair enough, but is ignorance of an issue a good exscuse? Say your traveling to Georgia...you spit on a sidewalk in Newnan (which is illegal -stupid, I know) and they arrest you and fine you for it. Do you think the court will accept 'I didn't know' as an exscuse and just let you go? No, I promsie they will not, I have been told exstenively in my younger days that "ignorance of the law is no exscuse in a court of law, it is your responsibility to know the laws and rules wherever you go" Whether you wanted to "play the police's game" and only spit in the street instead of on the sidewalk or not, ignoring the law and claiming you didn't know will still end in the same result as doing it on purpose.

We STILL lose our trails.

 

We coexistence in what must be fantastical splendor to those who haven't experienced it. ALL OF US.

The mountain bikers have their trails.

The folks who want to ride their horses have their trails.

The hikers have their trails.

The atv/dirtbike/4x4 people have their trails.

NEVER BEEN A PROBLEM!!!!! NEVER SHOULD BE A PROBLEM!!!!!!!!!!!

Don't INSIST it's our problem HERE if it AIN'T. Sorry yall did whatever you did for there to be such a fuss about it where your at. Seriously.

 

Actually, we will lose them faster. He is advocating not just ignoring the situation, but also tearing down gates to gain access to closed areas. I have a very interesting PM from him to that effect...

 

Taken out of context, that would appear to be something I condone. In reality what I am refering to is the ILLEGAL locking of gates that serve as access barriers to public land. That's a federal offense. I spoke to the BLM themselves for that information. The fight for use of public land is lost without confronting the lawbreakers in these instances.

Try again cheif.

 

Here's the exact quote from your PM:

Perhaps you can clarify for us just who puts these barriers up...
I will leave it to each individual to determine what you are advocating.

 

I wholeheartedly agree with this.
Access is going to be taken from us because of the ignorance and...
Well, ignorant contains two great words : Ignore (Let's tear down those stupid no-access signs! ), and rant (I hate everything! no one has jurisdiction over me! Tread Lightly is a waste of time and money! Kill the ecoterrorists! and my personal favorite: You're going to take down the illegal photos, I'll just remove all of mine first!) Seriously Mudhippy, evil doesn't go away just because you're not watching, listening, or speaking it. Those monkeys don't last long in real life. I hate singling somone out, but that is just the most counterproductive attitude I've ever seen, anywhere. I'd like to hear your rationalization when Oregon passes a law banning motorized use in OHV parks. With you people that just don't care about boundaries, it's going to happen. I've bought the Oregon OHV tag before and wheeled in Brown's camp (and mountain biked there). It'll be a shame when all of that goes away, Oregon's a gorgeous place to go off-road.

 

After reading some of the other suggestions (and I hope I'm not plagiarizing), One option is: a firm policy to require a written context of any wheeling picture. That way, any pic not following policy is subject to deletion, regardless of content. That places the responsibility to justify the post on the poster, not the admin to decide what gets through (something like burden of proof). The downside to that, of course, is it's more work for me, the common man, to actually be forced to write why I'm posting a pic.

 

I'm glad that things are good in Oregon. While it would be nice if things were like that elsewhere, almost everyone else in the country has to deal with trail closure. There is a huge closure on the books for Moab as we speak. This is getting damn close to home.

While Oregon isn't affected, the pics taken elsewhere can do serious damage to our trail systems.

Let me put it this way. I'm sick and tired of this crap. Can someone PLEASE explain to me why it is such an imposition to stay on the trail? Why is this so hard?

Tell you this much though, any who hope to wheel around here in CO better stay on trail. There are some clubs who are getting damn near millitant. As a fellow i know put it, "I see someone driving off trail, and I'll shoot em myself". While i don't condone any sort of illegal activity, this sort of action would probably give me satisfaction.

Anyway, all that aside, I hope the Mods have gotten it figured out by now. Delete, delete, delete.

Let's quit arguing over stupid bull.

 

I think Tread Lightly is GREAT!!! Because where I was raised, the hippy's(or eco terrorists, enviro-freaks as we also called them) all wanted abolish the sport of 4x4-ing. None were willing to even work with any of the 4 wheelers. Tread Lightly seems to be working with us to keep our trails open, an useable. So, for those who chose to engage in illegal wheeling and say that it's because there is no where else to go, why don't you send a letter to your senator, or congressman? Get a petition going around so that you can have more legal areas to go wheeling. Anyway, why doesn't someone get a list of all the ideas brought up, so we can vote one them, or something like that???

 

On a a side note, could someone post a Word document draft to send/email to your states senators?
I have conversed many times with my states representative on other matters.
http://cantwell.senate.gov/

This info though could actually go into a new thread in this same section so as to not get this thread off topic.

And perhaps a list of senators sites too to contact them by.

 

Thats a good idea......

 

Here is a website containing all of the senators and their contact links.

http://www.senate.gov/general/contac...nators_cfm.cfm

 

Mudhippy, where do you live in Clackamas County?
Because I live in Oregon City / Gladstone and I used to regular 10 different trails, 7 are now closed because people would cut down trees, dig out holes, and just plain ruin trails with excessive spinning of tires and garbage. And I am DARN GLAD THEY CLOSED THEM, if they were allowed to remain open people would ruin not just the roads and trees, but surrounding areas as well.

As for your argument that nobody in your area cares about Tread Lightly! You may need to reconsider, I go out with a group of wheelers every month or so to promote the concept of Treading Lightly, and the majority of wheelers I encounter (98%) totally agree, and many are already members of Tread Lightly or a similar organization.

One last interesting thing I have found if you talk to older (40+) wheelers almost every one will tell you they are worried about the way others treat the land and trails they wheel on, many have driven the same trails for 20 or 30 years and have never seen them in such poor condition.


Back on topic tho, I think we should start taking this one step at a time. Not just the mods need to take responsibility for this, if you see a post with a questionable pic on it, simply ask the poster about the pic (please don't be a jerk about it) as if you are interested in the location / circumstances. People are always happy to give more info about a cool pic that they have posted. I think many times most of the pics are legal they just need a description.

If you are not sure ask.

 

So, we don't all wheel just like this, all of the time???

 

Here are some good examples that I have posted before.
http://treadlightly.org/page.php/edu...os/videos.html

 

Trails up for closure in Moab:
http://www.colorado4x4.org/vbb/showt...102#post862102

Note the post showing the number of respondents.
220 Hikers
118 Bikers
59 OHV use

So, when they adjust the "proposal" to accomodate the majority of respondents, guess where we fit?

 

That's total B.S. They shouldn't close any of the Moab trails. Moab is one of the best legal wheeling spots in the country. I think if they continue to close trails, people will still go 4x4-ing, but not in designated areas. People that shut down the trails are stupid, because the closure of trails is counter productive for both causes. No body's a winner in that case, because 4x4-ing lost some good trails, and the enviro-freaks will still get their pantys in a bunch when they find out that people are out wheeling in other places(some not legal) anyway.

 

Do you happen to know what the fine is for wheeling illegally out there is?

The point is that while some idiots will continue to wheel on the trails illegally, the rest of us will stay off, since we respect the law. So, even more trails will be shut down.

This is stupid. This thread was about helping to prevent illegal wheeling, now we are just discussing the merrits of illegal wheeling. Shut this trash down.

 

I think Ike's right...perhaps this thread has reached the end of it's useful life.

Delete the obvious illegal pics, question the questionably illegal pics.
I think that's where we're at?