Off-road forest restrictions could stem illegal trails

By Bill Harlan, Journal Staff Writer | Friday, May 19, 2006

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New off-roading restrictions are coming for the Black Hills, maybe by 2009. Meanwhile, some hikers say off-roaders are creating new, illegal trails at an alarming rate.

“I’m frustrated, and I’m quite angry,” Colin Paterson of Rapid City told the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board on Wednesday.

Paterson was complaining about trails created off Nemo Road in the Green Mountain area, south of Steamboat Rock. In one area, someone had cut small-diameter trees, apparently to improve access to a rocky drainage. Scuffed boulders, skid marks in forest duff and a volleyball-sized chunk of rock broken off a small outcropping offered further evidence of four-wheeling.

Currently, however, it is legal to use off-road vehicles on Forest Service land in the Green Mountain area. In fact, four-wheeling is legal anywhere in Black Hills National Forest except where specifically banned. The new rules will reverse that policy, allowing off-road vehicles only on a designated trail system or in designated areas.

Bob Thompson, Forest Service ranger for the Mystic District headquartered in Rapid City, told Paterson that even under current rules it was not legal to “damage the resource.” That means it is illegal to cut trees or to create unauthorized trails. It is also illegal to damage sensitive riparian zones near streams.

The Forest Service is investigating off-roading activity in the Green Mountain area.

Violators of off-roading rules, however, are rarely caught, prosecuted or fined — partly because the 1.25 million acre Black Hills National Forest is difficult to patrol and partly because current rules are difficult to enforce. Is a tire scuff resource damage? In some areas — west of Piedmont and Black Hawk, for example — illegal-off roading trails have proliferated to the point that it’s difficult to tell whether current riders are causing the damage.

The new off-roading rules will be easier to enforce, Thompson said, because riding will be restricted to designated routes.

But the new trail system is yet to be designed, and Paterson said Wednesday that he suspected an organized effort by off-roading groups to create new trails to be considered for the new system.

Off-roaders resent the accusation.

“We’re not out there making trails,” Jon Wermers of Spearfish said Thursday. Wermers is in charge of mapping in the Black Hills for the South Dakota Coalixtion of Off Highway Vehicles. He said members of his organization were using Global Positioning Systems to mark existing trails.

Greg Mumm, a past president of the South Dakota off-roading coalition, currently is executive director of the Idaho-based BlueRibbon Coalition, a nationwide group representing 600,000 off-roading enthusiasts.

“We’re hearing those accusations at a national level,” Mumm said. “There’s nothing to them, and I don’t think they help.” Mumm said creating new, unauthorized trails will not help the off-roading cause. “That’s not why you’ll get a new trail. The whole point of the new rule is to stop unauthorized trails.”

New off-roading rules here likely will be shaped by the Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board.

Board members are volunteers representing various interest groups, and they have a federal charter to advise the forest supervisor.

Last year, the board created a “travel management subcommittee” to recommend changes in off-roading regulations for the Black Hills. Paterson and Mumm both serve on the subcommittee, which this week presented 11 preliminary recommendations to the forest advisory board.

The recommendations include the following.

-- The new rules should be “active” rather than “passive” — that is, off-roading is prohibited except where specifically allowed, rather than the reverse.

-- Off-highway vehicle use in the Black Hills should not dominate other uses.

-- The Forest Service and state and local governments should consider funding the trail system with a variety of methods, including registration fees for off-highway vehicles, gas-tax revenues, an excise tax on off-highway vehicle sales and other sources.

-- The trail system should feature “backbone” arterial routes that connect “gateway communities.”

-- Special trails should be set aside for smaller vehicles, such as ATVs and dirt bikes.

-- Hunters should be allowed to use vehicles to retrieve game, and vehicles should be allowed for firewood collection, but only in certain areas.

The subcommittee also recommended banning “mud bogging” throughout the Black Hills.

Paterson wants the subcommittee to recommend not including any trails created after May 2005. “I was hoping to send a signal,” he said, but the proposal was voted down 9-2.

Mumm said Thursday he believes “three crucial things will make this work.”

First, he said, there must be adequate enforcement. Second, the public must be educated — especially with maps and signs. Third, the Forest Service must choose the right routes for the trail system.

The subcommittee’s recommendations are a draft. Members will submit the final version at the board’s meeting June 20 in Rapid City. The forest advisory board will use those recommendations to submit their own recommendations to the Forest Service.

Then, the Forest Service will begin the long, formal process of revising the rules. It will include public meetings, data collection and analysis and an environmental-impact statement.

Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth has ordered forests nationwide to adopt designated trail systems and new off-roading rules by 2009, and the process in the Black Hills likely will take that long.

In the interim, the Forest Service has a plan. “We’re going to be making a full-court press to educate people,” Thompson said Thursday evening after a meeting with an off-roading club. “We’re going to get out the word that it’s illegal to pioneer new routes.”

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com