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Off-road plan would cut available trails
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FarkThe off-roading trail system proposed for the Black Hills National Forest would cut available roads and trails from more than 10,000 miles to less than 4,000.
That dramatic decrease is sure to draw criticism from off-roaders, but hikers and others (the Forest Service calls them “non-motorized users”) already object there are too few areas set aside for quieter pursuits.
Still, the response so far has been measured. There were no shouting matches at the four public meetings last week where the Forest Service unveiled the trail map.
Questionnaires also were distributed at the meetings. As of Friday, few had been returned.
“I think people wanted to take the maps home, study them and ask themselves, is this OK with me?” Black Hills National Forest spokesman Frank Carroll said.
Forest Service officials emphasized last week that this proposal is only a starting point to begin work on the final product. “We know it isn’t perfect,” said Bob Thompson, ranger for the Rapid City-based Mystic District of the national forest. “We’re asking for your help.”
The coming process
The next eight weeks will be critical to people who hope to persuade the Forest Service to make changes in the proposal. The deadline for written comments “ including letters, e-mails, completed questionnaires and map suggestions “ is Nov. 13.
Over the winter, the Forest Service will use those comments and their own data to write a “draft environmental impact statement,” expected in April.
Then there will be another public comment period, followed by more analysis and a “final environmental impact statement,” probably by September of next year.
Black Hills National Forest Supervisor Craig Bobzien hopes to sign the final version of a “Motor Vehicle Use Map” and the new off-roading rules by December 2008.
The map could be in effect by Jan. 1, 2009.
Meanwhile, Gov. Mike Rounds has appointed a task force to study how the state can participate in the trail system, similar to its partnership with the Forest Service in the snowmobile trail system.
The 2009 Legislature could consider its own off-roading rules, including licensing or registration of all-terrain vehicles.
A backbone and loops
The new trail system will flip the current ride-anywhere-unless-prohibited policy on its head. In the future, motorized travel on the Black Hills National Forest will be restricted to designated routes.
That change is demanded by a new national policy, but Forest Service officials here admit it will have a bigger impact on the Black Hills than on other forests. “The one thing the Black Hills have is easy access,” Forest Service travel management manager Tom Willems told a Rapid City meeting.
To preserve easy access, the new trail system will use a backbone of main arterial routes that give access to “loop trails.” This system stretches from Crow Peak in the Northern Hills to Craven Canyon in the south and from Black Hawk in the east into the Wyoming part of the Black Hills National Forest. (One proposed trail would follow a road on the rim of the canyon, but Craven Canyon itself will remain off limits to motorized vehicles.)
Trails also are proposed in the Bear Lodge District north of Sundance, Wyo.
'Gateway communities'
The arteries and loops, in turn, connect “gateway communities” throughout the Black Hills.
In theory, it would be possible to ride from Custer almost to Spearfish using the trails system almost exclusively. However, the Black Hills is a checkerboard of federal, state and private land. That makes “gateways” critical to preserve access to public lands and, in some places, to provide trail continuity.
“Communities and counties have got to figure out where those access points will be,” Forest Service spokesman Frank Carroll said.
Private enterprise could even be involved.
Motorcycle entrepreneur Jesse Jurrens, for example, hopes his Top 50 Rally Park near Piedmont, built for the Sturgis motorcycle rally, will become a “gateway” “ that is, trailhead for off-roading rallies with vendors, events and camping.
“He understands what’s happening,” Carroll said.
Another proposed “gateway” is on Peaceful Pines Road, the Hills above Black Hawk, where local residents already have argued about four-wheeler traffic.
How that gateway and others are developed will be subject to the noise-versus-access debate. The Forest Service plan also hopes to keep most off-roading “away from communities and subdivisions.”
High intensity vs. peace and quiet
Although the off-roading proposal does include trails from Crow Peak in the Northern Hills to Craven Canyon at the southern edge of the national forest, there are five areas where trails are more concentrated in areas near:
* Battle Creek in the Southern Hills.
* Bogus Jim Creek near Deerfield Reservoir.
* Merritt, north of Pactola Reservoir on Highway 385.
* Ditch Creek, southwest of Deerfield Reservoir.
Gregg Mumm of Rapid City, who also is executive director of the Blue Ribbon Coalition, a national off-roading group, called the trails “a good start,” but he looked at the map and saw areas where trails were “a little sparse.”
Local groups, like the Black Hills Off-Road Riders Association, are organized to submit proposed revisions.
Areas reserved for quiet include the Black Elk Wilderness Area (by law), a large area around the Black Fox campground north of Deerfield and most of the small, but controversial, Beaver Park Roadless Area south of Sturgis.
But Elaine Ebbert of Piedmont, says those areas are too few, and trail networks elsewhere are too dense, especially west of Piedmont in the Dalton Lake area “There are so many of them,” she said.
Ebbert is a member of the Norbeck Society, formed to be an advocate for hikers and others with similar interest.
Single-track grumblings
One group was especially critical of the new plan. “We’re highly disappointed by the map,” off-road motorcyclist Gary Schmidt of Rapid City said.
The trail system will have a range of roads and trails, from developed roads open to all vehicles, to two-track trails for ATVs. Most trails will be “mixed use,” open to various types of off-road vehicles.
But “special use” trails will be restricted to one type of vehicle, like the big-wheeled “rock crawlers” that can inch over boulders at extremely low speeds.
Back-country motorcyclists prefer narrow, single-track trails. Two-track ATV trails that wind through dense forests are hard to follow on a dirt bike because the tracks come too close to trees.
“You can’t get into the flow,” Schmidt said.
However, the plan has just 79 miles of single-track trail. “We don’t understand why,” Schmidt said.
He used a GPS device to map 300 miles of single-track trails in the Hills, which he submitted to the Forest Service during an earlier comment period. He’ll resubmit some of those trails.
Tom Willems, who talked with Schmidt at Tuesday’s meeting, later said chances were “favorable” that single-track mileage might be added.
The single-trackers also got the attention of Black Hills National Forest Supervisor Craig Bobzien.
“To me, that was a stand-out comment,” Bobzien said after all four meetings were complete.
About 700 people attended the meetings, Bobzien said, and many of them represented larger groups. “I heard a whole bunch of good comments.”
One person, for example, noticed a single off-roading trail through an otherwise roadless area.
“If that one route could be removed, he told me, it would be a great non-motorized basin,” Bobzien said.
Groups and individuals can submit written comments and map revisions up to Nov. 13.
“We’ll take them all very seriously,” Bobzien said.
Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com
How to comment
Written comments on the proposed off-roading trail system for the Black Hills National Forest are due by Nov. 13.
Forest Supervisor Craig Bobzien says specific suggestions “ moving a trailhead, for example, or changing a trail -- are easier to incorporate into the final version of the map. “That’s what we’re looking for,” he said.
Send comments to Travel Management, Black Hills National Forest, 1019 North 5th St., Custer, SD 57730.
E-mail comments to comments-rocky-mountain-black-hills@fs.fed.us Electronic comments must be readable by Microsoft Word or in Adobe pdf format.
For more information, contact Tom Willems, Forest Service travel management planner, in Custer at 605-673-9200 or go to www.fs.fed.us/r2/blackhills/
Better map coming
Off-roaders and hikers complain that the Forest Service’s map of the proposed off-road trail system, released last week, is hard to read.
The map is not overlaid on Black Hills National Forest maps, which makes it difficult to determine the exact location of proposed trails and trailheads.
“We’re solving that,” Black Hills National Forest spokesman Frank Carroll said. By this week, a new version of the map should be available online.
Go to http://www.fs.fed.us/r2/blackhills/theBlackHills
Editor's note: This story originally reported that a proposed off-roading trail system for the Black Hills National Forest "stretches from Crow Peak in the Northern Hills to Craven Canyon in the south." This clarificaiton has been added: One proposed trail would follow a road on the rim of the canyon, but Craven Canyon itself will remain off limits to motorized vehicles.
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