Memorial weekend experiences

[IrishEKU]

LOL Pread!,
I know if you all have read any of my posts you know of my referances to Land Between the Lakes. It's a National Recreation Area and managed by the Forest Service(I think) but it only costs $45.00 for an anual pass and $15.00 for weekend passes. The rangers there are personabe and good people. They actually perfer the bikes over 4 wheelers and 4X4's because we don't get loaded and ride. That's my biggest peve! Idiots getting drunk and riding trails! It's dangerous enough without having some dingbat loaded behind the bars or the wheel! Over Memorial Day Weekend they(the rangers) handed out like 17 DUI's on the trails. If it wasn't so serious it would be funny seeing some Mullet wearn' bozo trying to balence on one foot while standing in a mud hole next to his over turned Jeep. :| :| :| :|

 

[2001yz250]

Here is the email reply I got back from the Colville Ranger District:
Hi,

My name is Rhonda Hoener. I own and operate the concessionaire permit on the Colville Ranger District as well as the Sullivan Lake Ranger District permit.

The contract administrator approached me with your concerns and I felt like you needed to know what has transpired over the last three years within the campgrounds on the Colville Ranger District.

NRM was awarded the permit in 1998. At that time the forest service did not enforce the 36CFR regulations concerning orv's operating within campground boundaries. There was a person hired in the forest service to deal with all of the concerns relating to the trails, orv's, motorcycles. She worked every Friday, Saturday, and sometimes Sundays writing notice of violation tickets to the offenders of the 36CFR regulations. The persons choosing not to purchase the required sticker for their orv was not allowed to take it off of the trailer. The folks who chose to purchase the sticker could ride safely in and out of the campground to access the motorcycle trail nearby. We did have many problems with some of the motorcycles and orv's but most were camped at the Beaver Resort or in a dispersed area near the campgrounds.

What happened is the hiking trail (trailhead for the Springboard hiking trail) became the main entry onto the motorcycle trail not only for the campground occupants but for hundreds of motorcycles and orv's camped in areas covering over a seven square mile area or more. This made for an unsafe situation for the campground occupants, hikers, bicyclist, etc...and there was no accountability when some of the riders choose to run. We had some of them try to run over our employees, some shooting high powered rifles into the campground after midnight, many close calls with smaller children walking or on bikes, much resource damage in the campgrounds and on hiking trails, and an impossible situation for our company to remedy.

To make matters worse, cutbacks in the forest service was forced to eliminate the only person that helped deal with these issues. The first Memorial day after this person was eliminated the company lossed control of the hundreds of orv's choosing to use the hiking trail for access to the orv trail. Many campers complained to the forest service about not only the noise that was at unacceptable levels in a campground and questioned why this was the only campground that did not enforce the push-it regulation that exists in all other forest service campgrounds. Somebody was going to get seriously hurt or killed on the county road because the Sheriff chose not to enforce the country regulations that state that all vehicles using roadways are licensed.

I wrote a letter to the head of enforcement on the Colville and requested a solution to the problem or I would be eliminating orv's all together from the campgrounds. The response was great from the acting supervisor. When the situation was explained we worked together on a solution. The solution was to enforce the CFR that says that no motorized vehicles will access the hiking trails and signs,barriers etc... would be placed to inform all orv'ers of the changes. The second change was that they would be enforcing the CFR regulation that says all state regulations apply to forest service roadways including the vehicle licensing rule. This means that we cannot allow any vehicle that is not licensed to oerate on forest service campground roadways. They can however push or trailer them until they reach an area in which unlicensed activities are allowed.

I really wish it were just a few select orv'ers that choose not to obey the regulations because that would make the job a whole lot easier for my employees. It was many, many violators that forced us to make this change. Gillette Lake Campground is a campground not a motorcycle raceway. People go to enjoy the sound of the birds, frogs, loons, ducks, osprey and many of the other wildlife existing here.

Most of the orv'ers in the campgrounds are curtious, kind and compliant. This does not change the CFR regulations that exist. These are in the permit that I signed with the forest service and my duty to enforce all of these regulations. The goal is to see that each visitor group is satisfied. If you are not, I challange you to find one single other forest service campground in the United States that allows entry and exit of orv's. You will not find one because all of them enforce the CFR regulations. Why the Colville Ranger District did not for so many years is something I will never understand but that is in the past and we are moving on and keeping in compliance with all other forest service facilities.

I might suggest that you could camp at facilities constructed for your type of use such as Pend Orielle Lakes trailhead located less that one mile from Gillette campground, or Batey Bould trailhead campground. These areas allow the type of use you are looking for. You can enter and leave your campsite without offending anybody with the noise, in fact you can make as much noise as you want because it is not with in a structured forest service campground.

If you should choose not to come to Gillette campground again I will understand. But we will not change all of the regulations to accomodate your needs because what we have now works. We get little help from the forest service to control the use from orv's and we need to do what is needed to keep all user groups satisfied. Some orv users are satisfied to trailer or push their cycles out/in and have no problem with that and understand why we had to do what we had to do.

After speaking with the host and two other employees of mine who witnessed what went on with orv's in that campground (going off of the parking spurs, exceeding the number of persons per site limit, paying for extra vehilces etc...) I feel they did the best they could under the circumstances.

I did speak to him about the history that he did not understand (my fault) and fully appologize if he was less that kind about what he had to deal with this weekend. He now understands that we need to treat all people the same and will do better next time. He worked in another forest service campground for me last year and we do not have any orv violations occurring there.

If you have any problems or concerns please call and we can talk about them. You can send me an e-mail and I will do my best to reply.

Rhonda Hoener
Northwest Recreation Management

 

[MikeT]

Here's my Memorial day get off

http://dirtrider.net/forums3/showthread.php?postid=352357#post352357

 

[firecracker22]

Hm, interesting letter from Rhonda. BTW couldn't get the contact link to work.

However I feel Rhonda sounded a little overly defensive. This guy saw us pull in with our bikes but never said they needed to be parked off the spurs, until the morning of our last day when it was suddenly a crime. I guess I don't think of my bike as a "vehicle" since it's not allowed to be ridden on the road. I didn't think it was that big a deal, if they'd said something about it earlier I would have gladly moved it. He drove by our campsites many a time. I am glad he did NOT make us pay for the motorcycles as extra vehicles, as $30 for a weekend was more than I wanted to pay anyway. Flush toilets, paved driveways, screaming kids and barking dogs aren't worth that much to me. It'll be Sherry Creek next time for sure for me!

What I want to know, is there a way us ORV-ers might pitch in a little to keep the primitive campgrounds nice? The partiers are going to destroy them anyway so maybe it's an uphill battle.

 

[70 marlin]

Write a letter to the USFS. Inform them of the rude behaviour of the host

Ditto! been there some of these old fuddy dutties think they own the place. was @ silver lake sand dunes in mi. with my boat "see gallery" and in the state park camp ground this old fart(host) tried telling me that I could'nt tube or run my boat because it was to loud? "I just said you better go get the ranger. because old farts have no real authority! seems he'd just walk by and give us dirty looks. I ran the boat all weekend spoke with the sheriff during a safty check. told him about this guy, the officer just laughed and said don't mind the old fart!

 

[bbbom]

Wow, good start guys!

The situation in the Colville area is not good for dirtbikes. I know Rhonda and she is NOT anti biker but sadly, some idiots have ruined a good thing for all of us.

That area is under an immense amount of pressure, as are all of our National Forests that allow OHV's and especially areas like Colville where the trails are designed and built for DIRTBIKES. Most of the trails in Little Pend Oreille and Batey Bould are SINGLETRACK to the extreme.

Karl and I rode a 50 mile loop on Little PO last Sunday and it is tight. Batey is even more of a challenging area.

There are three things working against us up there - #1 is the idiots that blatantly caused problems 3 years ago and made it necessary for the rules and laws to be STRICTLY enforced.

#2 is the growing popularity of the area for non-motorized users. The campgrounds and trails were built using NOVA funds (the WA state voters voted to have a percentage of the gas tax go to trails with a third for motorized use, a third for non motorized use and the balance for mixed use in exchange for not having the tax on the gas used for off highway use refunded). This area was originally designated as an ORV area. More and more anti motorized people are coming up there and pushing us out. With the strict enforcement, less and less of us want to be in the areas that are being enforced. We need to keep our presence up there and push the anti-moto's OUT! But do it nicely!!! :think:

#3 is the growing popularity of QUADS!!!!!! Even Batey Bould - singletrack heaven is getting pressure. Apparently, the Ranger up there has been bamboozled by a trail contractor from OREGON that wants a job for his trail machine. They are trying (and doing pretty well) to convince him that they can make the trails more erosion resistant and give him an increased usage factor. How? Well, by making the trails WIDE so quads can ride them! Supposedly this won't happen until 2004 but, WE GOTTA STOP IT NOW!!!

bsmith has a good idea but I know I don't have the time to devote to being a volunteer up there - unless they can pay me what my dayjob does. Our Club President took a day off to meet with the Ranger and some other people, including the Oregon contractor ($$$$$) and he was appalled at what they want to do to the trails. He explained that Batey is what we dirtbikers WANT and even volunteered our club to help develop some new quad trails if they would leave our singletrack alone!

It is scary up there guys!! Everywhere you look we - the DIRTBIKERS are under attack. We need to continue the way you guys have been. Get your comments to the Forest Service. Help educate other riders to let them know that we can and WILL lose what little we have if they don't respect it.

The address that 2001yz250 used will get the comments to the Rangers, if not let me know and I will post direct emails & phone numbers.

Tell them that we don't want to lose our riding areas because of a few irresponsible people. Tell them that singletrack trails are what we want and that we should be allowed to have the singletrack, just as the hikers have their non-motorized trails and the mountainbikers have theirs and on and on. Yes, we will share them with compatible uses - I don't care if the horses, mountainbikers and hikers want to use the singletrack BUT the quads destroy the very reason why we like the trails.

Give them their trails and roads. Most of Batey Bould is not even conducive to quads without MAJOR reconstruction. This is not what the trail money should be spent on!!!!!

Okay, so work slowed down for a minute and I had to rant! :aj:

 

[70 marlin]

applaud, applaud, Bravo!