Nightmare Gulch CLOSED

[FishPOET]

Nathan just called me from Mojave and said the gates are locked and the rangers informed him that Nightmare Gulch is CLOSED forever. Nathan will post when he gets home.

[sarah]

Crazy!! Thanks for the update.

[Mike]

WTF! Isn't there supposed to be a public notice of some sort? The website still says that it is open.

[daniel_buck]

awww man.. that's bull crap :-( I was really wanting to run nightmare gulch and LCC as soon as the willys is ready :-(

Is LCC still open?

[nwoods]

Yeap, I was leading a small group, about 8 rigs, meeting at Jawbone. Ranger walked up (real nice guy) and asked where we were heading. I said Nightmare. He looked down and slowly shook his head and said, No, sorry, afraid not. The (fill in the blank, started with a C, could have been Commissioner?) has closed all access to Nightmare Gulch, permanently. I said, no, it's open, its the second part of the month, we have access. He said No a bit more emphatically, but very apologetically. Repeated that's its now permanently closed, as of October 5th (? I think he said, but my heart was pounding and blood was pounding in my ears and I was having difficulty hearing at that point), but for sure it was very recently. I said, but the website says its open. He said things were behind due to the Government Shutdown. He then said that the trail was "impassable" anyway, and we (the government) can't afford to maintain it. I said it can't possibly be impassable to hard core Jeep club full of volunteer trail workers, and he said, even a built jeep would struggle, I said that is the whole point, he just said sorry again, and told me Last Chance is still open (I hate that word "Still"), and that he had told three other groups ahead of me the bad news, so traffic was likely to be heavy on Last Chance (it wasn't, thankfully). I had a group full of mostly newb's, so I put a game face on, and acted reasonably, but I mentally added another head to the wall, right next to SBNF director's after the Cleghorn debacle. Not today's Ranger, he was decent, if misguided and working for the enemy instead for the people, but this Commissioner or whatever. That man must go.

ON the plus side, Last Chance was totally rearranged by the recent rains, and was quite fun. And, I took my stock Montero through the V-Notch.

[Mike]

Yeap, I was leading a small group, about 8 rigs, meeting at Jawbone. Ranger walked up (real nice guy) and asked where we were heading. I said Nightmare. He looked down and slowly shook his head and said, No, sorry, afraid not. The (fill in the blank, started with a C, could have been Commissioner?) has closed all access to Nightmare Gulch, permanently. I said, no, it's open, its the second part of the month, we have access. He said No a bit more emphatically, but very apologetically. Repeated that's its now permanently closed, as of October 5th (? I think he said, but my heart was pounding and blood was pounding in my ears and I was having difficulty hearing at that point), but for sure it was very recently. I said, but the website says its open. He said things were behind due to the Government Shutdown. He then said that the trail was "impassable" anyway, and we (the government) can't afford to maintain it. I said it can't possibly be impassable to hard core Jeep club full of volunteer trail workers, and he said, even a built jeep would struggle, I said that is the whole point, he just said sorry again, and told me Last Chance is still open (I hate that word "Still"), and that he had told three other groups ahead of me the bad news, so traffic was likely to be heavy on Last Chance (it wasn't, thankfully). I had a group full of mostly newb's, so I put a game face on, and acted reasonably, but I mentally added another head to the wall, right next to SBNF director's after the Cleghorn debacle. Not today's Ranger, he was decent, if misguided and working for the enemy instead for the people, but this Commissioner or whatever. That man must go.

ON the plus side, Last Chance was totally rearranged by the recent rains, and was quite fun. And, I took my stock Montero through the V-Notch.

So did you actually go to the start of Nightmare to see if there was a closed gate?
It wouldn't be the first time that a Ranger gave the public bad information.

Just hoping.....

PS: There wasn't a gate at the other end of Nightmare the last time that I ran it. They must have gotten funds during the shutdown (unlikely) to install a gate on the other side.

Just sayin'.

[DaK]

Gates installed on both sides of Nightmare, has been that way since 2010 as that is when we started wheeling.

Impassable huh? We were just there the last weekend in Sept and had no problems getting through a stock TJ with no locker. Be very interested to see what had happened to this trail to close it.

wonder if an adopt a trail can be started for the trail? Last time there was a cave in Jeepers cleared it not BLM. Am thinking they are just using this latest gov't fiasco to close the trail so they don't have to maintain it. Shame too because the latest rains did a good job rearranging the trail and put one or two more challenges on it.

[RAT]

Unfortunately nightmare is aptly named. The enviro-nazis have a hard on for wheelers of any color. Add to that the raptor breeding grounds, the ease of which the trail can be damaged by errosion and the lack of funding to the blm creates the perfect storm. The EIS has been in force for years without a concerted effort on our part to fight it. We have only ourselves to blame when trails get closed. You may not like to hear it but it is a fact. If the trail truely has been closed permanently there may still be a chance to reopen it but its a legal battle few are willing to fight. I still ccan't find anything online about a final dicision on the EIS. but will keep digging.

[nwoods]

No, I didn't have the time to drive up to the gate and then all the way back around to Last Chance. I was in a group. I do recall seeing a gate at the Opal Canyon end though, on past trips.

[RAT]

I had a short conversation online with Del Albright. He says we need to get this in writing from the park sevice/BLM. I suppose to verify the EIS. I've asked for help with this. Lets see if he responds. If not I'll have a go at it anyway.

[Ol Man]

From Terry Work on another site:

Jeremy,
CORVA is looking into the reasons for this closure, we have heard various reasons from a washout damage, envioros, to a past closure that was not acted upon, plus the normal postings of some with no info. will let you know when we know more

Terry

Terry Work


VP CORVA

[karstic]

Closed to vehicles only or closed to everyone?

Sounds like a hike may be in order to document the conditions.

[RAT]

Closed to vehicles only or closed to everyone?

Sounds like a hike may be in order to document the conditions.

Agreed, closed or not.

[FishPOET]

This was posted on Red Rock State Park's Facebook page today

[RAT]

This was posted on Red Rock State Park's Facebook page today

That's good to see. But again the rangers seem to be out of touch or simply lieing. They must just posted that because it wasn't there this morning.