Camping near Big Bear/Fawnskin?

[blackZZR]

I think all positions have already been stated. You know that's not what I mean (don't you). I'm for reasoned, justified, case-by-case protection of the land. And it's "clear" to me that's not what we have. And probably never will have again. Government control grab only goes one way. That horse has left the barn.

You're jeeping down a major trail. Hey, a nice trail cuts north into some sort of valley. A mine? Cabin? Viewpoint? But damn...there's no route designator on it. It's ILLEGAL. Guys with uniforms and handguns will come and drag you off their land if you dare check it out. A little dramatic for effect -- but true. And on your next visit you'll find a row of boulders, backhoe'd trail destrution and once-live tree branches spread over it.

Sorry...that's not okay with me. If it's okay with you I just don't understand.

I do not feel all positions have been stated, I feel yours has and I can see why so many are offended, I also see why you are upset. As you have said your club did this and that sent guys here took high powered politicians here and there and now you have a $%#( attitude and think it is justified. I hear that excuse almost weekly from someone. If there were as many members of access orgs that have claimed to be one to me, we would have won this fight years ago. The rank and file of the normal motorized user of public land is full of people who truely have no idea of the issues being discussed here and that is where I feel each and every one of us fails every time we are out on public land. Sadly to few of us are motivated enough to put the effort in to ask someone not to go on that trail, or to stop letting his son run the Bike over the pasture. Instead we sit back and just get mad. We instead need to educate. It is our job to police our ranks if we want to see our lifestyle survive.
Now how the Forest Service did what they did is their decision and yes they told us 3 years ago it was coming. They asked for maps of all trails so they could evaluate and decide what to put on the map as legal and what to block, they said it would take a few years for funding as they work on a shoestring. The alternative was the proposed closure of more than two thirds of that forest put forward by the Seirra club.
I also can not grab on the thought process that they need to inform us when they are going do something, it is up to them to manage the land. If left to the public all of our public lands would look like a off road park, it takes very little time driving through places like Octilla Wells or Hungry Valley, to grab onto the idea that it is good they have it all in one place because if we let this happen everywhere all would be a blight. You can see it in many of the places that develop and are closed in which people ride and cut so many trails so packed together major areas are devoid of vegetation. It seems that this is the way an area will develop if left unchecked. Cleghorn is not a black diamond trail, it is a fire road and a maintence trail for high lines, we should be happy they left us so many side trails.
I also do not think that as someone else said, the land regenerates itself in 2 years, maybe back east but it takes a huge amount of time for our desert forest to regenerate, Cleghorn is a prime example, 7 years ago (was that 2003?) it burnt and if you really know that trail it still has not fully recovered, it is coming back but no tall vegetation as it was.
I bemoan the loss of a trail, but I also bemoan a new trail being burnt in as I know what will come of it. It is funny though how everybody wants his opinion of how it has to be to prevail. We need to realize that without the management of the land chaos would result.
Oh, and it is a free country, but that freedom has a limit till it infringes upon the freedoms of others.
If you really thought about that you would realize that you may not like the way something gets managed but they are trying to manage it for everyone. What if they just took one sides agenda?
Self discipline means no one needs to discipline you, except yourself. Which is a lot better than someone else.
About now why don't we leave the issue to the guys willing to fight those that need to be fought, not each other.
I will continue to seek out knowledge of the situation to understand it better not limiting myself to a life of no growth. I will continue to fight to keep trails open. I will continue to make a stand. I wish for each of you to do so also.

[headhunter]

I just read everything in this thread and was happy to see that, for the most part, everyone kept their cool on what I think is a very volatile subject.

It seems to have gone a little off topic, but it seems that the original poster is OK with that.

So, I thought I'd toss my 2-cents into the discussion. I intend anything I write to be stated in a respectful manner. I'm am saying that up front, because I know that tone and facial expression are missing from the written word and that makes it easy to read something in a manner in which it's not intended.

As I understand it, this is a complex issue. Many people, in my opinion, tend to over simplify it. That said, I firmly believe in competing ideas and opinions. It's how we learn and come up with better ways of doing things.

First, I'll make a statement that I think anyone I've seen participating in this discussion can agree with and get behind. When people recreate responsibly in an area that is not designated to allow a free-for-all, there should be very little visible impact upon that area as evidence of their responsible behavior.

It seems to me that those in this discussion are all freedom loving individuals who don't want to see existing trails and areas closed. However, we do see the issues from different points of view.

Not all forests are the same.

I don't expect everyone to agree with me on that point, but I'll explain where I'm coming from.

What I mean by that is that there are probably many places around the country that can be "lightly" managed and used an an example of how effective it is to take a more hands off approach. It could be proved in those forests that people are policing themselves and damage to the forest is kept to a minimum while allowing them the freedom to use their lands responsibly.

On the other hand, I'm guessing that the forests in Southern California get a lot more traffic than these "lightly" mangaged forests. I'm estimating that we probably have around 15% of the entire U.S. population living in Southern California. That's just my guess and I have not looked up any figures to substantiate this. Whatever the actual percentage is, it will most likely support what I'm saying.

I admit that I neither have any specific places in mind nor hard numbers to back these assumptions. I simply posit these statements as self-evident and believe that they are supported by a bit of common sense.

In my opinion, many of the visitors to the forests in our region are ignorant of what it means to use this land responsibly. I argue that freedom must be balanced by responsibility. It's like not being allowed to fraudulently yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater.

Had boundaries been respected over the last 20 years in the SBNF, we would not have all of the trails, which I'll refer to as "unauthorized."

I'll use Cleghorn as an example, because it's probably familiar to more people.

The bypasses were created over time by people who either didn't know or didn't care that they were not supposed to blaze their own trails up and down ridges and gullies surrounding this trail.

The end result is that over a period of 20+ years, many people developed a sense of entitlement about driving on these bypasses. You will even find them listed in books written about our region's trails.

At some point, I believe that those people who would like to keep motorized vehicles from ever accessing our mountains, deserts and canyonlands will say that trails like Cleghorn prove that the officials tasked with the responsibility to protect these lands from destruction can not manage these trails effectively. As a result, they'll lobby to close that trail and many others.

I see the work that is currently being done to close unauthorized trails and areas as a way for the Forest Service to send a clear message to the public that they can manage these trails effectively. Some of the bypasses on Cleghorn have been written into the management plan as "official" sections of trail, so we actually have a net gain on that route for official miles of trail available to us.

It is my belief that if the Forest Service can establish a track record for effectively managing the entire trail system that they will be able to open more trails and reverse the trend of closing them.

This is where I think that the Adopt-A-Trail and OHV Host programs come into play. If we can prove that this model of management works and they eventually open more well managed access to our public lands, this methodology can be used at other very busy public lands around the country.

There is one more thing that I want to touch upon.

In my opinion, there should be places where you can do whatever you want with your off highway vehicles. Within reason, the amount of area devoted to that should be determined by the number of people who want that type of area. At this time, we're obviously in need of more areas like this.

I also argue that there should be other areas where motorized vehicle travel is not allowed. We should have places where horseback riders, bicyclists, hikers and backpackers share the trails. We should also have areas where either horseback riders, bicyclists, hikers and backpackers can exclusively use the trails at certain times. I recognize that there are other uses that should be considered, but I'm trying to keep it simple to expose the concept.

Each region should have its share of land dedicated to each of these different outdoor needs and it could be argued that in many of these areas these uses could be alternated from one year to another or at different times of the year. This would allow areas to periodically recover from the more impactful uses. It's like a farmer rotating his crops.

My arguments are based on a concept valuing respect and education. This could also include the idea of having to take a class on responsible land use resulting in a permit based system of access to public lands that might help accomodate more people on public lands if they know how not to destroy it.

Aside from specific individuals and groups, I don't see our Forest Service employees and volunteers as the bad guys in all of this. I see them as trying to come up with a way to make this work. The alternative is to close everthing, which trends in the wrong direction for establishing a fair and equitable system of management that takes everyone into account.

Those are my initial thoughts as misguided or naive as some of you may think they are.

There are probably much better ways of doing things than what I quickly threw into this post.

So, I challenge everyone to think out of the box and come up with ways that we can win the hearts and minds of our opponents. That way, instead of people making decisions based on ad-hominem arguments using what I call the "sledgehammer effect," they can make decisions based on sound reasoning and education.

I would love to continue this discussion in person as we meet each other on the trail and go on runs together.

Christian

[rurockin]

Bravo Christian, Bravo !!! ;-)

[blackZZR]

Nice post
One way I have been trying to get out, and have been doing is volunteer work side by side with the green side, prove to them that we are just as interested in being stewards of the land as they are, and we will work in projects like reforestation and other projects not normally in the OHV crowd. Another point I want to push is we need to police our ranks from within, it is time that peer pressure not to do those Illegal trails becomes a strong feeliing in the community and that we make known we are distancing ourselves from the outlaw group.
Both these I feel will have a positive affect on how we are looked at.

[headhunter]

Nice post
One way I have been trying to get out, and have been doing is volunteer work side by side with the green side, prove to them that we are just as interested in being stewards of the land as they are, and we will work in projects like reforestation and other projects not normally in the OHV crowd. Another point I want to push is we need to police our ranks from within, it is time that peer pressure not to do those Illegal trails becomes a strong feeliing in the community and that we make known we are distancing ourselves from the outlaw group.
Both these I feel will have a positive affect on how we are looked at.

I agree with the idea that we should dialog in a meaningful way with people who call themselves "green."

Our image to those who actively oppose us is very important.

These people are not bad people. They simply believe the hype that they've been fed by leaders of these extremist movements.

In the fight to correct the perception that we're all a bunch of uncaring, uneducated people out to destroy the countryside through our selfish OHV activities, we have to show them first hand that this image is simply a caricature created by environmental extremists to rally public sentiment against us.

Most of us are more involved with environmental stewardship than many of the people who claim otherwise.

When members of extreme environmental groups knock on my door asking me for donations or to sign petitions (it happens a lot here), I treat them with respect and politely explain to them why I can't get behind what their organization is doing.

I explain that I believe in many of the principles they talk about when going door to door, but then balance that with a discussion of extremism not being the answer. I talk about extremism in either direction not being a good idea and invite them to seek a balanced perspective by actually getting to know some of us who they are opposing.

When I point out that I'm one of the people they are opposing they usually say something like, "It's not people like you that we're worried about." I quickly come back by saying that it's people like me who make up the overwhelming majority. We're just not as visible as those few who give us all a bad name.

We should be inviting these people to come out and plant trees with us. That shatters their perception of who we are.

Christian

[USMC 0369]

[COLOR="Sienna"]Christian,

I think that a lot of perceptions were changed just within the "Tree People" group that partnered with SBNFA to make the Forest Aid events happen. I think it's accurate to say, that as far as individual volunteers are concered, a large group of them were OHV enthusiasts.

I did have some interesting conversations with a couple of people that were almost dumbfounded that I was a Reforestation Supervisor, Adopt-a-Trail member, and Jeep-a-holic. I'm not saying I changed any minds, but I think I pointed out how closed minded the opinion of zero OHV tolerance is.

The Green agenda has a lot of money, political influence, and quite frankly a huge head-start against us. It seems a daunting task at times, but we can't give up or we'll be pushed into smaller and smaller boxes until we've lost everything for good.[/COLOR]

[blackZZR]

I posted it before, but this spring when we were at the Forest Aid supervisor training, one of the green trainees said something derogatory about 4x4ers, she was shot down quick by the Lady in charge, who had everyone who 4x4ed or rode bikes raise their hand, then ask how many of us did SBNF OHV programs, it was a huge group. then she pointed out how we were one of the biggest groups out there volunteering. The next thing that really encouraged me was when we were out in the feild once the official planting season happened and how many people were amazed at how Jeepers and 4x4 people, yes our vehicles were parked next to project areas, we as supervisors got to drive out and walk planting areas before the volunteers got there, were leaders in the reforestation.
A big way to influence is education, we seem to be trying new ideas that are working. Our ability to adapt is the key.