Photo essay: Easter Jeep Safari in Moab, Utah

Thanks for the photos, Laurel. These should be more widely seen. Even ORV people are urging their comrades not to post photos of erosion and "mudding" because they know it works against them. Can anything be done to get the major newspapers to publish photo coverage like this?

Thank you for a reasonably objective article. I think it's important to include the positive impacts on the local economy while you're at it. All tourism has both pros and cons. As a lifelong Tread Lightly member and dedicated ORV owner, it pains me greatly to see people not staying on trails, especially since they are jeopardizing my interests and making us look bad. I take that very personally. And, to be honest, I'm probably far harder on them when I catch them than you would be. And I do catch some of them, and I do make it crystal clear that going off the designated trails is not to be tolerated. It helps get through to them since I'm one of them I suppose. When my 4x4's more capable than theirs, it's hard for them to look down at me or try to justify themselves to their inner voice. It's important not to blame the many for the sins of the few. It's all too easy to see someone walking down the street doing something and then stereotyping them, then labeling that stereotype. Human nature to some degree. All white people, all Jewish people, all rich people, all nature lovers... It's a disappointing trait. Many of us ORV folks pack out more than we pack in, and we invest a lot of our personal time maintaining trails, participating in SOLV events, and just plain taking care of what we have so our children and their children can enjoy it too. As far as being a tourist, I live in a town that enjoys the fruits of tourism. And the pains. Heck, I grew up where we all know what SnowBirds are, coming in during the winter, clogging the streets, the restaurants, driving up home prices, etc. I can't begrudge them, it's not MY town, it's OUR town. I just happen to live there longer during the year than they do (and when it hits 100 or more, they all leave, believe you me). Thanks for reading. Eric D

I too live in Moab and we dread the annual descent of out-of-town ORV hordes. Spring dust storms, the constant din of motors from anywhere in town, yahoo drivers speeding up and down our streets. It's a spring break personal ego-gratification type of atmosphere that pervades town. The damage done to public lands, a national treasure around Moab, is despicable. The whole notion that certain types of recreation is more important than permanent soil and watershed damage is absurd. The BLM needs to reign in the yahoos and start managing to protect a world-class landscape. If we trash this land, people will not visit the Moab area any more. This holds true for any town seduced to thinking that ORV mayhem is somehow good for the economy.

Sorry Randii, Jeep Safari is sanctioned destruction. Laurel's photos are a but a small slice of the BLM and Jeep Club sanctioned mayhem that occurs on any given weekend in the Moab area. Riding in desert streams, tearing up fragile soils and churning up vegetation are not "responsible recreation," not in the least! You want to change that? Stay out of the water, stay on the trail, keep out of closed areas and learn how to drive without doing damage. Tell your friends too, instead of turning a blind eye - I've seen it happen all too often. Tim - a fifth-generation Utahn and an ATV owner.

A friend of mine pointed out that many ORV advocates’ reaction to these kind of photos reminds her of the way one of her students reacts when she catches him plagiarizing. Instead of admitting that there is a problem, or trying to address it, the plagiarizer gets angry and defensive at being exposed. As photos, these are hard to argue with. They are not isolated examples or taken out of context. Except for the tracks near the “closed” signs, they are all ugly examples of legal, permitted ORV use. These photos are part of what “responsible ORV recreation” looks like. Perhaps this is why ORV advocates become offended by them. Anyone can find this kind of damage simply by going out into a couple of spots near Moab for an hour. What other forms of damage are going on in the Moab area during Jeep Safari, done by ORVs that are staying on one of the many motor trails? When we add the impacts of the lawbreakers, how much damage is ORV use doing to Moab’s desert? Many well-intentioned people are actively going out and causing extensive and measurable harm to the lands they enjoy. Does this make them bad people? No; many ORV users are good people who contribute to their communities. However, being a generally good person does not mean all of your actions and opinions are correct. So my question is: rather than flatly denying or ignoring the scientific studies on ORVs’ impacts, when will “responsible” ORV users start to investigate what this kind of recreation does to the land? Or acknowledge that many quieter recreationists and rural residents are increasingly disturbed and angry about the ORV invasion into their formerly peaceful areas? In an age where everyone is trying to figure out how to decrease our impact on the natural landscape, purely recreational driving, especially creating more play areas for it, no longer makes sense.  Any activity that unnecessarily burns fossil fuels, pollutes the air and water, destroys soils, and damages scenic beauty and wildlife habitat is not responsible recreation. (But don’t take my word for it; see the studies explained below). There is a measurable ecological difference between driving for an hour to get to a hiking trailhead, and trailering toys out there, unloading, and driving a big machine through the backcountry all day. All other things being equal, ORV recreation does much more damage than hiking, boating or mountain biking. I should add a caveat here--I don't have a problem with the use of 4WD vehicles to get to an actual destination over rough backcountry roads. These vehicles are a necessary aspect of life to anyone who travels less-developed areas, myself included. Everything in moderation. I just have a problem with roads or motorized trails that are meant purely for vehicle play, and damage the land without serving a necessary transportation purpose. Many roads in the Moab area are necessary transportation corridors, serving a road’s original purpose of getting people from one place to another. But we have more roads than we need, enough so that less than 4% of all lands in the Moab area (including Arches National Park) are more than a mile from a road. And yet  I see many “responsible” ORV users asking for more motorized routes, and opposing the rehabilitation of bulldozer scars leftover from the uranium mining days as if the preservation of roads were a religious precept. I don’t want a Mad Max landscape, dominated by motor vehicles, for myself or my future children or grandchildren. I am afraid that, if ORV use keeps growing, that’s what my Moab home will become. I want a landscape, both town and backcountry, that is cared for by people who are looking beyond gratifying immediate desires. I hope that Moab land use will be determined not only by love of the land, but by a deep respect for all forms of life, not solely the human variety. ____ After several years of fieldwork and living in Moab, I could write several pages of observations about the nature of ORV use. However, since (like other posters here) I obviously have a viewpoint to defend, the accuracy of my anecdotes might be suspect. Therefore, for those who were asking for something objective, rather than a personal experience, here are a few facts relevant to ORV use in the Moab area. --The economic argument. The Moab BLM office recently conducted an exhaustive year-long survey on recreation uses of Moab BLM lands. ORV users—those whose primary activity included driving a dirt bike, ATV, or four wheel drive vehicle—are approximately 6% of the visitors to Moab BLM lands. The largest activity set, at 18.3%, is hiking, walking and trail running. Mountain bikers came in second at 13.5%. ORV users are highly visible, both in town in Moab and in the backcountry. Hikers and paved-road sightseers are harder to spot, and so many ORV advocates frequently claim that Moab is now financially dependent on ORV tourism instead of hiking, the National Parks, whitewater rafting, and mountain biking. However, the BLM numbers cited above did not even include visitors that stuck to the National Parks and did not visit BLM lands, which would exclude many busloads of tourists, so the actual number of people who visit the Moab area to drive ORVs is almost certainly lower than 6%. (Data source: BLM: “National Visitor Use Monitoring Results for Moab Field Office, December 2007”) Further, many mountain bikers and hikers have been quoted in newspaper articles or written letters to the editor saying that ORV damage has made them not want to visit Moab anymore. ORV tourism also brings significant expenses to the local governments and BLM, primarily in the form of additional law enforcement costs. --Legal ORV use affects water quality. The creek shown in several photos is classified as impaired coldwater fish habitat by the State of Utah. The impairment report prepared by the state water department cites low flows (caused by irrigation diversions) and recreational impacts as the reasons for the impairment. The recreational impacts are described as the denuding of streambanks and subsequent overheating of the water. Higher flows as well as revegetation and restoration efforts are recommended in the watershed plan. These have not been undertaken. If you lay the map of the overheated sections of the creek next to a Jeep Safari route map, you will see that nearly all of them match with portions of several Steelbender (and one side route) creek crossings. The portion of the creek above the diversion point, where Steelbender has only one crossing through higher flows, is not impaired; the portion of the creek below Steelbender, which was has been closed to ORVs, is not impaired. The other fork of the creek, which is protected by a Wilderness Study Area, has no impaired portions. (Data Source: Utah Division of Water Quality: “Mill Creek TMDL, Grand County, Utah”) At least the low flows, problematic as they may be, provide irrigation water for people to grow food and livestock forage; most of the Steelbender route has no purpose except for ORV recreation. --Many ORV advocates bring up the argument that all the damage is done by something like 1% of ORV users, and these give all the rest an unfair bad name. However, this opinion is not based on objective evidence—at least, I have yet to see any. Here is some evidence to the contrary:    ---The Colorado Coalition for Responsible OHV Riding paid for a study in 2001 on OHV rider behavior, which put Colorado ORVers into focus groups and asked them about their riding habits. Quotes from the findings of the report: “Respondents believe that it is ‘others’ who go off trail and cause most of the damage.” [p. 7] “Knowing that going off the trail is not ‘correct’ OHV behavior, as many as two-thirds of adult OHV users go off the trail occasionally.” “An estimated 15%-20% of Colorado users strictly follow safety and environmental rules and never go off the trail… A similar range of 15%-20% of the state OHV users frequently break the rules and often go off-trail.” “The fact is the numerous educational programs have succeeded in creating instant recognition of the ‘right thing to do’ in terms of OHV use…but at the same time, there seems to be large segment of the user population that will purposefully go off-trail from time to time. This suggests that more “education” is not the right approach to changing behavior.” [p.11]  ---In 2000, the State of Utah commissioned a voluntary survey of ORVers who had registered their vehicles. The survey found that 49.4% of ATV riders prefer to ride off established trails, while 39% did so on their most recent excursion. Of the dirt bike riders surveyed, 38.1% prefer to ride off established trails, while 50% rode off established trails on their most recent excursion. These statistics, of course, are limited to registered adult riders who filled out a survey and admitted to riding off-trail. The actual percentage of all riders engaging in this behavior, therefore, is probably higher. --Wildlife impacts. As one example, several Forest Service studies have confirmed the negative impacts of ORV use on elk. A 2007 study by M. J. Wisdom, sponsored by the Forest Service Research Station, found that elk moved away from ORVs when they were less then 6,000 feet away, but tolerated hikers to within 500 feet. Let’s say that a good user-day for a hiker covers ten miles on the Trans La Sal Trail, through good elk habitat.  A good user-day for a dirt biker on the same rough trail segment (which is closed to ORVs, but I’ve had dirt bikers ride past me and have photos of torn-down signs with dirt bike tracks going past) is about 30 miles. Given the documented disturbance distances, a single dirt biker is likely to disrupt 36 times more elk habitat in a day as a hiker would. This is simply due to the nature of the two uses.  This, of course, depends locally on the terrain, cover, and sound distances, but it’s a well-documented estimate. Furthermore, according to a 2000 Colorado State University study by M.E.P Vieria, elk run twice as far when startled by a motor vehicle than by a hiker, which could easily double the amount of ORV disturbance to 72 times that of a hiker. I’d love to hang around and debate everyone all day, but I’ll have to sign off—I have land to go save. :)

Sadly, the part of central Utah in which I live is subject to the same type of mis-use by some people who take their vehicles over pristine areas and thus create a trail which others then feel justified in following. I believe that there is an underlying issue which is the disappearance in our culture of the connection between matter and 'spirit'. If we understood that there is indeed something sacred about the planet itself and all life forms - this sense being quite independent of a religious belief or dogma, perhaps innate in a human being until cultural values intervene - then perhaps we would not be so eager to recreate at the expense of the planet. This behavior is not unlike sitting for hours on the beach for the fun of it while ones skin burns. We need the skin of the planet to be healthy just as we do that of our bodies. Bonnie Mangold

Though this event does have its group of people who do not prefer to stay on the trails, not ALL rock crawlers/four wheel drive enthusiasts are like that. Maybe environmentalists should take a different approach. Instead of condemning rock crawling and four wheeling enthusiasts, join forces with those who are champions of staying on permitted trails and roads. The more people we can reach concerning Treading Lightly on the trails, the more people's minds will change and improvements and possibly even reversals on harmed land will be made.So please, don't bash all of the four wheel drive enthusiasts. Like the picture with the black buggy, the caption "A Rockcrawler" makes our sport seem sinister and up to no good. That is not the case. My family and I always clean up any garbage and debris we find along the way, no matter what the size, and take care to not leave any trash of our own. My father worked for the forest service for many years and is a strong advocate of preservation. We also encourage anyone else that we know to do the same, and if we see littering,report it to the proper Authorities. Also, the Law enforcement during the event is concentrated in town because there are over 20,000 people that come into the area during this time.Trust me, I live there I know. Anyway, join us in keeping people responsible, don't condemn us being pro-active is the key.

Perhaps the problem would best be solved if the property were owned privately. That way the landowner could enforce his or her own wishes on their own property. Having such a diverse group of people (taxpayers) with such diverse interests trying to agree on the best use of the property is not the most logical or effective way to manage the issues. A government auction to the highest bidder would not only end the debate, it would also raise some much needed capitol to support the rest of the programs they have no business running. Then again I suppose that would only work if the U.S. government and the environmental groups had any respect for private property rights. I recently returned from a trip to Moab (and literally spending thousands of dollars in the Moab economy I might add) I had two glaringly obvious things occur to me during the 1,700+ mile drive home. First, the major reason we all enjoy the distinct beauty of the area is erosion, some of which may have been caused by the original OHV (also known as Dinosaurs). Secondly, anyone who has visited the area and witnessed the incredible power and force that nature has displayed in the creation of the landscape cannot possibly walk away thinking that any impact from current OHV or humans will even be evident in a thousand years. If they are, you can bet that some environmentalist in the future will demand that the “Historical Natural Treasure” (Petrified Tire Tracks perhaps) be preserved and protected for future generations. Can anyone say “Dinosaur Track” or “Petroglyphs”. Some people really take themselves and their importance on this rock way too seriously. Please keep in mind that the only reason the lands can be protected and preserved to the extent they currently are is because productive members of this country allow the fruits of their labor to be stolen by a government bureaucracy and spent on the fanciful whims of those that are too natural and pure to produce anything of value themselves. When you starve to death, you really won’t care how beautiful your cemetery plot is.