Motorcycles galore filled the parking lot at the Community Campus in Hailey on Monday night as their riders protested a BLM travel plan that would limit their access to favorite trails in Blaine and Camas counties.
"If it wasn't for motorcycles, this place wouldn't be such a mountain biking mecca," said David Rosser, East Fork resident and longtime motorcycle and four-wheeler rider who claims motorized vehicles have been breaking trail for bikers for decades.
"For 50 years, we've established trails, the roads haven't been maintained by anyone, and now they're closing them," Rosser said.
Current regulations, developed in 1981, leave much of the region's 239,000 acres designated as "open" to motorized use, which means that off-highway vehicles such as three- and four-wheelers and motorcycles can travel cross-country.
Years of cross-country riding in the Croy Creek area west of Hailey, for example, has resulted in a maze of non-designated and motorized and mountain biking trails on BLM land. The BLM proposal includes plans for four new challenging one-way routes for mountain bikers known as "flow" trails, trailhead improvements and two trails that access the rest of the BLM trails system in that area but that would shut down all non-designated trails and fill them in with grass seeds.
John Kurtz, outdoor recreation manager for the BLM's Shoshone field office, said Monday that the closures have met with resistance from mostly motorized users.
"Some of them feel like any closure is a bad closure," he said. "I don't blame them, but the important message is that we had to start somewhere."
The BLM hopes to close 115 miles of existing trails and roads for rehabilitation and limit off-highway vehicle use to designated routes only.
Nearly 50 miles of new trails would be constructed under the proposed travel plan. The agency also plans to designate the types of use allowed on 225 miles of primitive roads and 126 miles of trail. All non-designated routes on BLM land would be closed.
Kurtz said many objectors don't want to see their favorite trails closed, but the agency has to consider criteria that the public often overlooks.
"It's really challenging to design a trail," he said.
Kurtz said trails need to avoid riparian zones and private land and also be able to withstand the rigors of erosion and use.
County Commissioner Tom Bowman, an admitted "novice" motorcycle rider, said Monday that he didn't see a major problem with the proposed closures.
"Looks like they're proposing to shut a lot of traditional motorcycle trails, but they're proposing to replace them with future trails," he said, adding that he would like to see the new trails built before the others are closed.
Rosser argued that none of the trails should be closed, and that ATVs and motorcyclists have been responsible users for decades.
"We've been very good stewards of the land," he said. "We haven't raped, pillaged and plundered. We haven't trashed it."
An ideal compromise would be to submit a plan for new trails to the BLM for approval, Rosser said, but closing existing trails only angers users and makes them less likely to follow regulations.
"It just makes renegades out of people," he said. "They're seen as the bad guys."
The BLM still has two public meetings in Carey and Fairfield before the proposal will be either amended or approved as is. Kurtz said the plans are far from final, and that public input would definitely be considered in the completed proposal.
"We had to throw something on the dartboard for people to throw darts at," he said.
Complete maps of the closures are available on the BLM website, http://www.blm.gov/id/st/en/fo/shoshone/north_highway_20_travel.html.
Katherine Wutz: kwutz@mtexpress.com
Members of the public discuss potential trail closures at a hearing held by the BLM on Monday evening at the Community Campus in Hailey. The agency has proposed closing a number of roads and trails in the region and shutting off all open land from cross-country motorized use. Photo by Willy Cook
