Trail Conservation and Etiquette
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4-Wheeling is getting a bigger and bigger following every year, this coupled with the fact that it involves the great outdoors has drawn alot of attention from conservation groups. Some want 4-wheelers to be more responsible, others want to shut down trails to motor vehicles. Many 4-wheelers begin to think all conservation groups want to shut all their trails down so they become more defiant towards these groups. Then these groups see 4-Wheelers rabble rousers who don't care when they destroy the environment. Soon nobody is willing to listen to each other, but there's one way to stop this vicious circle, learn what both sides are trying to do yourself by visiting their websites and come to your own conclusion, try not to get caught up in the mob mentality of "We're right, you're Wrong."
Whether you want to save trails or open more of them you need to learn a little about how to act out on the trail so you don't get my trails shut down. Your personal views don't bother me either way but if your abuses do something that gets one of my favorite trails shut down I'm coming after you, me and a thousand other 4-wheelers, and we'll want blood.
Conservation (Low-Impact mentality)
The main idea you want to learn about how to act while offroading is to cause as little disturbance as possible. Either in trail impact, sight, sound, or smell you want to leave as little trace possible of your presence there. Trails get enough use as it is and the less you contribute the better-off the trail and surrounding area will be. But even Low-Impact contributes to the problem, if your really want to have a positive impact on the trail and on the sport of 4-wheeling try to repair the damage that you and others have caused. The easiest way to do this is to clean up any trash you see while 4-Wheeling, not just yours. If you see a site that was used as a campfire scatter the ashes and turn over any burnt rocks, and if there is any damage to the trail try to fix it. There are probably some 4-wheel groups in your area that you can get together with and repair major trail damage.
Causing little disturbance extends beyond littering and trail damage, think of the noise your vehicle makes as it's barreling down a trail. Remember that you're sharing this area with people who have come out here for solitude and to get away from the sights and sounds of city life. In a recent poll of visitors, the National Park Service found out that 95% of people in the backcountry go to enjoy the sounds of nature ONLY. A truck blazing down the trail with radio blaring and horn honking is what most people are trying to avoid so keep it quiet. Another consideration is visual disturbance, this one is a little harder to control, you can't make your vehicle invisible. But when you do find a place to camp try to find a spot to park your vehicle that's mostly out of sight. It might not always be easy to find a place so if you have to choose between hiding your vehicle and tearing up the environment, just park where everybody can see you. You'll be a visual distraction while your camping but you'll be temporary, the damage you cause is a permanent eyesore.
When you see a puddle in the trail try to refrain from gunning the engine and hitting it at full force. It may be fun to see the mud fly up over the hood and splatter up the sides of your vehicle but that's not just mud flying all over the place, it's our trail. All the mud that gets flung to the sides of the trail usually stays there, that's why the trail gets wider and deeper in places where large puddles are. It's not helped by people who drive off the edge of the trail to stay clean. If you see a large puddle in the middle of the trail enter it slowly and proceed with a steady pace though it, the most disturbance you'll cause is a wave that laps the sides of the puddle. Trail potholes are caused by the same thing, people speed over foot wide puddles and splash the loose mud out of the pothole, the hole fills with water later and somebody hits it again. It's not long before the 2 foot wide pothole is 5 inches deep, just enough to give you a sudden shock as you drive over it.
STAY ON THE TRAIL!
This is the most important thing you should take away from this
page, always stay on the trail, I don't mean stay in the general area of the trail
or within 20 ft of the trail, if the trail is just two ruts keep your wheels in
the two ruts. Anywhere you drive off trail you can almost guarantee that somebody
else will follow your tracks, and somebody will follow them and so on. Soon
there is a new trail where there wasn't supposed to be one.
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The trail is twice as wide because people kept avoiding a 4 inch rock outcropping. |
If there's an obstacle in the trail, don't cut a bypass, if you can't pass it then the trail is too advanced for you, go somewhere else. And don't be a bump weenie, a bump weenie is somebody who drives to the left or right of a small bump or puddle in the road just because they don't want to get dirt or they want a smooth ride. More people will follow and soon a narrow 8 ft trail has widened to a three lane road.
The result of straying off the trail will turn a small two rut trail to the backcountry into a crisscrossing maze of trail damage and 20 ft wide dirt scars. The trail that we kept open to visit the backcountry will be closed because the conversationalists pointed out that it was destroying the ecology (and it was). And the damage your ruts cause may last longer than a few weeks, if the ground is moist your tire will cut deep into the mud. And even when the ground is dry you may cause catastrophic damage. Many arid areas are covered with a special soil covering called "Crypto-biotic Soil". It's made up of microbes to create a protective crust on the ground that prevents erosion. It takes about a decade for the crust to develop and a decade for your ruts to be "erased".
Tread Lightly is my favorite group so far as teaching proper treatment of the environment. Their Pledge is a good one to follow:
Travel and recreate with minimum
impact
Respect the environment and the rights of others
Educate yourself--plan and prepare before you go
Allow for future use of the outdoors--leave it better than you found
it
Discover the rewards of responsible recreation
Well now you conserve the trail, you're relatively unnoticeable, and you stay out of the way of other people enjoying the outdoors. The conservationists have no reason to accuse you of disturbing the peace but what about the 4-Wheelers you're with? There is a trail etiquette that you need to follow to stay on the good side of your fellow 4-wheelers.
Your trail group is a team and what one does affects the rest so if you're being a pain and causing trouble you're quickly going to become the most hated person in the team. Here's some rules to be the best member of the team:
Don't disturb the non-wheelers.
Your trail group doesn't want to be associated with somebody
who gives the sport a bad name. If you're tearing up the area you're not
just making yourself look bad, you're making your buddies look bad, and they
won't like that.
Don't disturb other trail groups.
Don't make fun of another trail group that's struggling
and mouth off to them. And if somebody is giving you a hard time don't
respond in kind. If you're an Xterra owner like me you'll like likely
have a group razzing you at one time or another for not being able to keep up
with them. Be patient, we had a Jeep group giving us a hard time on Golden
Spike, they had catastrophic breakdowns 5 times; we broke down once and were
rolling again in 12 minutes.
Don't be belligerent to your group.
Nobody likes drama at parties and a trail run is like a party.
If you got problems with somebody wait till you get home to air your grievances.
However if you're angry at somebody for tearing up the trail and making the
group look bad, don't wait to say something. Solve the problem before
they give the sport a bad name.
Don't Drink and Drive.
Yeah it sounds stupid but people do it. Even if you know
you can handle it the rest of the team can't depend on you if you're inebriated.
If you drink you just become a liability to the team.
Physically be prepared for the trail.
Have your own gear for emergencies. If you're stuck
the group may be too far ahead to help, the guy immediately in front of you
has to make the extraction and may not have what you need.
Mentally be prepared for the trail.
If you don't have the skill to handle a hard trail yet, park
at the trailhead and ride with somebody more experienced. The group doesn't
want to stop at every 6 inch ledge because you don't trust your driving skills.
Make sure your vehicle is prepared for the trail.
Make sure your vehicle can handle the trail without damage,
if the trail requires Lockers and you don't have them, don't do the trail.
And you NEED tow points in the front and rear.
Make the hookups if you're stuck.
If you get stuck, you need to hook up the extraction gear to
get out. Don't expect the guy yanking you out to dig though knee deep
mud to hook a strap to your tow hook. You're the one that got stuck, you're
the one that's going to get dirty. It doesn't matter if you're in your
best clothes or you think that since you're a pretty girl the other person should
make the hook-up for you. They're already doing you a favor by pulling
you out. I was going to pull a guy that had gotten himself stuck in a
mud hole but he refused to get out of his vehicle. I told him, "Fine,
there's a housing development a quarter mile down the road, call a tow truck"
I repacked my gear and drove off.
Be willing to help others.
The trail group is a team and gets through as a team.
If somebody needs some spotting to get over an obstacle hop out and help them,
eventually they will have the opportunity to repay you.
Know your hand signals.
Know your hand signals so you can spot people over obstacles.
Make sure they know their hand signals too. Some people use different
signals so work out what you'll be using before you start spotting. Your
"thumbs up" for "you're about to go up the ledge" may be interpreted as "Give
it more gas", ramming your buddies front end into a ledge.
Uphill has the right of way.
If the trail is too narrow to pass then you have to back
up the hill to a point where you can turn off so the person coming up can pass.
However if you're coming up the hill and you see a place to pull off before
you get to the downhill vehicle pull off and wave them down.
Have some means of communication with the group.
Some prefer CB radios others prefer FRS radios, whatever
your group carries bring one too. Not only will you be able to alert others
to trail conditions, but the trail banter can pass the time on a long trail.
If you break down try to pull off the trail.
Nothing is more annoying than having to stop for half
an hour every couple miles because the group ahead of you keeps breaking down
and clogging up the trail (I know from experience, see my Golden Spike story
above).
Finally, Make sure everybody has a good time.
A trail run is like a relationship, you get what you give.
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