Tag for home. I'll be writing my reps and sharing.

Derp. We're talking about PUBLIC roads, that are being closed to public access. Not off-roading, just regular logging roads that they are arbitrarily closing.

No it's from way before that the forest service travel management planned changed road designations to closed unless listed open which is a change from where it was open unless listed closed. They have to close x amount of road each year to "save money" which is stupid considering it's far more expensive to truck heavy equipment boulders and several thousand dollars worth of diesel fuel out into the middle if fucking no where to shut down a road 45 minutes from civilization. Roads leading to places many people and their families have fond memories of from camping fishing etc only to show up one day to a road closed sign with no warning. You can't tell me it's cheaper to shut down a road and put 200 yards of boulders in its place than it is to let nature take its course and naturally degrade.

The forest service is almost as bad as the EPA.

Fail.

Just so I get this right. You're not in favor of having public lands remain opened to the public?

So punish the whole for the misdeeds of a select few. Gee that sounds familiar. Arfcom is the last place I expected to see the gun grabbers of land use rear their statist heads, but I guess nothing should surprise me anymore.

Single track and ATV guys that can fit past gatekeepers and closure devices are the ones who are doing the damage in terms of erosion anyways, and will continue to do so after closures so it really doesn't do anything but shut out the people following the rules.

I have never done anything wrong or acted like a jackass and yet completely arbitrary forest service closures have already effected me. There are places that I have years of fond memories of, only to show up to go camping one day to find 200 yards of torn up stumps and car sized boulders that they hauled in from miles and miles away, and a road closed sign plopped down right in the middle of the road.

I don't really expect you guys to understand because it doesn't really effect the central and eastern united states like it does the west coast because so little of your land is federally managed, but the majority of our recreational lands are here.



You can't tell me that in times of financial crisis it makes sense to spend thousands and thousands of dollars to haul in heavy equipment, boulders (that are clearly not of the area, and hundreds of gallons of diesel to shut down some road that is a 45 minute drive before you even hit asphalt.

I highly suggest you watch this video.

Sure if you want to walk all the way in. Not everyone is able to do that though, there is no road anymore and no foot trail. Just rocks, stumps, and debris, and the closures throughout the national forest take up thousands and thousands of miles. Some of the branches are MILES long. That would be one hell of a hike.

To hell with grandma,grandpa, disabled vets, etc, right? Camping is only for the able bodied!

Or how about public lands remain open to the public, and we stop spending millions of dollars closing them just because the forest service has mandated that x amount have to close every year.

You can say its still open to the public all you want but if they make it difficult or impossible to get there without walking, for all intents and purposes it is closed.

Also why should I suddenly have to go somewhere else to camp when I've been going to the same place for all these years, with lots of fond memories and good times?

Why do people in vehicles who are out there camping every weekend of the summer have to take backseat to the granola ass hippie hikers who only go out on memorial day to prove to everyone on facebook how outdoorsy they are.

Why do our 4x4 clubs donate hundreds of hours for clean up projects, etc,  every year only for them to still close shit down anyways.

Also, another prime example.

I have a cabin that has been in our family since the 50's, before snowmobiles were really a thing,  and now because I wasn't around to fight it when it first came about we have no wheeled access in the winter because of snow mobile season. That's right the forest service says I can't drive over a 1/2 mile strip of compact snow, on asphalt mind you, which is easily passable, in order to go to my own fucking property during the winter.

Nor are fire service or police vehicles allowed to service it in the event of a fire or emergency. So essentially we pay property taxes so snow mobilers can come and destroy our property six months out of the year because for some reason that's preferable to people being able to use cars to get to their own land during the winter.

If there's jackboots in government the forest service sure is full of them. They are almost as bad as the EPA in their activism, and they are chock full of hippies who hate 4x4's and pretty much do whatever they can to shit on wheeled access to anything.