Quote:
Originally Posted by jamesqf
I think you misunderstood me, or I misunderstood you. I'm not talking about driving on dirt roads, even rough dirt ones. I do that myself, because that's what a lot of the roads are around these parts, especially the ones that lead to trailheads & other good places to hike, bike, or ski. (Or fish or hunt, if that's what you enjoy.) But driving on existing roads is quite a different thing from the yahoo who takes off cross-country in his Hummer, leaving a trail of destruction behind.
The other point, of course, is that even if you're driving the dirt roads, you haven't quite left the noise & chaos of civilization behind - ok, I suppose your exhaust is technically behind you - because you're still driving a piece of it.
|
First things first, please don't take our discussion the wrong way. You're well spoken and I respect you for that, even if our opinions may differ.
There are many thousands of responsible off-highway drivers on the road, and I consider myself one. I use my vehicle to get to places I could never hope to walk in the 2 scant days per week that fulltime employment allow me. Many of the roads I drive in pursuit of isolation and immersion are severe terrain,
like this but nonetheless still actual roads, legal and open by RS2477 legislation.
These roads are being closed at an alarming rate. Between public lands being sold off to corporate interests, overzealous environmentalist hypocrites destroying legal roads and lobbying to have the lands closed, and unincorporated areas being settled by our growing population - frankly outdoorsmen are running out of places to be outdoors.
Much like drugs don't go away when they're made illegal (see: prohibition of alcohol as an example) and abortion was prevalent when it was illegal, people WILL do what they want to do, whether it's legal or not. When legal off-highway routes are closed, the yahoos you and I hate WILL tear up wild lands and cause the destruction that makes life very hard for the more responsible outdoorsmen of the world.
The US has millions upon millions of miles of paved roads. Nobody seems to complain about them, but how long would it take for a paved road to be reclaimed by nature? Longer than an unpaved road, I warrant. Why the uproar about unpaved roads? Unpaved roads to isolated valleys are being closed constantly. I live in Phoenix and when I moved here a little over a decade ago there were countless dirt tracks I could drive to in less than an hour, be around nobody, park my vehicle and enjoy the solitude with or without a short walk. Now I drive 2 hours or more to approach the same solitude. To get into REAL wilderness I'm looking at a 4 hour or more cruise on the highway, to get to an isolated road that isn't paved and gets me away from everyone else.
Sedona is a great example of this, beautiful land that had a dozen or so excellent roads that an off-highway enthusiast could drive, camp, and feel distanced from the chaos of city living. Then the roads were closed because "it is destructive to the environment" and what is there now? Houses, and paved roads to the houses. Is that not MORE destructive than a 2-track and a couple fire rings?
True, when you as a human walk into the "wild", you bring humanity with you. Unless you're naked and use a stick to hunt fish or something you're bringing "the evils of man" with you. I drive and then park, you drive and then park, but unless you leave your car at home and walk straight out your front door to your destination, you're still driving a road to the last spot you can get to mechanically before embarking on foot. What difference then does it make if the parking spot is a paved lot or a wide spot in the dirt track? Are drivers of typial cars bitterly jealous that I don't have to walk as far thanks to my foot-plus of ground clearance? Unless they walked all the way from home, they have no argument to stand on.
Quote:
|
Now I'm sure you don't live in northern Nevada, because things just don't grow that fast. There are places where you can still find the traces of covered wagons, a century and a half later. You just have to use your eyes to see what some of these off-road tracks do. A few of the yahoos get into a contest, for instance trying to drive straight up a steep hillside. That kills off the vegetation, and a few years later that track's become a deeply-eroded gully.
|
What do the tracks do that a paved highway doesn't do? If you drive on paved highways, it's hardly fair to complain about drivers on unpaved roads. Paved highways blast through mountains, deposit mountains of toxic asphalt and oils, require thousands of gallons of fuel to be burnt in the construction and maintenance thereof, what are the net ecological costs of paved highways?
As mentioned in my statement above, regardless of the law and what's right or wrong, nobody's going to throw away their jeep or ATV if you close everything down. They own their toys and they're going to use their toys, one way or another.
You close the legal roads and the first thing you see is yahoos tearing off across truly wild land because it's equally illegal to do that as it is to drive the formerly legal trails that just got closed.
The key here is, we all must wash our own finger before we point it at each other. If we drive a car, if we own anything electrically operated, if we participate in modern society at all we are all polluters, consumers, and general destroyers of that which is natural. If we make children, we make more polluters who will make more polluters still.
The off-highway driver is an easy boogeyman to blame because his dirt tracks are not used by everyone, so you can point AT it without pointing at yourself. Because his dirt tracks are by necessity adjacent to untouched nature, it's a fresh scar still bleeding. But have you ever considered what your city looked like 400 years ago? A short time geologically, and it was pristine untouched nature. Now it's asphalt and a-holes, as far as the eye can see. Not a fresh wound like a dirt track, but a deep wound that will take centuries to stop festering and heal. Frankly none of us has much right to blame anyone, any more than we blame the guy in the mirror. We sure as heck have no right to blame the Hummers of the world, how many are there exactly?