NOHVCC Newsletter - December 2011 edition
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In this Issue:
The Perfect Gift – OHV Safety!
by Dave Halsey, NOHVCC Contributing Writer
I admit it, and so will most men if you ask them: we wait till the last minute before buying gifts for our kids, grandkids, nieces and nephews. It’s genetic.
So here’s an idea for all you last-minute shoppers: give the gift of OHV safety. What kid wouldn’t like a new helmet for Christmas? Or if they already have a helmet, a new riding jacket, full-length dirt boots or a chest protector?
An OHV safety class! There’s another great gift idea. A first-time class for new riders, an advanced class or refresher course for experienced riders.
Stocking stuffers could include NOHVCC’s new Adventure Trails Activity Book and color crayons for the very young, a fresh pair of gloves or goggles for teens and young adults, or a one-size-fits-all membership in the local OHV club for just about anyone.
It’s rally time men! You can do it! Get out there and shop. Give the gift of OHV safety. And while you’re at it, pick up something nice for yourself, like a new 2-stroke, a camo ATV, maybe a Side x Side....
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Webinar Series Offered Again
by Karen Umphress, NOHVCC Project Coordinator
The NOHVCC Public Land Advocacy Webinar series is back! For those of you who have been waiting breathlessly for these webinars, you may now breathe easy.
We are offering 2 full series through January and February. One series is offered during the day and the other offered in the evening to help with scheduling challenges. Taking the entire series will give you CEU credits from Marshall University’s Technical College.
And did we mention these are free?
The first webinar begins on Jan 10th, so make your plans early. To get more information about the sessions and the CEUs, go to NOHVCC’s webinar page. To enroll, go to NOHVCC’s webinar registration page.
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Developing OHV Leaders of the Future - Fourth in a Series
by Dave Halsey, NOHVCC Contributing Writer
Across the country, clubs of all kinds that involve outdoor activities -- OHV riding, hunting, fishing, snowmobiling, hiking, camping -- are faced with a similar challenge: how to get more youth involved. OHV clubs that invest in youth programs are more apt to have that younger base of support when it’s needed.
We’d like to hear what your club is doing to develop and mentor the OHV leaders and volunteers of tomorrow who will be needed to carry on your work. Send us a note on the projects, programs and unique ideas your club uses to get kids, teens and young adults involved in your OHV club or organization. We’ll share them in this newsletter. Email them to trailhead@nohvcc.org.
Safety Fair Brings OHV Education To Families In East Tennessee
When it comes to keeping kids safe, one person can make a big difference. In Carter County, Tennessee that person is Robin Cooper.
“We were having so many deaths up here from various types of farm-related accidents, just one right after the other,” said Cooper, an environmental specialist with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. “We were losing 3 or 4 kids a month, it was really awful, and they were mostly in this county, so I decided to do something.”
What Cooper did was organize a Safety Fair. Once a year for the past two years, she has brought together members of the local fire department, air and water rescue squads, an ATV dealership, the local OHV club and others to spend a day at the Lowe’s store parking lot in Elizabethton. They set up displays, handed out brochures and talked to families about how to be safe, such as OHV safety on rural roads, ditches and trails, as well as how to be safe riding tractors and using their power takeoff (PTO) units. “Around here, farm help is practically nonexistent and they put these kids to work on these huge machines. It can be really dangerous,” said Cooper.
“This is a passion she has. She doesn’t want to see kids hurt,” said Mike Farmer, a board member of the Mountain Trail Riders, a 450-member OHV club that participates in the Safety Fair. “We have a lot of farm accidents, and it’s a rural area so a lot of kids ride ATVs and motorcycles. The majority of people you see don’t wear a helmet. Very seldom do you see someone wearing a helmet on an ATV.”
Farmer and other club members used a display that includes
helmets, a mannequin dressed in safety gear, and NOHVCC Adventure Trails materials to talk to families about OHV safety. “We showed them the NOHVCC posters, we gave out the coloring books and the CD with games on it, and we gave out some of the tattoos. The whole reason for the Safety Fair is to promote safety to the kids, and our club’s goal is to have this become a state program. We want so see Adventure Trails or something like it incorporated into our school system, or at least have the materials available to them,” said Farmer.
Cooper and Farmer agree that there is also a need for more publicity regarding ATV safety classes. “We had some pretty good interest at the Safety Fair in our club’s ATV safety training class. It’s amazing how many people buy an ATV and don’t take a safety class. Some people were amazed that it was a possibility and that they didn’t know about the class,” said Farmer. “I stop people and ask what they would pay for an ATV safety course. I’ve had people tell me as high as $75. They don’t realize it’s free, if you buy a machine, through the dealer,” adds Cooper.
Cold, wet weather held down attendance at this year’s Safety Fair, but it didn’t dampen Cooper’s or the club’s enthusiasm to keep telling the safety message.
“Tennessee is a unique state,” said Farmer. “It doesn’t have an OHV department. The only stipulation in Tennessee is that if you’re under 16 you have to ride the appropriate size of ATV. They don’t have to take an ATV or motorcycle safety class, they don’t have to wear a helmet, they don’t have to do anything. Nobody takes care of safety if you don’t do it as an individual. We’re trying to get that changed.”
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Novel Approach To Travel Management Planning Leads To Multiple Awards For Pike National Forest
by Dave Halsey, NOHVCC Contributing Writer
Getting user groups involved early led to the Rampart Motorized Recreation Area receiving CRT and NARRP Awards
Riding OHMs, ATVs and Side x Sides is fun. The actual building of trails can be fun.
Why can’t public involvement related to Travel Management Planning be fun?
Before you start your Top 10 list, listen to what Bruce Meighen, a certified land use planner and VP at AECOM, has to say about the planning process used in the Rampart Motorized Recreation Area in Colorado’s Pike National Forest, for a project that won two national trails awards.
“We’d been planning the area called Rampart Range, one of the more heavily used motorized areas between Colorado Springs and Denver,” said Meighen, program manager on the project. “The goal was to take a collaborative approach to creating a sustainable trail system. The process that we used was a little unconventional because it really dealt with a partnership between the user groups and the Forest Service. In the normal NEPA process, you come up with alternatives and you ask for people to react. Instead, we developed alternatives together, so the user groups were involved from day one.”
AECOM is a global provider of professional, technical and management support services for a broad range of markets. For recreation resource planning, its Design + Planning division uses a multidisciplinary approach, teaming resource planners with biologists and landscape architects to research, plan and design recreation opportunities. In 2003, the U.S. Forest Service contracted with AECOM, then known as EDAW, to assist with the preparation of a Road and Trails Plan and accompanying Environmental Assessment (EA) in the Pike National Forest.
The Rampart Motorized Recreation Area is located in the South Platte Ranger District, about an hour’s drive southwest of Denver. It was established in the ‘70s to provide opportunities for motorcycle riding, and later for ATVs. Initially, the trails were created by visitors riding on existing power lines and logging roads. The result was a network of trails in a beautiful setting, but over time it suffered from soil erosion, limited connectivity, poor design, safety issues and little trail diversity.
AECOM’s challenge was to develop a road, trail and recreational use plan that would support activities of all forest visitors, including OHV enthusiasts, non-motorized trail users, as well as the general public.
Instead of just presenting a plan to user groups and serving as arbitrator, 
AECOM helped the Forest Service hold a series of open houses and workshops to partner with them. “It was more collaborative in terms of public meetings,” said Meighen. “They were done in a workshop format. You could pick up a marker and put down your ideas. Instead of asking people to react, you’re creating alternatives with them. You premise it on people’s values, and you find that most people’s values are the same: we all want a good outcome.”
Scott Dollus, outdoor recreation planner in the South Platte Ranger District, led the project for the Forest Service. It was the first time he had taken the workshop approach to trail planning. “With Bruce’s help in our public meetings, we took what was a potentially a controversial project and turned it into a positive outcome. One indication of that is we didn’t get one appeal on it after we made the decision,” said Dollus.
Using a GIS (Geographic Information System) suitability model, AECOM, the Forest Service and user groups looked at where trails would be appropriate and where they would not. Because the user groups were open to that approach, it greatly enhanced the process, said Meighen. “One of the differences was that we first explained to the user groups that there are certain things that we can’t change and don’t want to violate. We called those the givens. We want to stay away from environmental sensitivities, such as large burned areas (from the 2002 Hayman forest fire) or sensitivity to large watersheds and so on. In areas where trails are suitable, we said there’s nothing wrong with adding more trails.”
“Another difference is that we not only looked at environmental impacts like you would in a NEPA process, we also looked at recreational experience, what people were looking for. In this case, they were looking for longer single track rides, some challenge areas and large ATV areas that had longer looped trails. The concept is that by providing what the user actually wants, you can avoid the creation of informal trails. That worked really well.”
According to Drew Stoll, AECOM’s OHV expert on the project, much of the credit for the success of this planning approach goes to the Forest Service. “I have to give the client the credit for this,” said Stoll. “We often encourage our clients to find the best possible solution, and often they don’t want to go that way because of the cost and potential complications of building new trails. In this case, the client was looking for the best long-term solution, which made for some pretty dramatic changes. But there’s also been a lot of success because of that vision, especially in raising funds to implement the plan.”
Another key to the project’s success is that Scott Dollus and the Forest Service already had a long history with the Rampart Range Motorcycle Management Committee (RRMMC), an all-volunteer, nonprofit corporation that promotes and preserves OHV trail riding in the area. “It’s a very well organized group. There was a lot of confidence established between them and the Ranger District. They’re partners, they really work together to find solutions and work through all the issues,” said Stoll.
Stoll admits that the entire process was easier then than it is today. “It was a different era in travel management planning. All the different interest groups that now appeal travel management plans weren’t as sophisticated or organized. Now they have paid staff that organize their appeals. In that time frame, only 8 years ago, there were very few groups that were well-enough organized to go in and try to create road blocks to the planning process,” said Stoll.
In the end, AECOM was able to provide big wins for the various user groups. “For the environmental groups and non-motorized communities, large areas of contiguous non-motorized areas were created,” said Meighen. “But in the same breath, huge new areas were open to OHV and motorized use. It’s important to understand that recreational experience and impact assessment have to go hand in hand.”
Since completion of the Road and Trails Plan in 2005, 
the Forest Service and AECOM have successfully raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement it. To date, approximately 25 miles of trails have been closed or rerouted to reduce resource impacts. About 90 miles of new trails have been designed in detail and 35 miles of those trails have been constructed. According to the RRMMC web site, the first new section of single-track trail opened last June. Eight miles of the “Skeleton” trail is their first new single track in over 20 years. Another 22 miles of 50-inch trail have also been opened. Other facility improvements include four trailhead expansions, six new restroom facilities, and installation of educational kiosks.
Today, the Rampart project is widely recognized in Colorado as a success for all parties involved. In 2010, the Coalition of Recreational Trails (CRT) gave it an “RTP Achievement Award” for Maintenance and Rehabilitation. In May of 2011, the Forest Service and AECOM Design + Planing received an “Excellence in Planning Award” from the National Association of Recreation Resource Planners (NARRP) for developing a recreation area that, as stated on the award, “provides outstanding motorized recreation trail experiences while protecting the natural resources.”
AECOM has continued to assist the Forest Service with the design and final biological clearance of approximately 50 new miles of single-track trail. “The community lost trails that they really liked to ride,” said Stoll. “But the flip side is, we created new advanced trails to replace them, to keep it a more challenging area, with an alternative loop or side trail that ties back into the main trail but provides a chance for a hill climb or a rock climb.”
There is some risk to involving user groups from day one, said Stoll. You’re giving over some control to the public, which some agency people are afraid of, and it takes a lot more time, effort and money to coordinate with a lot of people. Not everybody wants to make that investment. Pike National Forest did, and AECOM is glad they did. As stated on the NARRP award submission: “A well thought-out planning and public involvement strategy is more important to project success than a large budget with all the studies that could be conducted.”
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ATV Geocaching: A Treasure Hunt On Wheels
by Dave Halsey, NOHVCC Contributing Writer
Hunting, ice fishing, fixing fence, hauling feed, plowing food plots and of course trail riding -- the list of things you can do with an ATV or Side x Side has been growing since the first Honda ATC 90 hit the off-road over 40 years ago.
Add geocaching to that list.
Do an internet search of “ATV geocaching” and you’ll discover a lot of people are doing it. There are many web sites showing maps, clues, even videos of ATV geocaching, most often set up by clubs, on OHV-designated roads and trails.
It’s a treasure hunt on wheels. You're given the GPS coordinates of the cache. Half the fun is getting there. The other half is finding the cache, usually a small container hidden under a bush, behind a boulder, in a log or up a tree. You write your name in a log book inside the cache. Sometimes you’re invited to take a “treasure” (i.e. trinket) out of the box and leave one in its place. Or there may be a coupon left by the geocache sponsor.
The Ravalli County Off-Road User Association has been OHV geocaching in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley for 3 years. Mike Jeffords is a board member, past club president and is an Associate Partner with NOHVCC. He and his wife Kathy launched the idea. “We’re the ones that got the club going on it. The way our club works is, if you bring up an idea you’re the one stuck doing it,” laughed Mike Jeffords.
The first year, they hid five surplus ammo cans in an area of roughly 100 miles. Each can contained a notebook for riders to jot down their name and the date they found the cache. They sent out clues to local riders. “We made up little clues, like ‘From this spot you can two states.’ We’d give out the coordinates and people would have to go find it. They were pretty easy clues. A lot of people knew where they were without having to look up the geo-coordinates,” said Jeffords.
Another clue was: “There’s not one, there’s not two, but there’s _____.” Riders looked up the geo-coordinates, which showed an intersection of three roads, and off they went. Once they reached the spot, they got off their ATVs and dirt bikes and the search began. They would find the box hidden behind a stump on a nearby hiking path. “It kept them using their GPS and people really liked doing it,” said Jeffords. “It’s for our club, but we send out flyers to other clubs, saying if you’re down in our area we have a geocache program going on. If you’d like to look for the cans here are the coordinates.”
At the end of the first summer’s geocaching, the Jeffords gathered up the boxes and gave out prizes to the people who had found the most caches. The next two summers, they held a one-day geocache as part of the club’s annual Fun Ride. “That worked out real well because we had families at the Fun Ride, so kids could join in looking for the caches. It seems to be a big hit with our riders here in the Bitterroot,” said Jeffords. “Kathy and I are working on doing another geocache this year, this time for the whole summer. We found that the prizes don't have to be big or spendy, just something to make the riders happy and to remember the day.”
The Jeffords are dreaming up other ATV-related activities. Next on the list: an ATV Rodeo. “We talked about doing barrel riding and shooting balloons, maybe a tractor pull for Side x Sides,” said Jeffords. “But I figure it’s going to take about 20 volunteers to do it. We’ll see.”
For more information on geocaching, visit www.geocaching.com. If you’re planning an OHV geocaching ride on OHV-designated roads and trails in a state or national forest, be sure to check with their offices to see if it’s allowed, if you need a permit, and for any rules and regulations specific to geogaching.
Looking Forward
NOHVCC Webinars January 10 - February 29
NOHVCC Conference August 21 - 25
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