New Burro Pass Route in ‘2023!

[simple]

Used to be, but now my throttle grip gets more work on the uphills than my legs. Getting sick of endless uphills at my age.

Things an ebiker says for $400 Alex

[tellybele]

Used to be, but now my throttle grip gets more work on the uphills than my legs. Getting sick of endless uphills at my age. 😆

Didn't know ebikes had throttles? Or maybe you meant gas bikes?
Shouldn't it be your left hand that gets the work? Clutching is a bit more work than throttling. I only get calluses on my middle, ring and pinky fingers on my left hand, my right has none.

[JayPowHound]

I would hate to be a ranger there. Basically your a cop in a trailer park without backup. They need to double their spring and fall staffing and realize it is just part of the expense of keeping that economy moving.

We camp so far out, I guess I was blind to the problems. I just had an experience at one of the pay camps that made me say never again about five years ago.

What could possibly go wrong?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Thaleia]

So Moab's going to be slammed by various adventure seekers for the foreseeable future, correct? Fully vacced finally and really miss driving out west to visit some parks and include S Ut along the way. CA / US border is opening very soon..

Can I assume car camping and riding the known routes will be a pain not to mention possible burden on the community?

How much better are Fruita or Grand Junction in terms of crowds? Are locals still anti travel due to covid?

[MakersTeleMark]

So Moab's going to be slammed by various adventure seekers for the foreseeable future, correct? Fully vacced finally and really miss driving out west to visit some parks and include S Ut along the way. CA / US border is opening very soon..

Can I assume car camping and riding the known routes will be a pain not to mention possible burden on the community?

How much better are Fruita or Grand Junction in terms of crowds? Are locals still anti travel due to covid?

It's going to be hot as balls, and if not, extremely crowded. The locals don't care about COVID, they just want your money.

[Thaleia]

I know the heat that time of year. This east coaster actually loves to roast in the desert. Will slow me down on the bike, for sure though.

Re locals, was getting a sense from the Moab sub they were maybe sick of the recent over crowding, just trying to validate that here. Of all places.

[evdog]

The #vanlife masses should have mostly moved to their summer range at higher elevations by now so Moab should be a bit emptier the next couple months. Sedona is out, the national forest is closing effective tomorrow. Lots of other places to go. It's hot as balls everywhere right now.

I wouldn't worry about being a burden on communities. Everyone is hitting the road for vacations, locals be damned. If you can manage to not leave poo and dirty toilet paper in your campsite or burn the forest you'll be better behaved than most.

[Thaleia]

I can do that.

[rideit]

Moab locals come here in droves (heh) this time of year, so I figure fair’s fair.
I beat Kyle Mear’s time on a local rowdy DH, does that give me Moab street cred?
(who knows, maybe he stopped to take a piss)

[Thaleia]

You ever stop mid run to take a leak?!

[rideit]

Not when either/or
I am with wifey
The STRAVAAA is important

(I was kidding, our times are very, very close)

[ZomblibulaX]

I would hate to be a ranger there. Basically your a cop in a trailer park without backup. They need to double their spring and fall staffing and realize it is just part of the expense of keeping that economy moving.

Budget for land managers doesn't change due to the local economy; they can't just up their staff because Moab is busy. Congress takes a long fucking time to hire people, and new hires are always a line item away from being dropped next season. Or god forbid there's a government shutdown; it sure doesn't stop people camping.

Per rangers: you're exactly right, but there really aren't any. District ranger is in the office managing a hell of a lot more than camping. LEOs are very few and far between, and you're right, they don't have backup. Many places in the forest nationwide have shit for radio reception, and you're calling up a rural SO who are probably already spread thin, and may not be able to respond at all if FS LEO gets in a tussle with a surface shitter. It's barely worth it for them to confront someone face to face.

Most of the FS/BLM people you see in the field have nothing to do with camping/littering/resource management/law enforcement; they're tree nerds and wildlife geeks. Most of the rest are just GS-2 recreation kids that get to pick up all the trash, clean up all the shit, put out all the unattended fires and put on the monkey suit every weekend to try to teach people about bear safety and not burning styrofoam coolers. Fire service excluded for obvious reasons; they're plenty busy cleaning up the big messes.

Campgrounds are managed by contractors staffed by retirees who are very nice but very much not able to do much of anything about people being assholes when there's no cell service for miles. Those people get paid less than minimum wage after they take out site fees, they've got very little reason to get in someone's face about rules and regs. So making everything paid camping still won't change the behavior of the worst offenders. There's not nearly enough staff to go around to do anything about people trashing the place or starting fires, land managers just pick up the pieces after.

[Canada1]

Wouldn’t it be in Moabs best interest to find a solution. People aren’t visiting for the dining. Preserving the number one resource matters. There is an answer, even if it means circumventing the feds, they need more people out there telling the dumb asses to keep it in check

[MakersTeleMark]

Didn't a federal law just pass that allows fee collecting forest units to keep a higher based amount of the fees within their district instead of just dumping them in the general fund? Seems like a start.

[Name Redacted]

Didn't a federal law just pass that allows fee collecting forest units to keep a higher based amount of the fees within their district instead of just dumping them in the general fund? Seems like a start.

Well when Moab starts charge $200+ for access to their national forest like ski areas do then maybe they’ll actually generate some funding. Can’t wait to pay Vail money to drive my $20K CanAm SxS over Fins and Things then go buy a $30 cheeseburger at Milt’s.

[ZomblibulaX]

Wouldn’t it be in Moabs best interest to find a solution. People aren’t visiting for the dining. Preserving the number one resource matters. There is an answer, even if it means circumventing the feds, they need more people out there telling the dumb asses to keep it in check

Yes.

Well when Moab starts charge $200+ for access to their national forest like ski areas do then maybe they’ll actually generate some funding. Can’t wait to pay Vail money to drive my $20K CanAm SxS over Fins and Things then go buy a $30 cheeseburger at Milt’s.

And also yes.

Fact is, the majority of people going to Moab for recreation (middle-age OHV motorists with $17k+ to dump into a machine they have to drive 700 mi from home to put to decent use/20-30-something MTBers with $7k+ to dump in to a machine they're more than happy to drive to another state to shake things up for the weekend) have plenty of disposable income. Its unfortunate that permanent residents in recreation communities have to share so much of the burden with increased cost of living etc, when we really have yet to begin fully exploiting visitors. Hotel/VRBO taxes, OHV tags, so many options before you start making camping more expensive for just everyone. But if we want to talk fair, then maybe we should charge people who actually use public lands (looking at you, permittees and ranchers) instead of everyone in the whole country, irregardless of whether they attend or not. It's not a perfect system, but i think we all agree it needs better funding.

[Canada1]

Yes.



. But if we want to talk fair, then maybe we should charge people who actually use public lands (looking at you, permittees and ranchers) instead of everyone in the whole country, irregardless of whether they attend or not. It's not a perfect system, but i think we all agree it needs better funding.

I could go on a diatribe about grazing fees, lack of enforcement, overgrazing, historic entitlement, etc., but the ranchers in general aren't starting the fires. Hell, the one guy who did down by Cloudcroft felt so bad about it he killed himself. Certainly Moab could throw down a 4% room tax and throw it towards law enforcement, Rangers and camp ground infrastructure structure, etc.., and do the town a positive. The fire probably would have happened anyway. My old home town was drastically changed by the rangers doing a controlled burn on a red day. So even the people who do this for their living can massively screw up and burn thousands of acres and homes and face little to no consequence. (Yes, I am very bitter about it)

[panchosdad]

I could go on a diatribe about grazing fees, lack of enforcement, overgrazing, historic entitlement, etc., but the ranchers in general aren't starting the fires. Hell, the one guy who did down by Cloudcroft felt so bad about it he killed himself. Certainly Moab could throw down a 4% room tax and throw it towards law enforcement, Rangers and camp ground infrastructure structure, etc.., and do the town a positive. The fire probably would have happened anyway. My old home town was drastically changed by the rangers doing a controlled burn on a red day. So even the people who do this for their living can massively screw up and burn thousands of acres and homes and face little to no consequence. (Yes, I am very bitter about it)

Agree with most of your rant, but why should the people staying in hotels pay for the impacts of campers?

[Canada1]

Agree with most of your rant, but why should the people staying in hotels pay for the impacts of campers?

I am not an expert on taxation. I just saw that as a way to hit the tourists, thus not tying it to property taxes. I don't see a viable and enforceable way to hit campers. You can do an access and permit system, but I bet that only 10% are honest enough to pay it. Hell, I put money in the envelope and into the pipe every time I go to the Uinta's, but have never been checked by a ranger or any sort of enforcement. My mindset is what would be a fair way for the locals there to pass on costs to the many multiples of their population base that drive there and use the trails.
I go over there all the time and I think the only time I pay a fee is when I park at slickrock, and that is pretty infrequent.
Locally, we have problems with trail users and how to cover costs. They are proposing a sticker for locals and then a sticker people who come here to use the trails. The people who come here are all writing the paper saying stuff like "you want us to eat out in your town, but want us to pay to use your trails."
It was the only idea I had. basically, if you try to shift costs in any way, some people will find work arounds and some people will bitch. It was the only easy solution I could think of. I think it is how we pay for the buses here.

[rideit]

So, did the La Sals get the rain that Colorado has been getting?
Is this thing still on fire?
Anyone have a current damage report?

[Canada1]

https://inciweb.nwcg.gov/incident/7529/

[simple]

As Moab is redneck Disneyland they ought to have a fee station as you get off I70