Besides the winding canyons, the layer-cake washes of color, the impossibly teetering arches, and the soaring buttes and vast mesas, one of the first things you notice about remote Utah is the silence. On a windless day, the silence is numbing.
But beginning in November, the sound of ATVs and UTVs (side-by-sides like the ubiquitous Polaris brand of vehicles) powering along dirt roads may begin echoing throughout Utah’s canyon country. Palmer “Chip” Jenkins, the National Park Service’s acting regional director, instructed national park superintendents last week to begin allowing the vehicles to travel back roads on the five national parks within Utah: Zion, Canyonlands, Arches, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef.
The decision was reached without public comment.
In 2008, Utah passed a law that would allow any street legal vehicle on all state and county roads anywhere within state borders. This new rule handed down by Jenkins is intended to bring Utah’s national parks in line with that 2008 law. If an ATV or UTV is registered and fitted with legally required safety features, it will be allowed on all legal back roads within Utah, whether on national park property or not. The NPS had been reluctant to open these roads to ATVs despite the 2008 law out of concern it would be difficult to ensure the vehicles were staying on designated roads.
Almost immediately after the announcement, conservationists began to criticize the decision.
“These are national parks that have incredible resources, cultural resources, natural resources, and so by allowing these vehicles that are tailored to go anywhere, you’re potentially putting these resources at risk,” said Kristen Brengel, the National Parks Conservation Association’s vice president of government affairs. “The Park Service should be going through a public process, doing an analysis and making sure they can adequately protect the park and its resources and visitors. They haven’t done that.”
Conservationists fear that once these vehicles are allowed to roam into remote backcountry areas on sanctioned dirt roads, they will end up powering off-road through sensitive areas, the drivers tempted by the impressive capability of the vehicles, causing damage to fragile desert ecosystems and potentially to cultural resources like sensitive archaeological research sites. Larger vehicles like trucks and SUVs with four-wheel drive don’t perform as well in the kinds of difficult terrain ATVs and UTVs can cross. Further, ATVs and UTVs are typically far, far louder, as they have little sound insulation quieting their engines.
While advocates for the change point out that travel off designated roads will be cited with tickets, many areas within Utah’s parks are so remote rangers can’t be expected to patrol adequately for proper ATV use. “This alignment with state law isn’t carte blanche to take their ATVs off road,” said NPS spokeswoman Vanessa Lacayo. “If people (drive) off road, they will be cited. Protection of these resources is paramount.”
Proponents for the change argue that they’ve been unfairly singled out and kept from driving in areas that already allow cars and trucks. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, the rule change was backed chiefly by Rep. Phil Lyman of Blanding, Utah. Lyman wrote a letter to Interior Secretary David Bernhardt earlier in September explaining that he was “offended” that ATV and UTV users weren’t allowed on dirt roads within national parks, while pointing out that Utah has a large number of operators of those vehicles which generate lots of money in taxes that fund roads and infrastructure. As did ATV and OHV (off-highway vehicles) advocacy groups, which also penned Bernhardt a letter in support of lifting the ban against their rigs in national parks.
“Despite being one of the largest groups of public land users, and even though the economic benefit of our community dwarfs most other recreational users combined, we often find ourselves discriminated against by decision-makers that head public land agencies,” they wrote.
Environmental groups sued the BLM earlier this summer for opening remote stretches of Utah to off-road vehicle use near Factory Butte outside of Capitol Reef National Park, which had previously been closed to protect endangered cacti.
Photo by Patrick Hendry
ATVs would absolutely ruin The Maze.
Not that anyone who made this decision cares.
Wasn’t exactly silent anyway. Off-road motorcycles have been allowed on the NPS roads for years, as long as they had a license plate (easy to get in many western states). I’m sure the park service was having a difficult time justifying why those were allowed but ATVs weren’t. There are a lot ATVs &UTVs with plates in UT, so yeah- there goes the neighborhood.
It’s a long 4×4 trip to the actual Maze trailhead anyway. ATVs are actually less damaging to roads due to lower weight and soft balloon tires. Canyonlands NP was founded on a Jeeping/hiking/rafting premise. Check it out–look at old 60s National Geos.
Mike,
I suggest you visit the “spiderweb” of Forest Service roads here in NoAz and see what the environmental impact has been on our previously tranquil forests by the rapid increase in ATV use.
And I recommend you bring your eye and ear protection, and be prepared for the dust.
Echo the comments above. The NPS can’t enforce access restrictions at Craggy Pinnacle on the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of the busiest sites in the system’s busiest park unit. How does it expect to enforce these restrictions in the middle of Utah?
I’m a bit confused – as an occasional online reader of Adventure Journal I often see you reviewing and praising the latest off-road vehicles and the using of such vehicles for the exploration of the outdoors. Now you’re against it?
Hi Peter, there’s a subtle though important distinction to be made between normal passenger vehicles with four-wheel-drive, even ones modified for overland travel, and ATVs. The former are chiefly transportation to get to a remote place, with capabilities designed to assist a vehicle built for driving mostly on paved roads to access places without pavement. The latter are built specifically to drive fast and aggressively over dirt. That’s the whole point, the fun they provide by going fast over seemingly impossible terrain. The fear with ATVs in sensitive places, as opposed to off-road capable trucks and SUVs, is that ATVs will be driven off established dirt roads just for the fun of it, potentially disturbing sensitive sites, as opposed to 4×4 passenger vehicles driving over rough dirt roads to get to cool spots. Plus, ATVs are much, much louder than trucks and cars.
I’m more concerned with the premise that national parks must conform to state laws or rules. Seems like a loss of federal sovereignty and the start of the slippery slope for Utah and other western states to take over federal lands.
I certainly hope this doesn’t end up like in NoAz where I live. Forest service roads are chewed up, rutted, and there’s no relief in sight. I avoid weekend hiking, NEVER on holiday weekends, as the noise and dust is overwhelming.
Not to mention the negative impacts this all has on our treasured wildlife populations (bull elk numbers here are dropping rapidly….don’t get me started on this).
Reading this article add to the grief I already feel concerning our relationship to the lands that we have set aside for protection. There is nothing sacred anymore. We all seem to think we deserve to recreate wherever we like. It is as if we think these magical places only have value because we give them value as places to play. Even the lower impact recreational activities such as hiking, trail running and cross country mountain biking are increasingly Damaging places that were once pristine. Places that used to just see a few hikers in a day now have dozens and dozens leading to disturbing impacts because unfortunately There has been a loss of etiquette when it comes to how we move lightly over the land. I have lived in many places where ATVs and motorcycles have been allowed to use the trails. The damage that happens is overwhelming. Mud holes and mountain Meadows stripped of their vegetation by people who are out there just to “shred“. I am sure that there are some very careful riders within these groups however it only takes a few to do tremendous damage. Here in Western Washington where I live there is one trail in the mountains open to dirt bikes. I personally witnessed motorcyclists leaving the trail and Ripping their way up the side of a steep meadow just for fun. It will take decades for the ruts they have created through the wildflowers to repair. I am thankful that we have strict rules that don’t allow motorized 0HV users to ride on our trails.Among many mountain bikers, dirt bikers, and ATV riders are people who don’t feel the rules apply to them. If they want to create a new line to ride they just dig it or carve it out with their power machine. I have little doubt that the result of this new rule mini mini miles of pristine desert wilderness will be carved up for fun. As people to enjoy the outdoors we have to begin to realize that wild places do not belong to us and it is a privilege to use the places that we do. We need to be willing to set much of it aside for habitat because our presence on the land makes an impact. We have not left much for the other residents of the planet. We have squeezed them out of all of the most productive land. Wake up people, we are in the middle of a great decline of all of the systems and populations of this planet. Birds, insects, fish, and many of our great predators are all in steep decline.So get off of your damn mountain bike, your OHV, your climbing harness, your backcountry skis, and your trail running shoes and spend more time advocating for these places we love. Be willing to give some of it up for the other citizens of the planet.
As an Easterner, I was astounded by the incredible beauty and majesty of Utah’s Canyonlands. After having my heart sink to the depths on reading of this horrible opening of them to ATVs, etc. I now must face the fact that I hope the Sixth Extinction includes all humans. Let the wild creatures inherit and thrive. Exclamations of religious allegiance fall far short as the hypocrisy they are–nature is the true church, the true sanctuary. Michael’s comment above is the best and the truest. But I feel that since human hubris, greed, motor worship and savagery now prevail in most places, eating everything away like a plague, that it is time for “Atlantis” to fall.