ATV impact

Trash of all sorts litters the wooded campground. Much of it is piled in one place, giving the appearance of a budding landfill. Among the crumpled cereal boxes, soiled paper towels and plastic milk cartons is a bullet-ridden tool box and an empty five-quart jug of motor oil, the type that might be poured into an all-terrain vehicle.

Rick Vallejos, Wasatch-Cache National Forest recreation and lands officer, hasn't seen the one-time sheep docking station as messy. He plans to send a crew to clean it up.

But what he and other Forest Service managers can't clean up in a day or two is the spider web of ATV trails that run in all directions from the camping area.

The unauthorized roads and dead-end "high mark" paths on the hillsides wiped out vegetation and left the soil rock hard. Instead of percolating into the ground, rain water runs to a low spot where it eats away the earth. Known as a "head cut," the hole is big enough to drop a bus in. As the erosion continues, it will eventually be big enough for a fleet of buses.

"Do you have a magic wand?" said Paul Flood, a Forest Service soils scientist.

Dock Flat and surrounding areas on the backside of Willard Peak represent an OHV "hot spot," the worst of the worst ATV damage, officials say. Similar hot spots dot the Wasatch Mountains.

"Everybody has their own trail," Ogden District Ranger Chip Sibbernsen said. "In a nutshell, that's exactly the problem."

Besides leaving ugly scars on the land, degraded trails ruin wildlife habitat and watersheds.

All-terrain vehicle use has skyrocketed in Utah in the past five years. Off-highway licenses issued in the counties adjacent the Wasatch Mountains increased more than 150 percent from 1998 to 2002.

The vast majority of riders aren't as careless as those who frequent Dock Flat. They resist the urge to plow into virgin territory, and they heed signs to stay on authorized trails.

But once someone carves a new road, others follow. The Forest Service tries to keep up with carsonite closure signs but the flexible markers usually last only year or two. Wooden barriers and boulders block some paths but even those aren't immovable.

"We have closed a lot up here but in our eyes, they were never legal roads," Sibbernsen said.

Foresters have begun the process of revising the 15-year-old motorized trails plan in the Willard Peak area. Sibbernsen envisions a well-mapped system featuring designated routes and loops similar to those mountain bikers use. The idea is to show riders where they can go rather than where they can't.

Money, however, is hard to come by. Partnering with local government and organizations, he said, is the only way to mend the fractured forest. And it all takes time.

"We'll probably be doing good if it's done in a decade," Sibbernsen said.

E-mail: romboy@desnews.com

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