To all who enjoy our sport of ATVing and are responsible and respectful of our environment, I have a very important message for you.
I know you would never ride off trail and purposely tear up our, wet lands, but there are those few who would. They don't think of the people who had to fight long, hard battles to get the county, state and federal forests to open up trails. They don't know of the many hours donated by the area ATV clubs to sign and maintain those trails. They also don't think that what they're doing will close trails. But it will!
We are constantly facing the scrutiny of the green extremists, who when they come across the track of an ATV going off trail causing damage, whip out their cameras and proceed to take pictures of the damage and report what they found to the forest administer. If there are enough of these negative reports, a trail system, or a portion will surely be closed to ATVing. We now have about 1,800 miles of ATV trails for the entire state, we cannot afford to lose any of these trails.
We must remember that we are fighting an uphill battle to change our image. We have made progress, but it only takes one instance of off trail damage to destroy all the hard work that responsible ATVers have accomplished. We need to become pro-active as an ATV owner. If we see someone out in the forests riding off trail, tearing up our wetlands we need to, in a respectful.. manner, explain why they can't do what they're doing. Remind them of the $125.00 fine for off trail riding. Also remind them that this kind of behavior will get a trail system closed. We need to do this if we are to keep the trails we have, and certainly if we ever expect to add any new trails.
What I am asking you to do is become PRO-ACTIVE in the sport of ATVing, because your trails are being taken away by those few careless, irresponsible ATV owners.
Sincerely,
Frank Trimmel