Quote:
Originally Posted by LKILR
Why in the hell would he stick up for people who's activity destroys the land?
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Its an unfortunate truth that many people forget, that any human existence will 'destroy' the natural state of the land. Your house, roads, food sources, power generation, everything. And all of those on a scale far bigger than the 'destruction' you refer to.
Everyone sees this 'destruction' a little differently. You see a quadder that puts some ruts in the ground and runs over a few plants as destruction. Other people look at you killing animals, and see this as destruction of natural things. And both of you are somewhat correct, but where should the line be drawn? Everyone is fine with drawing a line, as long as it doesn't affect their interests/hobbies/livelihood.
I've seen some of the picture people posted to prove that quadders just destroy stuff. But give me a weekend in 400 and I can get pictures of 'destruction' that happened with zero human intervention - erosion, avalanche debris, etc. And these pictures wouldn't look much better.
Before you go off on me: I am by no means promoting that people ignore what they do to the land. I very much enjoy pristine natural areas, and I don't agree at all with the people that think they need to blast through everything on their quads. Leaving garbage laying around is one of my biggest pet-peeves. But I'm not one to say that no quadding should be allowed because of this. Like others have said - there are bad examples of everything - quadders, gun owners, campers, drivers, husbands, etc. Doesn't mean all these should be banned...
What the area needs is some proper enforcement, and I don't think any users are opposed to a small user fee to cover the costs for that.
For reference, the proposed Castle park/wildland area would cover about 260,000 acres of land. If I guess that there is 1,000 km of quad trails in that area, at 8' wide - the entire trail system covers about 600 acres, or 0.2% of the total area. Leaving 99.8% of the area for non-quadders.
I do have an honest question for you, or Taco as he referenced it earlier - many talk about 'protecting the headwaters' as a reason for these proposed changes. What do you mean by that? How would stopping quadders affect the watershed? Will the snow stop falling, or the water stop flowing east if quads are still allowed in the hills?
Another question for you: the plans for Castle include looking at putting in infrastructure - possibly more roads, established camping areas, facilities, etc to commercialize the area a bit more, and in the long run to have more people come visit there. Are you ok with that 'destruction'? Which do you think will result in more land 'destruction' - the quads or this?
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