Upper Woodpecker Trail-Plowed

I thought some of you here might be interested in seeing this...

http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/showthread.php?p=14506967

http://wheelingarizona.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=15834&p=118717#p118717

the trail is pretty much gone, 2wd friendly and every major obstacle pretty much wiped out. Gunna go check it out ASAP but this sucks

More pics:
http://s114.photobucket.com/albums/n275/roknrich/Upper Woody Carnage/?src=wap


since no one wants to read the links posted before commenting. I will summarize:

This was done by a mining company with exploratory claims in the area. Not by the state, not by the feds and not by the USFS. This has nothing to do with fire fighting, or our use of tax money. It was done almost without public notice, built extremely poorly and over stepped the regulations of a law passed in 1872 to forever alter the terrain click the links if you would like to read more
Discuss

 

Dude.. that's how many areas shut down/plowed... F my life.. Az.. what are you doin to us man??

 

This almost makes buying a 4x4 truck useless. They should air lift some rocks from mount Everest and place them in the appropriate spots.

 

Uncle Billy Bob and his 20 kids need to be able to see every last mile of the AZ back country.

This is where our tax money goes. Plowing back roads so grandma in a Prius can drive anywhere she wants rather than fixing our school system.

 

you didn't read any of the links I posted did you?

This was not done by the state but rather a mining company with claims up around the woodpecker mine area (none of our tax dollars here) Under a mining law passed in 1872 they were legally permitted to construct these roads to access their claim for "exploratory" purposes and there wasn't much the BLM or other could do to stop them even being on BLM land. The issue here rises with the question of did they over step their permit by cutting into the rocks that lined the wash.

Discuss...

 

OK well good, that makes me feel a little better knowing that it wasn't tax payer money that went towards this. Still sucks about the trail

 

Im probably the minority, but I dont see a problem with it; they had a claim to those mines, and of course they need a good road to get equipment up there.

Think of it this way, if it weren't for mining and logging, we would not have ANY trails in the U.S. for 4wd use.

 

The issue I see is that they over stepped what they were legally permitted to do, to build a road longer than the law allows and forever altering the landscape by physically cutting rocks. All this happened extremely quickly with little to no notice to the public and discovered by mistake when some other offroad groups took a trip out there.

In, addition the road was built extremely poorly in a canyon that sees a lot of heavy flowing water during the monsoons, the canyon that this was built in is an off shoot of a major dirt roadway in the area which leads me to question how the maintained roads will fare once all this sediment begins washing down canyon...

I will say again, there are no mines in the area besides the abandoned property around the end of the trail which as I understand it is not included in the claim. This was done purely for "exploratory" purposes, not to access a major material producing facility.

 

I feel your pain, bought dropped to my knee's in tears when the closed down pima/dynamite for dirtsicles.

The writeup from the BLM says they were authorized to make a road accordingly, you are basing their set back to a law derived preautomobile. It seems it might be time to update that law (1872) to coincide with the mechanical and public needs of today. I might suggest that you guys form a group, for profit or non. Or gather a group that would be willing to oversee wheeling in AZ trails in Arizona. Otherwise this will keep happening.

I myself am part of GROAZ, we have been around for only a year but have already worked with Mcdowell mountain park in building jump lines and a pump track. The city of phoenix is in the talks with us to build a DJ bike specific park. We have only been around for little over a year. The city and BLM's like it when groups are formed because they are easier to work with and depend on rather then one sole person. I road with the ROCKSTAR MC's back in the day and they were working with the skunk creek BLM in preserving some sections and cutting new trails on others.

With these economic times its more cost efficient to work with organizations then with a few people. I really think that this is the way for you guys to keep the wheeling trails alive.

 

THIS FUCKING BLOWS... They are doing the same thing down here in Tucson with Gunsight pass. This company is coming in and plowing up all the stuff getting ready to open a big copper mine.

This is one of the trails I wanted to hit.

 

Gunsight was graded by the USFS in 2011 making it a relatively easy trail, mining efforts in the Santa Ritas were recently turned down by the EPA as of Jan 2012.

 

Gunsight still has some areas where 4x4 is needed and I even found a few 4-lo areas but a majority is pretty easy still.

 

I dont know, maybe if I can throw a wheeling trip in with it.