Death Valley Off-Road Adventures

My remarks were/are for hiking and sand boarding only. And for the record, I mostly favor what the park service’s approach is.

You say hiking is nearly impossible at the steeper parts, then it’s nearly as difficult for a boarder as well. That said, the goal is to protect something and the claim is that boarders somehow more damaging to the eco system. If preservation is the goal, then hiking should be restricted as well.

For me, that argument is like saying that after the rains, trail are closed to mountain bikes but open to horses as “mountain bikes severely damage the trail”. The truth is both do a lot of damage to the trails when they’re saturated (as do hikers) yet only mountain bikes are prohibited as the trails dry out.

If the goal is preservation, then preserve.

As far as photography goes, pray for a little wind the night before and get up early.

 

Well no, but the hiker and the boarder get to the top of the dune the same way - via packed windward sides and along ridges. The boarders then go down the steep slip face since that is the whole point to their activity. Then they climb to the top again via ridges and windward sides and go down the slip face again and again. The hikers certain can go down the slip face, see some folks do that all the time, but many don't and most don't go to the top and do it again.

Yes, that's the claim that boarders are more damaging to the particular eco system being protected. No idea how sound the basis is for that!

Not sure I follow this but probably doesn't matter at this point. If hiking doesn't damage the ecosystem but boarding does then clearly they are different activities as far as impact goes. Again I've not tracked down anything to back that claim about boarding.

Yes the mountain bikes vs. horses thing is an endless debate that I find challenging to find a rational basis for. Mostly it is down to the fact that mountain biking wasn't a thing when the wilderness preservation act was developed rather than actual impacts.

This usually works quite well!

 

I'll grant the repeated trips but the point I'm making is regardless of your activity, it impacts the dunes. Maybe one activity has less impact than another. I don't know-but clearly, the Park Service chose to limit activity. It should be limited for all.

The only thing I've seen is the prohibition with the reason given as Endangered Species Act related.

Within the regional parks, it's more a question of money and appointed members of the board.

 

One activity does lessen the impact over the other. That's the Parks job. To conserve the Park but still allow users to use the park. There's a lot of odd choices that the Parks make in this regard. Take Yosemite for another example. I can climb El Cap as many times as I like. If I choose to take a base rig to the top and jump off El Cap I'll end up in jail. Why is climbing allowed and base not? That answer can be found in the link below. The reason for answer cannot though.

https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/management/upload/CFR-2010-title36-vol1-chapI.pdf

 

Well I completely disagree with that but we can of course agree to disagree. Different uses have different impacts and thus certain uses are allowed and others aren’t. That’s been a fundamental tenant of resource use and protection for ages and it would be impossible to allow any use if we followed the flawed logic that one use having and impact means all uses must be prohibited.

It’s also an “all or nothing” logical fallacy to claim that you can only completely protect/restrict or not protect/restrict at all. Often it is known too much hiking can impact an area and so rather than ban it entirely permits are used to restrict the traffic to a low impact level. Or group sizes are restricted. Same thing with backcountry camping in DVNP which is why large groups of vehicles require permits and small groups do not. We all know large groups of vehicles trying to camp in the same spot have much higher impact than dispersed small groups. We don’t ban all backcountry camping just because large groups have too much impact. We only prohibit the large groups, the ones that cause the most impact.

That, again, being just the fundamental logic of balancing resource protection and use. Whether the claim that boarding has more impact than hiking to an endemic and endangered plant community I honestly have made no attempt to evaluate. Could be that claim isn’t supported well at all and thus the boarding ban is essentially arbitrary from a resource protection standpoint.

 

I always wondered why that was. Up until Dean Potter and his partner, Graham Hunt died, the two of them managed to pull off more than a few illegal wing suit jumps yet you can hanglide at Glacier point for a short period each year.

 

I think we'll just have to agree that we disagree. I would add the caveat that if the park service could provide a better reasoning, I might reconsider.

As far as large vs small groups, that makes sense and always has and it's easy to understand. There are several different beetles and several different grasses that exist no where else but DV and specifically, Eureka Dunes and that's the dilemma for me.

 

I think that in general, DVNP allows so many things that aren’t allowed in many other National Parks (I’m looking at Yosemite and Yellowstone), and we should be content. Rugged primitive roads, free hot springs with liberal clothing policies, extensive dispersed camping, lots of historical sites as well as natural sights, even free air shows. I just wish it were even closer!

 

That's only because of the limited amount of use. If DV saw 4 million plus users a year like Zion, Yellowstone or Yosemite they'd have that place locked down like a bank vault.

 

Going back over your other posts it seems like I may have been reading something that wasn't there. It sounded like you were making an "If they restrict X then they must restrict Y and if they permit Y they must permit X" kind of argument. That comes up in a lot of these debates on both sides of the access/protection issue and I don't agree with that argument in general because most access/protection issues come down to graded solutions tailored to the activities and their impacts.

But now I'm realizing it doesn't seem like you were making that kind of broad argument at all. Instead it sounds like you are just saying the Eureka dunes seem sensitive enough to you that you don't think the NPS went far enough and you think there shouldn't be human traffic of any kind on them. Part of that being you see the foot traffic impacts and boarding impacts as similar in magnitude and both of them threatening a number of endemic species. I'm not going to agree or disagree with that at all. I really don't know enough about the issue to have a well reasoned opinion. If the NPS said we think foot traffic is too much impact and we are prohibiting anyone walking on them I wouldn't disagree with that outright at all, though I'd probably be more curious to go read the impact statements to understand the decision better. I'm fine with the status quo right now but I'm completely open to access changing based on impact analysis, increased visitation or further studies.

Sorry if I was reading something in your posts that weren't there!

 

This.

And not to worry. If we didn't discuss, we wouldn't understand.

 

... Up before sunrise, I probably scurried around camp - literally jogging from spot to spot in order to try and capture the grandeur - for a good 90 minutes before finally deciding that there was really no way I was going to be able to be in all places at once, and I'd just have to find my way back in the future so I could spend a few more days here.

Read it all, and see the photos in Saline Warm Springs & Cerro Gordo: Once is Enough - In Search of Overlooks #4







catch up on the whole story [part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4]



Hope you enjoyed!




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Few pics from my short trip to DV this week. Unfortunately one of the things I was most looking forward to do I couldn't, drive Titus Canyon, as it was closed the entire time. Bummer. Still a fun cpl days....

 

It appears that D.V.N.P. is seeing increased visitation.

 

Numbers are consistent with its becoming a National Park in 1994 and then with the recession in 2007/8. I'm sure "overlanding" is also partially responsible for the uptick as well.

 

I blame broverlanding, cramped city conditions and outdoor marketing.

 

Let's hope that this "Overlanding" thing is just a passing fad. With increasing population, it may not matter either way.

 

We are lucky in some respects, our county has quite a few open spaces. But those nearest the city are heaviest in use-you can barely find a spot to park and the trails are nose to ass in some spots-and the population is only growing and that doesn't bode well for parks in general. Heck, even Yosemite is over-used these days and as more people try to experience the outdoors, I'm sure we'll experience more and more conflicts too.

 

I tend to avoid those places that generate crowds. I find myself going further and further off the beaten path, and enjoying it!

 

You definitely need to go wheeling with me. I'll get you so far off the beaten path you'll need a chainsaw. lol