Three Alternatives Presented for Pine Ridge Trails

By GEORGE LEDBETTER, Editor, The Chadron Record
Used with permission.

Hikers and mountain bikers will have more than 70 miles of trails on U. S. Forest Service land in the Pine Ridge open for their use in all three alternative ‘travel management’ plans currently under consideration by the agency.

But each of the alternatives displayed to the public at an open house in Chadron on Aug. 6 have different amounts of trail open to those who prefer motorized recreation and travel in the rugged Pine Ridge landscape.

“Everyone has their favorite (of the three alternatives),” said Phil Dobesh, a wildlife biologist with the Forest Service and the Pine Ridge Ranger District’s contact person for the travel management plan. “The environmentalists steer toward Alternative 1. The ATV groups like Alternative 3.”

Creation of a ‘Travel Management Plan’ for the Pine Ridge District, as well as for the National Grasslands administered from the Nebraska National Forest office in Chadron is part of an effort underway nationally to change road and trail management on Forest Service land from the ‘Open unless closed’ standard to a ‘Closed unless open’ regime.

That change in philosophy didn’t sit well with some motorized recreation enthusiasts when an initial plan showing only 12.5 miles of trails open to All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) was shown to the public in early 2004. ATV riders at a meeting then said they saw no reason for closing the almost unlimited access they have had to ride on National Forests and Grasslands.

Work on travel management for the Pine Ridge was put on hold following the meetings in 2003 and 2004, to await national decisions, and the process was reopened late last year, said Dobesh. The three alternatives presented to the public last week are the result of an initial scoping meeting held Jan. 16, and subsequent discussions with various user groups, he said.

Of the proposals, Alternative 3, which has 32 miles of ATV trails, 24 miles of ‘single track’ trails open to dirt bikes, and 91 miles of mixed use roads, looked best to Dave Bauerkemper, a representative of a local motorcycle club. “There are more areas open, and the areas are spaced out, so it’s not so crowded,” Bauerkemper said. “At least you give people trails for access (to public lands).”

The Pine Ridge area hasn’t seen as much congestion on off-road trails as some areas closer to cities, said Bauerkemper, so the problems that overuse can cause aren’t as evident. “We haven’t had the resource damage,” he said. “We haven’t had as many problems...not as many (trails) are over used.”

Damage to natural resources is a primary motivating factor for implementing the new off-road travel rules, according to the Forest Service. The effort in the Pine Ridge is not intended to close off areas to all motorized travel, noted Dobesh. “We aren’t trying to make any areas into wilderness. We want to restrict access only to better manage the resource,” he said.

There are a few areas in the Pine Ridge where resource damage from off-road travel is noticeable, Dobesh said, most notably along Bordeaux Creek south of the area known as The Cliffs. That trail, which crosses the creek more than a dozen times in a couple of miles, is open to hiking and mountain biking under the various proposals, but closed to motorized traffic in most of the proposals.

As part of the travel management plan, all of the designated roads and trails will be signed and posted, according to Dobesh. Seasonal restrictions are likely on some trails, he added.

The three different proposals are intended to create a range of alternatives based on the comments received from the initial scoping period, Dobesh said. None of the alternatives are considered done at present, so there may be changes before the final alternatives are complete. “We are just gathering information...It’s still a work in progress,” he said.

Bauerkemper said he thinks Alternative 3 will find support from area residents, and from the increasing number of people who bring their ATVs long distances to ride on public lands. “We can live with this as long as there is a nice variety of trails,” he said. “If they put in enough trails, it will satisfy most people.”