Off-Roaders Ride Rough Trail to Better Image

If there is a social group held in lower esteem by modern society than smokers, it has to be off-road vehicle enthusiasts.

To the average motorist commuting to work through gasoline fumes, the idea of spending a weekend revving up a four-wheel drive for a bone-jarring trip through the sagebrush is unthinkable, and the specter of pre-adolescents roaring up and down the Glamis Dunes on balloon-tired three wheelers is cause to shudder.

When the federal government recently proposed an off-road trail through the pristine Cleveland National Forest, backcountry residents rose up in wrath.

And Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, with its thousands of arid acres, has barred dune buggies and other all-terrain vehicles, pointing to damage wrought to the fragile environment.

Now, as a state legislative bill designed to allow off-road vehicles back into Anza-Borrego comes up for its first hearing Tuesday, off-road enthusiasts say they are suffering the effects of an outdated public image. No longer are they the madcap drivers of past decades, they say.

Since the off-road vehicle craze began in the 1950s and grew to a frenzy with introduction of the all-terrain vehicle (ATV) in 1972, its adherents have grown up, they say. From a few hardy characters determined to conquer the rugged hillsides despite the cost, the off-roaders have matured into a well-organized group of more than 800,000 statewide, complete with rules, by-laws, a lobbyist and a healthy state bank balance derived from vehicle permits and gasoline taxes.

Lynn Brown, a long-time San Diego off-roader, recalls a time a few years back when he and other ORV representatives assembled at the County Administration Center to meet with state and local authorities on the ill-fated plan to place an ORV park between Lakeside and Poway in Sycamore Canyon.

“We were waiting there, with our suits and ties and briefcases when some of the opposition came up and asked us who we were,” Brown recalled. “When we told them we were the local off-road coalition, they were flabbergasted.

“Those guys didn’t believe that we were really off- roaders,” Brown said, chuckling. “We weren’t at all what they expected to see.”

Yet, their image remains as harebrained, “belligerent-looking troglodytes,” as quoted in a recent issue of California Magazine.

Bob Ham, lobbyist for California Off Road Vehicle Assn. (CORVA), considers the legislative hearing this week “a key one” because it will signal the support that off-roaders can expect from legislators and state agencies.

However, he concedes that powerful environmental groups and local residents are lined up against the bill, and he is unwilling to predict the future of the controversial measure, which would force the state parks director to keep a promise off-roaders say he made two years ago to insure his reappointment to the post.

Four-wheel drive vehicles, “street legal” autos licensed by the Department of Motor Vehicles, are allowed in the vast desert park and can cause just as much damage as ORVs, Ham pointed out. So, why the discrimination against off-roaders?

Taking Unfair Blame?

Lowell Landowski, grants administrator for the state Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division, concedes that the off-roaders, especially ATV riders, may be taking the rap for past environmental damage in the same way a carrot-topped kid is picked out as the culprit in a school-ground tussle.

The bright-colored, balloon-tired vehicles with their helmeted riders “are readily distinguishable,” Landowski said, and may have taken the blame for the lower-profile, street-legal vehicles.

The problem might have been solved by better policing of the Anza-Borrego wilderness to rid the area of the rebels, rather than banning an entire class of recreational users, Landowski said. His department, however, opposes the bill.

Norm Noyes, U.S. Forest Service project manager for a proposed 37-mile ORV trail through the county’s Cleveland National Forest, describes similar opposition to off-roaders during hearings about the project. He is sampling local opinion on the Sunshine ORV Trail which will wind from near El Capitan Reservoir dam north to near San Diego Country Estates and Ramona, then east past Sunshine Mountain to Boulder Creek Road.

Noise, littering, vandalism, environmental impact and myriad other concerns have been voiced at three “scoping” meetings Noyes has held in the back country and in San Diego.

He defends the project as consistent with federal policies to open up federal lands for the enjoyment of people, and points out that the trail would be a narrow, challenging course designed for sturdy vehicles at low speeds, not the straight-aways, hill-climbs and open areas that attract off-road daredevils on three-wheeled ATVs.

At Least 5 Years

Noyes estimates that it will be about five years before the Sunshine Trail becomes a reality because of the time-consuming process involved in public hearings and environmental impact studies, and, in part, because of the growing opposition to the project.

Parts of the trail may have to be rerouted to avoid residential areas and some land may have to be acquired to buffer the adjoining private property from the ORV trail, Noyes said.

The route now runs within a quarter of a mile of expensive homes in San Diego Country Estates and even closer to Barona Indian Reservation land. Both groups have objected as have the Sierra Club, the Audubon Society and other environmental protection organizations.

Brown, who has retired from active ORV sport but continues to champion the cause, points out that San Diego County has about 200,000 off-road riders divided roughly into two groups: those who ride for the thrill of it and those who ride to explore new places.

There are trails for horsemen and hikers. So, Brown asks, why not trails for off-roaders?

There are a number of trails and ORV riding areas in the county--ranging from the giant sandbox called Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area in the extreme northeastern part of the county to Lark Canyon and Corral Canyon, two Bureau of Land Management ORV sites in the rugged southeastern sector of the county.

Off-roaders can ride without interference on dozens of truck trails in the Cleveland National Forest and on other government lands. Less than legal but popular is a network of trails and hills on Otay Mesa, which can be reached from Interstate 805 at Palm Avenue. This, the only ORV area that can boast its own freeway off-ramp, will soon give way to housing tracts.

To the east, where Otay Mesa rises into the mountains, county and state officials are quietly negotiating with a private landowner to acquire a sizable tract for ORV activities. The project, near a proposed border race track for motorized vehicles, may fall prey to rising land prices in the area. Property which once could have been purchased for $4,000 to $6,000 an acre now lies within a mile of land selling for $50,000 and more an acre.

More certain is the acquisition of the Fadam Ranch adjacent to Lark Canyon ORV areas in the McCain Valley.

More Isn’t Enough

Even with the advent of the Sunshine Trail, the addition of two more ORV sites and the on-going expansion of the Ocotillo Wells area, San Diego will still be short of ORV recreational space. Eighty percent of the state’s ORV enthusiasts reside in Southern California and San Diego County ranks second only to Los Angeles County in the number of ORV owners.

Brown admits that some of the blame lies with the off-roaders, past and present, who have alienated the citizenry with their freewheeling ways.

“It’s a lesson we have learned that the jet skiers would be wise to follow,” Brown said. “If there is a law, obey it. If you don’t like it, let’s change it.”

He sees in the unregulated jet ski craze the same problems which the off-roaders brought upon themselves: unregulated activities causing accidents and incidents, the spotlight of the press focusing on each accident and injury, and an increasingly hostile public.

“Soon, legislation is coming down (on jet skiers) and if they don’t organize and get with it, they will be in trouble,” Brown said. It’s much better to set your own rules and police them than to live by the laws set down by unsympathetic legislators, he said, speaking from experience.