As you are probably aware, Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship is in the midst of the Phase 1 planning of their massive legacy project to build 300 miles of motorized singletrack trails in the Sierra Nevada mountains. SBTS is a huge ally to RAD and every lover of singletrack.  The Executive Director and their Trail Whisperer have personally devoted their time to give us the invaluable help we've needed to get the Peavine Maze Connectivity Project off the ground, which will link the trails in Reno and Verdi to this incredible network.

You can personally help this project right now, right from your couch.  SBTS is in the process of rallying community support for the project and they are asking everyone to complete a survey regarding the plan to illustrate the need for the project.  Please read the below message from SBTS's Executive Director and complete the survey he has linked to.

We are building trails to grow our economies.
The Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship is partnering with the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, National Forests, cities and counties to develop a regional Connected Communities Trails Master Plan. Together, community members, land managers and local government agencies will create a Trails Master Plan with a vision to enhance recreation on public lands, preserve and celebrate the character of mountain communities, create new opportunities for economic prosperity and contribute to shared stewardship, all benefiting economically disadvantaged communities in Plumas, Sierra, Butte and Lassen Counties.

Your support will shape the future of The Lost Sierra.
Local support is instrumental in the success of The Connected Communities plan. The more support we can show the bigger the impact we will have on the communities. Our goal is to create a united voice to speak for our land and our economies.

Your local knowledge is needed.
We want to engage community members in the planning process and get an understanding of where and how community members use local trails and where they would like to have additional access to surrounding public lands. Please take 2-3 minutes to fill out an electronic survey. Your response will be extremely helpful in our planning process. Link to Connected Communities survey - https://sierratrails.org/connected-communities/

The Lost Sierra Connected Communities plan will: 

• Plan a world-class trail system connecting the “Main Street” of 15- northern Sierra communities: Loyalton, Sierraville, Sierra City, Downieville, Quincy, Graeagle, Portola, Taylorsville, Greenville, Chester, Westwood, Susanville, Jonesville, Truckee and Reno. 
• Provide a repeatable process through project documentation and storyboarding for how communities can partner with land managers and local government agencies to develop sustainable recreation and economic resources on public lands.
• Support severely disadvantaged communities through recreation-based economic growth, new business opportunities and local job creation.
• GIS Map and show designated types of use on existing trails and roads connecting communities, campgrounds, fire lookouts, lakes, streams and other points of interest.
• Showcase the headwaters of the Yuba and Feather Rivers, which are critical watersheds delivering more than 65% of California’s clean drinking water.
• Attract individual adventure seekers and families to mountain communities looking for high quality of life and a lifestyle tied to the outdoors. 
• Bring visitors into towns for services and accommodations, and allow residents to easily access the surrounding public lands (without the use of a vehicle) via a “Main Street Trailhead”

Timing of the Lost Sierra Connected Communities is Critical:

• The Plumas, Tahoe and Lassen Forests are in the process of updating their Forest Land & Resource Management Plans, all of which are nearly 30- years old and have no mention of “trails” or “recreation” as a type of use or resource. 
• The U.S. Forest Service, National Strategy for Sustainable Trail Systems identifies the need to plan, maintain and construct trails with partnerships.
• The U.S. Forest Service, 10-Year Sustainable Trail Stewardship Challenge specifically identifies the need to complete Trail Master Plans on each forest.

Now is the time to make your voice heard. Thank you for your time and effort.

Greg Williams
Executive Director
Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship
www.sierratrails.org

By now most of you are aware of the BLM's announcement of their Moon Rocks project.  If you aren't, you should be - and you should be aware that we are currently in the public commenting period which ends on January 21, 2021.

Here is the link to the BLM’s project summary.  On that summary page, make sure you click the link to the full Scoping Information Package.  Although the scoping is 9 pages long, it’s not a difficult read if you have 20 minutes to spare. **Note: I was unable to open the full information package on the phone.

Here is a breakdown of the specific intangibles proposed to be effectuated with the project:

Designating the area as a Developed Recreation Site.

• What this does NOT mean:  This does not take away the “open OHV” designation (which means that any OHV can traverse any part of the land).  It also does not mean that any fees will be charged.
• What this DOES mean:  Per 43 CFR § 8360.0-5 (c), developed recreation sites and areas means sites and areas that contain structures or capital improvements primarily used by the public for recreation purposes such as delineated spaces for parking, camping or boat launching; sanitary facilities; potable water; grills or fire rings; tables; or controlled access.

Adding and enforcing some rules aimed at people who don’t have any common sense or decency:

• No firewood which contains screws, nails or other hardware
• 15MPH speed limit within 50 feet of a campsite
• Speed limits on Bedell and Antelope Junction roads
• No drinking while operating a motor vehicle
• No dumping wastewater from your trailer

 

• What this means: There will be a greater law enforcement presence in the main Moon Rocks camping and staging areas.  If you have a registration sticker, are not dumping your trash and aren't being an obvious hazard to people around you, you will not be bothered. Instead you’ll get to enjoy the lack of presence of trashy people leaving nails in your riding and camping area.  

Conducting an Environmental Assessment of the area.  

• What this does NOT mean:  The government/Sierra Club/communists are laying the groundwork to shut the area down! 
• What this DOES mean: Environmental Assessments are simply a necessary procedure which is required if you want to make any improvements such as the tangibles the BLM is wanting to implement (see list above), hold any large events (such as MRANN races), and develop more riding systems (for example, RAD's Peavine Maze Connectivity Project). MRANN must pay for E.A. studies on BLM land each time it needs to apply for a Special Use Permit to put on a race.  E.A.'s also serve as a great leg to stand on for preserving OHV access when the land manager would be able to essentially say to any critics, “this area has been formally studied and OHV use isn't hurting anything."  

 
What’s frustrating to us is that even though the 20,000 acres of the Moon Rocks territory is already designated as Open OHV and it's perfectly okay to ride off trail anywhere... but it's not okay to perform any maintenance on trails which already exist.  Although everyone recognizes how silly that is, we are not in a position to change the procedural requirement that an E.A. study must be done regardless.  As such, by the BLM getting around to these studies, it will open up some doors which can ultimately give us more control over how these trails are managed.

Within the scope proposed, here is copy of RAD's official public comment:

We encourage everyone to develop informed opinions based on specific facts directly related to the actual project at hand, whether you echo RAD’s positions or have different ones of your own.  Comments must be emailed to Arthur Callan at [email protected] (or mailed to the address reflected on our letter) by no later than January 21, 2021.
 
We are aware of the automatic negativity bias associated with any government project; however, keep in mind that just because something was closed somewhere in California doesn’t mean that every government recreation project ends up with the same fate. There are countless examples of good public land management projects (for example, if you’ve ever ridden in Moab, Utah or Idaho or Colorado) as well as ones that went south for reasons that are not one-size-fits-all. 
 
RAD is supportive of this project (taking into account the additional comments in our letter) because Moon Rocks just simply is not the way it used to be a decade ago, and no one has a time machine to bring that era back.  In reality, what needs to be addressed now are problems which are associated with any public space that receives a high volume of visitors from the general public: chronic littering and dumping, graffiti, people cutting down trees for firewood, degraded access roads, and innocent visitors getting shot and injured from the carelessness of others.  Left unattended, these problems will continue to compound … which is EXACTLY how areas get shut down. 
 
We see this project as a good thing for the OHV community as a whole.