Rex Trail Closure

[Ronster]

I forgot about the meeting last night, did anyone attend? It looks like there was a good turnout, but everyone was throwing the 4 wheeler and non track vehicles under the bus.

Here is the article from the news miner:

Rex Trail users blast closure of hunting route



Off-road vehicle owners tore into officials from the Department of Natural Resources on Wednesday night for the agency’s decision to close a popular moose-hunting trail south of Fairbanks this fall because of supposed damage caused by their rigs.
About 30 people attended a meeting at the Noel Wien Library to hear why the DNR recently decided to impose seasonal weight restrictions on the eastern Rex Trail, about 80 miles south of Fairbanks. The decision prohibits ORVs weighing more than 1,500 pounds from using the trail between April 15 and Oct. 31. It will go into effect June 13, unless it is overturned.
The Rex Trail is a 50-mile trail through the Alaska Range foothills that starts near Mile 280 of the Parks Highway and ends at the Wood River. It attracts hundreds of moose hunters each fall on off-road vehicles ranging from small three- and four-wheelers to track rigs to modified pickup trucks with oversized tires.
Use on the trail has skyrocketed in the past three years as a result of a liberal, large-scale cow moose hunt in the area, which has attracted more hunters from other parts of the state to the moose-rich Interior.
The DNR made its decision to close the trail after assessing damage to the trail last fall and winter following several complaints about the conditions of the trail from hunters and other users, said natural resource manager Jeanne Proulx.
During an inspection of the trail, DNR officials found ruts 3- and 4-feet deep in some places. In others, there was water flowing down the trail. New trails had been blazed around particularly bad spots, creating a “braiding effect,” she said.
The decision to close the trail was based on the DNR’s policy to manage trails for as much multiple use as possible, Proulx said. Damage to the trail this year was so severe that it even hindered travel by snowmachiners in the winter, she said.
“What we’re managing for here is multiple use all year round, not just one month a year,” Proulx said.
Nearly everyone who offered an opinion at the meeting spoke against the decision, sometimes passionately.
Speakers, many of them owners of track rigs that will be prohibited from using the trail under the new policy, questioned the DNR’s research on what kind of vehicles are doing the damage, wondered why there were no public hearings held before the decision was made and said owners of “monster trucks” from Southcentral are responsible for damaging the trail.
Track rig owners said their vehicles, which have wide treads and exert less pressure on the terrain wheeled vehicles, do less damage than four-wheelers and modified highway vehicles with tires.
“We’ve been using this trail for 30 or 40 years, and we weren’t tearing the trail up,” said Rogge Hunter of North Pole, who owns a track rig and a cabin on the Rex Trail. “It wasn’t until those guys from Anchorage, Eagle River and Wasilla came up here with their big-tired rigs that there was a problem.”
Others at the meeting echoed Hunter’s opinion. If anything, four-wheelers should be banned from using the trail before ORVs, said Greg Shaffer of Fairbanks, who doesn’t own a track rig but hunts with a friend who does.
Shaffer referred to statistics from the Department of Fish and Game that showed the number of hunters using ATVs on the trail has nearly tripled in the past three years since the cow moose hunt along the trail was expanded while the number of large ORVs using the trail has remained basically the same.
It’s the ATVs that are digging up the trail and creating side trails around mud holes they can’t get through, he said.
The lack of public input leading up to the decision was also mentioned, though Proulx said the decision did not require the DNR to hold public meetings.
“You made this decision before any public meetings were held and people could comment on it,” said track rig owner Mel Grove, a Big Lake resident formerly from Fairbanks who still hunts on the Rex Trail. “The route you’ve gone about this is unfair to the public. It lumps all ORV users into one group.”
Restricting ORVs from Rex Trail will create the same kind of problems elsewhere, noted Mike Lewis of North Pole, another track rig owner.
“Are you guys prepared for where everybody is going to go if you close us off from the Rex Trail?” Lewis asked. “If you squeeze it here, it’s going to pop out somewhere else.”
Others said it’s not the ORVs that are the problem as much as it is the drivers.
“The people who are driving their track rigs responsibly to get to where they’re going, I don’t have a problem with,” said John Morack, who has hunted along the Rex Trail for several years. “The people who aren’t ought to be stopped.”
Part of the problem is that DNR does not have any enforcement authority to cite those who are violating generally allowed uses on state land, such as operating an ORV more than 1,500 pounds on a trail without a permit or leaving the trail and plowing over trees, said Proulx. That’s another issue that the DNR is trying to address, she said.
The decision to impose seasonal weight restrictions on the Rex Trail has already been appealed and it will be up to DNR commissioner Tom Irwin whether to reconsider it, said Chris Milles, acting regional manager for DNR in Fairbanks. Milles expects more appeals before the appeal deadline on June 2.