Posts Tagged ‘ATVs’

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

DEC Readies ATV Use Experiment on the Kushaqua Tract

 ATV-DamageThe NYS Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is proposing a new experiment trying to combine intensive public motorized recreational use and natural resource management. The DEC has released a draft Recreation Management Plan (RMP) for the Kushaqua Conservation Easement tract located in the Towns of Franklin and Brighton in Franklin County.  Throughout this tract, the DEC is proposing to open a number of roads to all terrain vehicles (ATVs).

The DEC went down this road once before in the mid-1990s when they opened scores of roads on the Forest Preserve to ATVs. Though official processes were not followed at that time, scores of roads and trails throughout the western Adirondacks were opened to ATVs. Trespassing in other areas was also widespread across the Forest Preserve. After extensive damage to roads, trails, and natural resources, the DEC and APA backtracked in 2005 and closed scores of Forest Preserve roads to ATV use.

At that time, public ATV use on the Forest Preserve was seen by many as an experiment that failed. » Continue Reading.


Monday, December 9, 2013

Peter Bauer: Local Activists Hold ATV Laws in Check

Local government leaders in Lewis and St. Lawrence counties have tried for years to rapidly expand the use of public roads and public lands for All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) recreational use. This has been controversial and has resulted in a series of legal challenges. The most recent action was in the Town of Colton, where the Town just announced it plans to withdraw its local ATV law passed in August after a legal challenge by affected property owners was filed.

For more than a decade in the western Adirondacks and Tug Hill, local residents have repeatedly gone to court to stop aggressive local and county governments from illegally opening public roads to ATV riding. These same local governments also seek access to nearby Forest Preserve, state forests and conservation easement lands for ATV use. Three ATV law related lawsuits are currently pending in Lewis County. » Continue Reading.


Thursday, January 3, 2013

New Snowmobile Trail Through The Forest Preserve

Late December snow makes it likely that a good base will develop for snowmobiling throughout this winter. A new 13-mile snowmobile (and hiking, possibly biking) trail has been established, a so-called community connector trail between the Moose River Plains Road (Limekiln-Cedar River Road) and Raquette Lake.

Nearly a dozen alternate locations for this trail were included in the Moose River Plains Wild Forest Unit Management Plan approved by the NYS DEC and APA in 2011. One was chosen as the preferred alternative, deemed most in compliance with the state’s Snowmobile Trail Guidance approved by DEC and APA in 2010. The new trail is nearly completed as it reaches the north end of Sagamore Road near Raquette Lake village, utilizing DEC operations and other staff pulled in from all over the state. Adirondack Wild: Friends of the Forest Preserve investigated the trail construction in mid-October. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, December 9, 2012

Cabin Life: Tracks in the Snow

Every morning there are tracks in my driveway.  Sometimes they’re deer tracks, or the random dog that occasionally wanders through, or like this morning, they’re fox tracks.    With only a dusting of snow on the ground, I’m not sure why different animals seem to frequent the driveway, but I almost always stop on my way to work to see who had come through the night before.

I do mean a dusting too.  The lack of snow is great for getting things done outside, but obviously horrible for skiing.  Last week we got about six inches.  I got the plow hooked up to the four-wheeler and, miraculously, got it started.  I plowed the snow off the driveway just to practice with the new set up.  By Monday afternoon, the only place there was snow was where I had made snowbanks.  Good thing I didn’t actually break my finger putting the plow on.  It really felt broken when I slammed it. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Wetlands: Vernal Pools And Their Inhabitants

What follows is a guest essay from Stacy McNulty Associate Director and Research Associate at SUNY ESF’s Adirondack Ecological Center in Newcomb. Following last week’s story on the destruction of wetlands by ATVs at the 2011 SNIRT rally, the Almanack asked Stacy to provide some background on vernal pools, small intermittent wetlands that are important sources of Adirondack biodiversity.

On a proverbially dark and stormy night in mid-April I climb the hill, flashlight sweeping the ground for obstacles. The first warm, spring rain has been falling and snow piles lie here and there. Faintly I hear a quacking sound up ahead, signaling my target – but what I seek is not a duck, but a frog. Scores of wood frogs swim and call from the pool, their eyes shining in the beam of my light. » Continue Reading.


Tuesday, April 12, 2011

SNIRT ATV Rally Comes Under Fire

An ATV rally, SNIRT (Snow/Dirt), is coming under fire from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Adirondack Council for apparent purposeful destruction of wetlands near Otter Creek and Brantingham Lake in the Southwest part of the Adirondack Park in Lewis County (the Eastern side of the Tug Hill Plateau).

The event drew attention after YouTube videos of the event from 2008 and 2010 surfaced showing ATV users riding through wetlands, past posted signs, and drinking at the event, and after the rally’s organizers sought to move the event onto some state lands. » Continue Reading.


Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Local Students Get Revved Up for ATV Safety

During the last week of October, the seventh and eighth grade students of North Warren Central School participated in a 4-H ATV Safety program provided by staff from Cornell University Cooperative Extension. The main focus of the sessions was to educate youth
regarding safety practices, sound decision making, and taking responsibility when using an ATV. According to the Consumer Product Safety Commission some 44,000 children under the age of 16 were seriously injured in ATV accidents in 2007 and 150 were killed. » Continue Reading.


Sunday, November 14, 2010

Adirondack Stats: ATV Trails

Miles of ATV trails created so far by Lewis County, the leader of establishing ATV trails in New York State: 47.6 miles

Miles of ATV trails created so far by Jefferson County: 36 miles (plus 334 miles of roads)

Amount budgeted by Lewis County in each of the last two years (2008, 2009) to build and maintain ATV trails: $140,000

Amount budgeted by Lewis County to build and maintain ATV trails for 2011: $88,500

Estimated cost per mile, to maintain ATV trails each year including in-kind volunteer services: $17,000 » Continue Reading.



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The Adirondack Almanack

The Adirondack Almanack is a public forum dedicated to promoting and discussing current events, history, arts, nature and outdoor recreation and other topics of interest to the Adirondacks and its communities

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