Column: Time for the annual reminder: Be a responsible ATV rider

Montanans don't have to look far to understand just how popular all-terrain vehicles have become.

Sit alongside just about any highway into Great Falls on a Sunday evening and you'll see pickup after pickup returning to town, either with an ATV in the bed or pulling a trailer with multiple ATVs aboard.

Head for the hills on a weekend and — if you're not riding an ATV yourself — you'll see them on mountain roads and on special tracks designed for them, such as the one that parallels Montana 200 in and out of the mountain community of Lincoln.

In an additional measure of ATVs' popularity, as many as 100 people gathered last week in front of the Lewis and Clark National Forest headquarters in Great Falls to signal their frustration with the closure of the popular Badger-Two Medicine area to motorized use.

And later that day, some of them filed suit in federal court here, challenging the Badger-Two Med segment of the L&C Forest travel plan and asking that the plan be sent back to the Forest Service for more work.

There's no doubt that the four-wheeled machines are fun and affordable, and like snowmobiles and motorcycles, make beautiful, remote country accessible for folks who might not otherwise be able to see it.

The problem is that not all ATV riders follow the rules. For example, you also don't have to look too far to see the telltale double-track heading straight up a grassy mountain flank, or right up a streambed.

One person who used to frequent the Badger-Two Med said he doesn't anymore because of abuse by motorized users.

"They've turned it into an ATV playground," he said. Regarding the travel plan, he said ATVers "dug their own grave" by disobeying rules and straying from the designated trails, damaging the landscape.

Closure of that particular area was based on much more than some ATV abuses — resulting from a formal, public and years-long travel planning process — but the scofflaws didn't help their cause.

And that gets close to our main point today, a point we've made before as hunting seasons unfold: If you're using an all-terrain vehicle on your hunt, do it responsibly.

Any recreationist can be a pig, leaving gates open, leaving fire pits hot or littering, and in all of those cases it creates a general backlash from the landowners or managers.

But it's been our observation that ATV riders who disregard rules governing where they are allowed to go are more likely to also disregard rules of courtesy and outdoor etiquette — and in ATVers' cases it's pretty obvious who did the disregarding. That creates a very directed backlash that affects all riders, responsible or not.

So when you're out riding this fall, obey the rules. If you don't like them, fight them administratively or in court.

But don't be a pig who ruins it for everyone else.

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Source: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/article/20091009/OPINION01/910090318/1014/OPINION/Time-for-the-annual-reminder--Be-a-responsible-ATV-rider

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