Washington

Many families have created many wonderful memories while enjoying a day at Reiter. Whether you are riding an ATV, driving your 4 wheel Drive vehicle, or hiking the experience has always been positive. The "Pit" has offered family and friends a place to spend quality time together for decades. It has been well known and heavily populated and enjoyed by thousands each year. So the question, in my mind, is why now? Why now is someone taking any notice to the erosion, lack of maintenance, safety, destruction of natural resources, and not to mention all the other negatives which have brought us to this closure? It certainly did not happen overnight. But once again, being proactive was not on the agenda.

Entiat, Wash. - It's the time of year when weather beckons us to enjoy our national forest around the Wenatchee Valley. It's also when serious, long-lasting damage can occur to roads, fragile soils and other natural resources.

Sensitive areas such as meadows, land around rivers, lakes and streams are being scarred in the Entiat, Leavenworth, and Lake Wenatchee areas of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. This is occurring because people are "Mudding" an activity done by those who drive motorized vehicles through soft fields, streams or roads.

Mudding occurs when spinning tires rip up vegetation and soils, throwing mud, and creating deep ruts and holes in the landscape. This "hill climbing" or "mud-bogging" usually occurs when people test their "skills" and the limits of their abilities or their vehicles. Mudding is also driving on roads that have not dried out from snowmelt in spring and early summer.

While trail mileage goes down, DNR officials managed to make the riding much more challenging.

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Herald Writer

GOLD BAR — Off-road vehicle riders could return to Reiter Foothills this June, but they will have a smaller piece of land to ride on.

The state Department of Natural Resources on Thursday unveiled its $10 million plan for the foothills, which have been closed to off-road riders since November.

Scott Streater

A legislative proposal to expand the Alpine Lakes wilderness area in Washington's Cascade Range is fueling anticipation that Congress might be working toward another major public lands bill that could preserve millions of acres across the West.

The Alpine Lakes wilderness bill, sponsored by Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and approved by the House last week, would extend the highest level of federal protection to an additional 22,100 acres in the Okanogan-Wenatchee and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie national forests, where 390,000 acres are already formal wilderness.
Donald Parks, president of the Alpine Lakes Protection Society in Redmond, Ore., said expanding the Alpine Lakes wilderness area would help buffer the prized region from encroaching development. "Sooner or later, large patches of undeveloped land without some kind of very strong protective overlay come under threat of development," Parks said. "We fear it is only a matter of time."

OLYMPIA – Even though the weather is warming up, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) wants to remind off-road vehicle (ORV) riders that Capitol State Forest is closed to ORVs for the season and will re-open May 1.

“We have received reports from people who have witnessed ORV riding in areas that are clearly marked as closed for the season,” said Larry Raedel, chief law enforcement officer for DNR. “Riding on these trails too early in the season can cause damage to natural resources.”

Noah Haglund

DARRINGTON — An old rail corridor that's supposedly closed to the public has brought motorcyclists and other off-roaders buzzing annoyingly close to Louis Sackett's normally tranquil property between Arlington and Darrington.

Snohomish County owns the path and plans to open it to hikers, mountain bikers and horseback riders someday as the 27-mile-long Whitehorse Trail.

This is a letter I hate to write as some of my relatives and acquaintances are off-road vehicle users and many users will hate me for this; but I feel it needs to be said. Reiter Pit needed to be closed down, for it had become a garbage dump, an environmental disaster, a blight, a festering sore upon the land.

In the past 40 years I’ve seen many areas shut down to ORV use because of illegal dumping, illegal activities, and erosion plus environmental damage. Let’s face it, folks! ORV use is damaging to the environment, no argument about it!

( RANDLE ) – The Gifford-Pinchot National Forest says people in four wheel drive vehicles are ignoring closed road signs.  It seems the low snowfall amounts this year are attracting people to areas which normally are impassible at this time of year.  Officials say some of the roads are closed for the winter range of elk and deer.  The winter recreation road closure extends until April 1, which bans vehicles from certain roads.

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Source: http://www.kelaam.com/pages/localnews?Low-Snow-Levels-Have-Off-Road-Vehicles-V=1&blockID=174276&feedID=410

EVERETT -- Snohomish County prosecutors have filed first-degree animal cruelty charges against a Snohomish man who they say shot a neighbor's dog and dragged the animal behind an ATV.

According to court documents, Michael J. Capretta, 56, had several previous altercations with his neighbors involving their dogs before the November 2009 incident that left a Labrador named "Molly" dead.