SailAway

ooooopppppssss. I just noticed the changes in your post and I missed this... I know that informal meetings or meetings in the dunes aren't everybody's cup of tea but in my experience some of the best sharing of information and networking has taken place in the sand and in the backroom of pizza parlors. And... it's a start. VickiW

I forgot to say thank you rpost, for your thoughts on volunteerism and your points about word of mouth and face-to-face meetings. I think a dune-side meeting is a fabulous idea, and local meetings in say, Vegas... Barstow... Orange County... even if they are in the form of Taco Tuesdays. Great idea! Let's get that ball rolling... VickiW

I think I have a little better understanding of where you are coming from rpost. Thank you. Yes, closures can be reversed. Anything is possible. But probable? That's the rub. Will this fence make those various closures any more permanent than they already are? I don't personally think so, nor do I think any fence is so permanent that if something changed and any of those closures were lifted, that fence couldn't come down. As for the number of incursions, I'm afraid in our climate even one is too many. VickiW

Yes he does. The anti-access zealots do start with little things and keep going. And if this was a new closure threat, if this was a new restriction of any kind, his points would be spot-on. In fact, most of the points that rpost brings up are absolutely valid and pertain to our constant fight against ridiculous closures... but they fit our situation in a very general, over-all kind of way, and this fence issue is a particular, not general, issue. This is not a criticism. As I said, the points are valid. Along the lines of generalities, for many years all of us in the off-road community, leaders and users and business owners alike, have known that the environmental movement isn't really about the environment, it's about power and control, and their quest to close land to mechanized use through every means available. We also know they are well funded and organized and that to fight them we need to be well funded and organized. But acknowledging the problems we face hasn't solved them. It would be wonderful if we could ask for funding, volunteer assistance, cooperation between various groups and it would happen. But funding comes hard, volunteers who will stay the course are rare and cooperation between various groups? It does happen and is happening even here at Dumont, but even that is only a partial solution to our problems. So yes, there are valid points. But I become concerned when we try to apply what "generally" happens to something that is very particular and in this case we are dealing with a very particular problem. What I'm saying is there are "big picture" issues and there are tightly focused issues. At Dumont, we are of course faced with the big picture threat of losing vehicular access to public lands. And we're faced with an anti-access movement that is well oiled and well funded. It's important to keep those big picture issues in mind when dealing with all of the issues at Dumont. Unfortunately, some of the more tightly focused issues we are facing must be dealt with in a more tightly focused manner even while keeping an eye on the big picture. And, here, riding outside the designated areas and into closed areas is one of those issues. Vicki

You think your response was long? Wait until you see this! Actually, I'm going to have to do this in little pieces since I'll be out of computer contact for an hour or so very soon. I am a little confused by this... are you trying to say that you have intimate knowledge of a direct attack on Dumont using this fencing as a starting point? Or are you saying this is 'common tactic' used in the environmental movement? I'm asking these questions out of concern and with no disrespect... I don't personally subscribe to most conspiracy theories but if you have knowledge that this particular fencing is part of a conspiracy to close down Dumont in particular, that is something many of us need to know and action must take place. Now... if you are talking about fencing in a more general way, my next question (again out of concern for Dumont) would be to ask how precisely this tactic would benefit to the "bad guys" in this particular instance. Your statement that there will still have to be man hours spent patrolling the fence is a concern of mine. I have no doubt that patrol will be stepped up if off-roaders are vandalizing or circumventing the fencing. But then again, if off-roaders are vandalizing or circumventing the fencing, I would expect law enforcement to put an end to it (just as I would expect them to arrest anyone who is ignoring my fence and entering my property without permission). Your use of the word harassment troubles me here... shouldn't anyone who intentionally gets through that fencing and begins to ride in those closed areas be harassed since that is not responsible use of riding areas? Sorry... but I have to run and will answer some more of this when I get a chance. Vicki

Rest assured, this fence is not being funded through Dumont user fees. It would be funded through the use of "Green Sticker" money and while yes, that is still "our" money, please keep in mind that this is very much "our" problem in the first place. There have been no user groups complaining about bands of rebel hikers wandering into the open riding area by mistake. There have been no citations issued to rogue entomologists who insist on ignoring the boundaries to collect samples in the open riding area. And there are no manpower dollars being spent to shoo any Spanish Trail history buffs back out of the open riding area. Why? Because our area isn't restricted to only motorized access. But what is happening is, riders... primarily on green-stickered vehicles... are wandering out of the open riding area and into the areas they are not allowed to play in because those areas are non-motorized access only. Pretending that isn't happening is going to get us into big trouble, raise our fees and reduce our riding areas. Again, this fence is not being proposed to protect anything that hasn't been closed to us for a very long time. It is being proposed because riders are leaving the open riding area and entering the non-motorized access areas and we're running out of viable solutions short of spending more money and building buffer zones, nothing more and nothing less. VickiW

Actually, there are many of us who do understand the opposition and completely understand the strategies you describe. Welcome to the DDR forums, by the way... This has been a very frustrating thread for some of us... one thing that was missed when this thread was started and continually seems to be overlooked is that in this particular instance, this fence has nothing to do with new closures of riding areas in any way. The fence is not being proposed to keep us out... it is being proposed to more accurately discern the boundaries that already exist and have existed for some time and to keep the riders from riding outside the open areas. The open riding area is circled by closures of various kinds... environmental, historical, archeological... and none of those closures are growing with this fence... and none of our open riding area is shrinking with this fence. There is no "compromise" involved in the planning or structure of this fence. It's not like anyone is saying "just let us protect this area and we'll leave you alone." On the contrary, the issue of riders venturing accidentally out of the open riding areas has been a growing concern and therefore, before we are faced with any kind of ultimatum, viable solutions are being considered. Dumont, as of this season, is funded entirely by user fees. The people who are paying those fees will need to choose whether they would rather see their money go to keeping the area safe and operating, or see their fees pay to keep the open-area boundaries staffed with rangers chasing people back into the open areas. At this point the bottom line is often the bottom-dollar. In a perfect world we wouldn't have to make these kinds of choices. But in the real world of Dumont, the unique situation of being literally surrounded by out-of-bounds areas presents a problem that, left unanswered, could indeed cause buffer zones, additional closures and of course, increased fees. VickiW

Oh my goodness, what an awful thing to witness! Your mind and body (no kidding) are bound to experience trauma over this... don't be too hard on yourself when it happens. This will haunt you when you least expect it... this is not the kind of shock that you forget about in a few days. You weren't in the accident but you were hit by the ripple. Take care of you. VickiW

Exactly right. The new fees proposed by the BLM have to be approved through a higher advisory council and they haven't met to discuss it yet. Sooooo... no new fees yet. VickiW

Yeah, there are several different threads on this whole thing and we've tried to let people know from the beginning that the road is not (and never will be) paved. Paving the road costs, no kidding, $1,000,000 per mile. One million! Sorry... but that's just not in the Dumont budget. The problem we all share is, the EPA is targeting 'dust' problems and we have (had?) a big one at Dumont along the entrance road. The BLM tried several substances and methods but none seemed to be working. Using this product to lay a surface down was relatively inexpensive and paying for it didn't come from user fees. The dust problem could have caused Dumont some serious capacity limit issues at the least, closures at the worst... so the washboard surface remains until someone can come up with $1,000,000 (per mile) to pave the darn thing. VickiW

Yeah, there are some gray areas that aren't mentioned in this propaganda piece, which appears to have been put out to boost the morale of the OHV community... but there are some holes. Like restoration money. Any time someone wants to "restore" a trail you can be certain it will be "closed." There is a good percentage of our gas tax money and green sticker fees going directly to restoration grants. The argument in favor of such a high percentage going to these 'projects' is that the money will be available for everyone to use, not just the anti-access groups. So, what we're being told is yeah, there's a lot of money available for restoration so why not apply for that money and do the restoration ourselves? Whether we close it or they close it, closed is still closed, unless I'm missing something. Now, I will say that if closure is inevitable, it would be better to have off-roaders decide how to least effect the surrounding areas. Maybe that's what we're supposed to hang on to through this. Oh, and there are other ways to get to green sticker and gas tax money, several avenues with which restoration/closure can also take place above and beyond percentage specifically set aside for restoration. Quite the opposite though, is the percentage now mandated for operations and maintenance of off-road opportunities... once that's used up there isn't any other way to obtain grants from the green sticker fund... restoration though, does have other ways to get to it. One of my major problems with this legislation is that only 5% was mandated for education. It's lopsided to me... unless we get ahead of the game we will always be paying someone to clean up our messes and without real money to use for education, how can we ever get ahead of the game? It's a vicious cycle... more money will be needed to restore trails because the users weren't educated properly but because all the money is going to restoration there isn't anything left for education (or signage -- more on that later). *sigh* There's also the little matter of California's gas tax and green sticker money going to pay for the federally-mandated route designation taking place within the forest system. I don't know about anyone else, but our sandrail doesn't cruise any of the national forests... yet some of the money I pay to gas it up and keep it registered will end up in a national forest. And even if it did, that is still federal land and it should not be up to California off-roaders to bear the burden. Oh, and I don't know if anyone's got more than one off-road toy in their household but in our house we have eight. Eight. That means it will now cost us $400 to be able to legally ride them on public land within California. But look on the bright side... with fewer and fewer places to ride here in California, that may not be such a big deal much longer. There's more... we can talk about the new plates that are required and the harsher punishments for riding in prohibited areas (whether they are signed or not) and other things. But this article does have a nice little spin to it though, so maybe it's just better to take the blue pill and forget all the rest. Vicki

I posted this, checked my email and guess what... the project is not completely dead at this point. I guess that's "show biz." We're still looking into this and will keep posting as we learn more. Does anyone know of someone who has actually signed on to help with this project? VickiW

I heard today from BabyJakeMedia that this project has been canceled but will possibly be rescheduled another time. VickiW

If this money was coming from the user fees... your suggestion would be heard by the TRT. But it's not money coming from user fees. It is money being sought in the form of a grant submitted to the State of California. I do believe a law enforcement grant was also submitted... and that money would cover extra law enforcement in the dunes. Well, this actually has nothing to do with increasing jobs... it has more to do with freeing up necessary dune support that is being wasted babysitting a boundary. Yes, the desert is deserted... except for the people who love it, like the duners. This fencing is meant to protect what we have and keep us from losing more. VickiW

Actually, in the same email that mentioned clearing the river crossing, didn't Lynnette say the contractor would be grading the road the same day? I'll go back and check but I'm pretty sure she was updating both items... VickiW

VERY nice! I don't have pictures of mine yet. It's not road-ready so we can't pick it up until Saturday and it's just killing me! The guy we're buying it from has started and stopped the rebuild so often that we won't really know what we have until we load it all up on the trailer and get it home. I'll be snapping some pictures then, that's for sure! Ours comes with the steel hardtop and a bikini top but we'll be on the prowl for a soft top. Yeah, a DDR rock crawl sounds great! But not for a while. Vicki

Don't know what years and makes are interchangeable (I've heard some are?) but I'm a Craigslist fan for this kind of thing... http://sandiego.craigslist.org/pts/432706295.html We just bought our first ever Jeep... a 1968 CJ5 that is going to be a really fun project. I'm sure I'll be haunting the parts section of every online resource! Vicki

I glanced at this when it first came up on GlamisDunes but dismissed it at the time. We'll look into this. My first impression is San Bernardino is putting together some kind of promotional piece about their ATV presence on public lands, probably for using when applying for grant money and other funding support from legislators. But, even so, it shouldn't be done on such a busy weekend for many reasons. Do we have something to hide? No, really we don't. Dumont is Dumont and what happens in the sand, well, we can't pretend it doesn't happen in the sand. On such a busy weekend though, law enforcement attitude is "heightened" and filming it during any of the more sensitive times would not give a proper impression of what Dumont is 'usually' like. Like I said, we'll look into this. I/we'll post what we find. Vicki

Great pictures if you follow the link... http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/info/newsbytes...ntcrossing.html News.bytesNews.bytes Extra, issue 299 Summer project: Dumont water crossing crews smooth the cementmore cement pouringpouring cementEver wonder who would go out to Dumont Dunes in the middle of August, during the day when temperatures are well over 100 degrees? Its not the duners: they ride at night during the summer because of the heat! Its BLM’s operation crew! Because of their hard work, visitors to Dumont Dunes will be able to enter the dunes through a newly-expanded water crossing. The existing water crossing was one lane. The summer project by BLM's Barstow Field Office expanded it to three lanes this Summer. This will allow a vehicle to be driven in both directions across the water at the same time. Before this expansion, only one vehicle could cross at a time and vehicles had to wait until traffic was clear in the opposite direction. The third lane is not currently in use, but was installed for future use. Expanding the road up to the crossing would be necessary prior to using the third water crossing lane. It is anticipated that in the future it will allow two lanes in the direction of most travel during peak times -- that is, two lanes "in" on Fridays and two lanes "out" on Sundays. This project was planned and completed with BLM operations employees Mike Trost, Emilio Villegas, Vicki Salazar, Danny Pando, and Harold Thomas. The operations crew had assistance on the day the cement was poured by park rangers John Kavanaugh and Steve Hentges, natural resource specialist Lorenzo Encinas, and geoloist Jamie Livingood. The project was completed way under budget. Material costs were: Forming Materials and Supplies - $1,430 Reinforcing steel - $2,200 Concrete 160 CYs 4,500 PSI $29,600 Backhoe & Operator I have nothing worth adding to this post!! - I have nothing worth adding to this post!! - I have nothing worth adding to this post!! - x2 Days $2,000 Cement Pumper $1,585 Cement Finishing Crew $2,000 Travel $1,800 Labor / BLM funding $9,792 Labor / fee funding $3,392 Total $53,799 To start the project, the existing water crossing was dug out, holes were drilled into the existing crossing, and rebar was placed in the holes. This allows the new crossing to be attached to the existing crossing. rebar was placed in the old holes Footings for the new water crossing were dug Footings for the new crossing Metal had to be laid and tied New metal laid and tied Beginning work in the dark using the vehicle headlights to see, the crew was on site for the pouring of the concrete at 5 am. 160 cubic yards of concrete were poured that day! Beginning work in the dark under vehicle headlights The concrete was worked into the footings first, and then the pads were poured Crew waits for more concrete to work into the footings pouring more concrete The completed project: a water crossing to meet our current needs, and with space for future growth. Finished concrete work for the water crossing Job done! We are proud of the work our operations crew has shown on this project! - Lynnette Elser, BLM Barstow Field Office BLM California News.bytes, issue 299

They aired a different segment right after the cleanup. This looks like an additional piece they put together. The writing is a little smarmy and I wish they had mentioned FoDD and DDR but hey, it's still good dune coverage. Vicki

That would be the gents at RIS Designs and rumor has it they have been warned to keep it at a civilized level this year. Last year we had a hard time actually communicating with people at times and talking to the owners was a complete waste of time. But they do seem to listen to SSSS management so we shall see. VickiW

Friends of Dumont Dunes will be at the Sand Sports Super Show again this year and this time we'll have the WHOLE booth to ourselves. All Dumont, all the time wooooo hooooo! You'll find us in the program but due to a small snafu it reads DUNERS/Friends of Dumont Dunes. So, just be sure to come find us in booth 2130 inside Building 12, right across from RIS Designs and SandCars Unlimited. We're right on the corner next to the big roll-up doors. This year we will be joined by one or two representatives from the BLM, ready willing and able to answer your questions. It's going to be a great show... hope to see a lot of new faces along with some old friends. VickiW

Well, as it stands right now there will only be weekly passes available and they'll be sold at the same price as last year, unless and until the increase is fully authorized and official. Sounds great, right? Nice to have an unexpected break. The worry about overpaying aside (we're working on that), one major hitch as far as we can see is the restrictions on buying the passes... in particular, if someone arrives at the dunes without their pass, they must use a credit card to buy one, or have a friend with a credit card buy it for them, or head back to Baker to buy one with cash. We're working on a solution to this and will work our way up the BLM food chain as necessary. We'll keep you posted. VickiW

The whole pass situation is so fluid right now that nothing is in stone. Wait, there is one thing and it's been mentioned here already. When you buy your weekly passes, SAVE YOUR RECEIPTS so that you can turn them in towards the season pass. Without absolute proof, you're SOL. Friends of Dumont Dunes is working closely with the BLM on this daily to try to get this whole thing worked out to the benefit of the duning community. We sure weren't happy with the way the passes were being handled before, but we don't want a major hassle when the new season starts either. We'll keep you posted when there are solid developments. VickiW

Same goals, different tactics. Bramham is on the TRT representing "other off-road organizations." It has been very confusing in the past as he introduces himself as an ASA board member and is wearing the official ASA board member garb... but that could have just been force of habit. I do not know which "other off-road organizations" he gives meeting reports to, if any. At any rate, I believe the point that Bob was trying to make is that all representatives (and members of the general public) in attendance discussed the fee issue at length and concurred that an increase was legit, including the representative for "other off-road organizations." The point I would like to make is that these meetings have always been open to the public and it sure would have been nice to hear the dissenting opinions at the time when the decisions were being made. VickiW