The U.S. Forest Service wants your thoughts about the  revised rules for the 4,156 miles of roads and trails in the White River National Forest.

You’ve got until Jan. 6.

So here’s a relatively concise review of the 400-page draft supplemental environmental impact statement on the WRNF Travel Management Plan.

You may not like the rules, but as the plan notes, the WRNF “does not begin to have enough resources to accommodate all visitors who would like to have their individual, and very specific, recreational experiences in the location they choose.”

Some rules are new, others are re-stated. For example, it remains illegal to use any motorized and mechanized vehicles in wilderness areas.

The biggest change in the plan is a new approach toward bandit roads and trails: there are none, at least on paper and in the official eyes of the Forest Service. The agency wants the gray areas to go away. So bandit roads and trails will either be officially designated and mapped as part of the system or they will be closed and targeted for “decommissioning” and “rehabilitation.”

Today, there are 2,049 miles of legal roads and 1,921 miles of legal trails open in the summer on the WRNF, which includes 2.3 million acres of high country from Dillon to Marble to the Flat Tops.

There are also 1,095 miles of bandit roads and trails, likely made by you, your friends or your neighbors on bikes, motorcyles or ATVs.

Of those illegal miles of road and trails, 281 are to be brought into the official system, sent to re-hab and shown on new maps.

The rest of the outlaw trails, plus another 388 miles of older logging and mining roads, are to be closed and reclaimed. That’s a lofty goal. Since 2003, the Forest Service has decommissioned and rehabilitated only 39.8 miles of roads across the WRNF.

The illegal roads are still going to be in the field for years, but you’re not supposed to use them anymore.

Better signs and maps

Once the plan is done, the Forest Service is required to publish maps of both winter and summer motorized routes to help you do the right thing. In addition, all roads and trails are to be signed in a way that illustrates approved uses.

If there is no sign, you have the responsibility to know whether it is OK to ride or drive on a specific road or trail. It could be a bandit trail or it could be restricted to certain uses. If you don’t know, don’t go.

If you go, and you’re wrong and you get caught, you can be ticketed by officials from the Forest Service, the Colorado Division of Wildlife or your local county sheriff’s office.

It remains against the law to create new roads and trails. Only the Forest Service can build new roads and trails, and that is only after securing environmental clearance.

On the other hand, if you feel constrained, you can still walk, ride a horse, ski or snowshoe across almost every acre of the White River National Forest, without being on a road or trail.

Yes, that’s right, you can still bushwhack on foot or a horse at will through the forest, except for a few specially-closed areas and some trails closed to horses for safety reasons.

But if you prefer roads and trails, the forest will still have plenty of them.

The plan would result in about 1,700 miles of roads on the WRNF, a decrease of about 350 miles, and about 2,200 miles of trails, an increase of about 250 miles.

New road rules

And there will be more rules for those roads.

Summer motorized use is almost always restricted to designated routes. The right, or the privilege, to drive or ride a motorized or mechanized vehicle is limited by the type of vehicle and the specific road or trail.

But many roads are open to all uses. And almost all roads that allow motorized use also allow bicycle, foot and horse travel.

ATV users may not like this, but under the new plan, 560 more miles of road would only be open to vehicles with a license plate recognized by the state of Colorado. That does not include most ATVs or OHVs, off-highway vehicles.

The change is because of safety concerns, such as young ATV drivers on busy dirt roads careening around sharp corners into oncoming trucks. With this change, ATV users may have to trailer their machines up to more trailheads and road sections.

On the other hand, some forest roads would only be open to ATVs and motorcycles and would be closed to vehicles wider than 48 inches, which includes most four-wheel drive trucks and Jeeps. This category of road is growing from 109 to 143 miles under the plan.

Some roads would allow motorcycles, but not ATVs or other vehicles.

Motorcycle riders have created dozens of illegal single-track trails in the Kobey Park area. The Forest Service is going to try and close most of these bandit trails and make a few of them formal and legal, mainly in places where a loop can be created.

Across the forest, 24 more miles of roads and trails are being added specifically for motorcycle use. Many of them are in Kobey Park above Lenado.

Some roads and trails will allow only mountain bikes and not motorized use. However the miles of roads and trails across the forest only open to mountain bikes would drop from 740 to 596.

Other routes and rules

Snowmobiles and snowcats would retain access to 706,497 acres of snow-covered forest land, but snowmobiles would have to  stay on 237 miles of designated routes through certain areas instead of just eight miles.

For example, snowmobiles in the Independence Pass area would be restricted to just designated routes — no more freelancing on the tundra through Independence ghost town.

And snowmobiles in the Richmond Ridge area near the top of Aspen Mountain must also stay on designated routes (the county roads), which do not include the roads set by Aspen Mountain Powder Tours on the east side of Richmond Ridge.

During hunting season, an existing rule that bans motorized off-road travel for game retrieval will remain in place. You still can’t go off trail with your ATV to get your elk. You kill it, you carry it.

 Except where prohibited or directed otherwise, you can still pull a vehicle off any Forest Service road and park within 300 feet of the road for “dispersed camping,” but “off road camping and parking must not damage the land, vegetation, or streams.” (It is preferable to use previously damaged car-camping spots than create new ones).

You can also drive 300 feet off the road to gather firewood, if you have a “fuelwood removal tag,” but you can’t cut live trees.

There are also rules for flying vehicles.

“All aircraft including but not limited to airplanes, helicopters, hang gliders, para-gliders, balloons, and ultralights, will be required to have a special use permit for take-off and landing locations on WRNF lands or waterways,” the plan states.

The new regulations are divided into summer and winter rules and seasonal closure dates also apply, although they are not detailed in the travel management plan.

And if things get heavy, the Forest Supervisor has the ability in non-wilderness areas to allow “use of any fire, military, or law enforcement vehicle for emergency purposes” and “authorized use of any combat or combat support vehicle for national defense purposes.”

Summer rules start the Thursday before Memorial Day. Winter rules start on the second Monday in November.

Thoughts? Comments?

The text of the new draft travel management plan is long on background, policy and rationale. The maps of the plan are the best way to see if rules for a specific road or trail have changed.

Some existing roads won’t be shown on the new map even though they are still on the ground. But if it is not on the map, it is not legal to use.

Questions? One would think so.

The Forest Service is holding two informational meetings on Dec. 13. One will be held in Aspen and the other at the Eagle County building in El Jebel. Go and look at the maps for your favorite road and trail.

The maps and plan are also online. Search for “White River National Forest travel management plan.”

Tim Lamb, who manages “dispersed recreation” for the WRNF, said “It is important for the public to know that this is still a draft and that although ‘Alternative G’ is the preferred alternative in the plan, the final document will most likely incorporate further changes or adjustments. It is hoped that the final plan will be signed and released by the time summer starts.”

bgs@aspendailynews.com