Originally Posted by wyododge06

Copehagenjunkie and j-fox you are exactly right about the land. I have been an avid wheeler for years and was always ****** when people would tare up the land. Stover tried his best to tread lightly and not contribute to more land damage by creating ruts and tearing up the grass. The people who were there when the truck first got stuck and then tried to get the truck out did a fair amount but, this is a well known area for people to go to and go mudding. It is a shame that they are so dumb and don’t care at all about the land.

Originally Posted by bkrukow

I am one of those Quad guys. Unfortanatly the majorady of horse riders and hikers dont much like any of us and flat out dont wana share the trails with anyone but there own kind. Even if we are teh ones who created and maintain the trails. They want them for themselves. Funy thing is that a lot of the trails they are trying to close down or take over for there perpose where built buy either the Jeep groups or where old mining/loging roads that if not for the Jeeps/ATVS would not be maintained at all and would have grown over and disapered alltogether. I will admit that there are some young or irresponsible people on quads and Jeeps that ruin it for all of us. I personaly stay on the trail and you wont find me or anyone I ride with off in the middlel of a prarie ripping it up. If you consider knocking grass over destroying it then you need to go abck latter and look at it. Grass amazingly enough will poop back up shortly. I can understand the coment abought hoses causing damage to an extent but only to the same extent that an ATV will cause damage. If 1 horse goes over a wet spot 1 time the damage will be minimal but you may be able to see hoof marks in the mud, no long term damage worth mentioning. If 100 horses cross at the same place while its muddy then there will be significant damage, Ive seen it before but I dont go off half cocked telling everyone that horses are evil and should be baned from anywhere I see fit because somewhere some of them have caused damage to some dirt. Same holds true for ATVs. If I follow that horse threw the same mud or river crossing my tire tracks wont be any more significant than your horses trackes. Now if 100 more ATVs follow me then yes you will see a definate trail/rut in the mud. I can tell you from experiance that my ATV will float over softer ground with me on it than I can walk across and truthfully my feet will sink deeper into the mud than my tires will. I garontee that a horse that weighs several times more than an ATV will sink deeper into the soft ground then my ATV will. The PSI under a horses hoof has to be extreemly high compared to the ATV tire. If you figure there are 4 tires and mine are 12 inches wide and there is a contact pach aproxamtly 6 inches long. That comes out to just short of 300 square inches of ground contact. A ATV weighs 600 pounds plus driver. Thats a round 2PSI of ground presure. Now your horse weighs what?? For arguments sake I will guess 1500 pounds. Its hooves are what 6 inch diameter. when its walking its usaly on only 2 at a time. Thats 56 square inches of ground contact. Comes out to 26PSI. My point is that your horse is gona sink in ground and cause damage sooner than my ATV if we are both just cruising along and not deliberatly "spinning our tires 50 mph throwing huge roster tails of mud in the air". I dont condone ripping up public lands anymore than anyone else but to lump all people who would rather ride a Jeep or ATV into one group and say we all damage and wreck the trails is rediculos. I dont go bashing all horse riders saying that there pooping all over the nice clean enviroment and ruining it for all of time to come. No, your horses poop will adventualy disapere along with the hoofprints and our tire tracks.

Sory for the long winded, rambaling thoughts but this is a sore subject for a lot of us ATVers that practice the tread lightly and stay on the trail. We are loosing more and more very buitifull trails all over the country that a small handfull of idiouts have managed to ruin for the rest of us. The enviro nazies are reproducing in alarming rates. That combined with the small group of offroaders who do go where they dont belong and do damage pristien medows is making hard for the rest of us to have any fun.