(Adam) Welcome back to KSL Outdoors, I’m Adam Eakle and welcome to Wasatch Mountain State Park. Tonight we’ve got an important message and a great ride to take you on. We’ve got local and federal agencies here, as well as all the outdoors media here from the Salt Lake Valley. With one big message and that’s ride on and stay on the designated trails.
(Deena Loyola, Utah State Parks) We are here with all of our federal and state land management partners and we are going to go on an atv ride.
(Deena) We are going to head up the Cascade Springs trail and we are go over to little Deer Creek and we are just going to be talking atv trails all day.
With fifty thousand miles of OHV trails in Utah and over two hundred thousand registers OHV’s, Utahans love to get outdoors and ride. “Ride On” Designated Routes is a new statewide campaign that has united land management agencies to educate outdoor recreationists who use motorized vehicles on Utah’s public lands.
(Chris Haller, Utah State Parks OHV Program Manager) What we want to do is try to get for people to have one stop shopping. They’ll end up going to say the US Forest Service, the BLM or SITLA, Wildlife Resources or us and sometimes they may not know or they get a different message of live by the rules, or this or that. So rather than be agency specific towards that specific mission, we decided to promote the five agencies collectively together and promote the same message which is “Ride on Utah and that is in the form of designated routes and trails.
The campaign, created by Tread Lightly, a nonprofit organization, unites the five agencies in an effort to spread a consistent message throughout the state. To get the message out, they invited the outdoors media on this ride. (www.treadlightly.org)
(Chad Booth, At Your Leisure) I’ve been known to say a word or two about responsible riding over the last 12 years and I get a little fired up when people leave trail systems and mess things up. Not only does it lead to agencies saying you are not behaving we are going to shut it down. But it does something else, it destroys the view and that’s why I’m out there.
(Jeff Schramm, Heber/Kamas Forest Service District Ranger) There’s a lot of people out this time of year with the hunting season on and a lot of folks just out enjoying the fall colors to. So be respectful when you are out riding and respect each others opportunities to enjoy the great outdoors and then the other thing is just make sure, look and find out which routes you can and can’t ride on and do the best that you can to tread lightly.
(Jeff Schramm) you know a quick reminder is you’ve got to carry your game out. You can’t just just take your OHV unit and drive out to your game and pick it up. That is not allowed on the National Forest lands.
(Jeff Schramm) we’ve done a lot of work lately with our signs, identifying which routes are available to ride on. Locating the roads so the user knows where to go and how to ride responsibly.
(Adam tag and toss to Goal Zero Guardian) so when you head out, try and have an OHV trail map with you. If you are looking to try and find some of those. I know Chris has a few on his website at UtahOutdoors.com. Also some of the counties, this is from Sanpete county, they print OHV trail maps for the roads in their county and another good place is the Forest Service, the district offices in your area, they’ll also have good maps. Hey while we are on the subject of ATV’s here’s something new and innovative from our buddies at Goal Zero, it’s called the Guardian.
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(Adam) How many times do you go to start your ATV and the dang thing is dead because your battery is run down and you didn’t even know it. Well Goal Zero just came out with a new product it’s called the Guardian, it’s a 12 volt charging controlling system that’s really simple. You basically hook these alligator clips on your battery. Open up your solar panels and there you go, you are charging your battery all the time with the power of the sun.
(Adam) It’s a really neat product, should work really well, with boats, Rv’s, OHV’s, you name it.
(Adam) what’s really cool about the Guardian is that it tapers the voltage according to the batteries condition and re-charging needs. That means it’s not over-charging the battery so it’s not going to ruin the battery. You can leave it on all the time so that when you go to use your vehicle or your battery for your RV it’s ready to go. And also you can set this up in the mountains as well. Just pop it on your batteries, the more sun, the more charge it’s going to get.
(Adam) the kit includes about a six foot long cable, it also some USB ports. You can daisy chain it up or it even has a plug for your guide ten adventure series pack. It’s supposed to be coming out in November/December it would be a great Christmas gift for anybody in the family. The weather up here has just been great for the ATV ride we’ve done here with State Parks, Forest Service and the BLM. Let’s find out what the rest of the week is like by turning it over to guys in the weather department.
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