Earth Day and a Little Soul-Searching

by Bill Burke of

4-Wheeling America

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Earth Day! Is it really just a big excuse for us to talk big about how we revere the earth and want to keep it green (blue, brown, sepia, red)?! I attended the festivities in Grand Junction, CO last week where I was asked to say a few words about 4-wheelers and their relationship with Earth Day. Also speaking were representatives from Sierra Club, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance and other fine organizations representing the so-called environmental coalitions.

There were no representatives from mechanized or motorized organizations although I know for a fact that many were invited. And even if your group or club was not invited, did you ask the organizers in your area for your right to be heard in this forum?

I was allowed a few minutes to debate the merits of Wild Lands and responsible use of established primitive roads by those of us who really want to visit the back country in its entirety, and not just peripherally from paved road look-outs and crowded visitor centers.

I mentioned to the crowd how United Four Wheel Drive Association and its state and regional members were very active in road and resource protection and conservation...how countless hours volunteered by many people nationwide and worldwide are accumulated in activities like campground improvement, trash removal from remote and close areas, monies donated to parks and recreation areas for enhancements like handicap access bathrooms and pathways, fire rings and picnic tables and litter control.

Just take a look at the recreation corridor along the Colorado River on the highway into Moab. Where do "they" think the money came from for all those nice new facilities (certainly not from the environmentalists!) that help conserve and protect fragile ecosystems from over-abuse of (usually) thoughtless tourists and overzealous recreationists ("Might as well put ‘em somewhere!")?

I received an email the other day from someone who is being affected by wilderness designations in their backyard. They are affected economically and physically in a small town that relies on tourism. The reality is that if visitors can’t easily "go into" the back country, why bother stopping in town when one can see all there is to see from the highway in the high speed auto? The person who sent this email "charged" me with "What are you doing about this?" Well, I am doing what I can, when I can!

And, part of the "what I can" was at the Earth Day celebration in Grand Junction. I got up on a stage in front of a bunch of surprised people and talked about how organized recreational 4-wheelers really do care about conservation and wild lands; how we care about pollution, overpopulation, urban growth, disease, mortality rates and 4-wheeling; how closing umpteen million acres to everybody but a few is not in the best interest of the common good; how the growing population seeking outdoor spiritual growth will eventually crush the ever-decreasing, adventure-limiting parks and recreation areas and spillover to urban areas sparking anarchy and civil unrest--heck, even civil war--due to the closures of our wild lands!

So, we probably ought to stop the closure of lands and put our energies into teaching and sharing with others, things like conservation, ethical environmental backcountry practices and the inner well being that builds character in all of us. Gosh, Beaver maybe that will end war, strife and greed in the process!!

Hey, it’s gotta start somewhere! Might as well be with me! It is interesting that during the last EJS I had just finished running Hell’s Revenge with a group of manufacturers and other people "in the industry" when I spied one from the group who couldn’t do the "dump-bump," change direction and go charging up an unmarked, untraveled hill in the Sand Hills area. This really pissed me off! We had just spent a very challenging day on Hells Revenge and this DORK needed to test-tos-terone his idiocy on unmarked terrain in an already very fragile and controversial area--like there weren’t enough routes marked--the attitude being, "I can drive anywhere I want--I’m in Moab!"

We had a discussion!

I recently attended a meeting of the SUWA sponsored by the Sierra Club about the wilderness designation of the area that includes Gold Bar Rim, Gold Spike trail and Poison Spider Mesa (Moab, Utah). They showed beautiful pictures of the area, the views and the terrain to the wonderous exclamations of the audience. If you’ve been there, you know what I mean--it’s breathtaking! They slipped in a few incendiary photos of rigs on the route during EJS. Sure 20 rigs bumper-to-bumper on a route in a fantastic area will make one take a deep breath. The audience reacted violently.

I wondered how the photographer got that far in to take the picture and how many times s/he stepped on the crypto-soil to get the proper angle for the shot.

All the rigs in the picture (Dan Mick in the lead) were on the road alignment. None were even remotely off the trail. There were pictures of Double Whammy and the black marks and oil stains, of broken shards of tail light lenses and u-joints, of trampled crypto-soil by "quads" and big rig 4x4s.

I did, for a brief moment, wonder why I like this sport...why I like going out with friends and clients into remote areas for days on end into the peace of the desert...why I get angry when some errant person on foot, horse, llama or mechanical contraption tramps over bushes, trees and rocks cause they can. In this moment, I can see why SUWA, Earth First, Sierra Club et al. want to close off millions of acres. Do we REALLY CARE about the land and if our kids’ kids will be able to enjoy it like we do now?

So, what am I going to do about it? I could sell my two Land Rovers and mountain bikes, get rid of all my vibram-soled shoes, let my grass go to prairie sage and dust (most of it already is anyway), grow my own rice to make paper and use charcoal to write on it. Then, I can let my knuckles drag the ground and just walk around the town eating grubs and slurping out of puddles. Well, maybe small grubs!!

But, I’m not ready to give up on the sport that I love. So I will keep on teaching, spreading the positive ethics on good land stewardship and conservation, and speaking out whenever I can!

What are YOU going to do?

Next month, I promise I will share some training experiences I am having in the Andes of Peru.

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