theboondork's RV blog

Well that sucks

11/25/2017

Sunset clouds

The boondocking area here at Box Wash has been pretty busy during the holiday, and not with boondocker's but with a different life form. A life form whose only concern is self-preservation and the destruction of nature. A life form so totally self-involved that there completely oblivious to the misery and scorched-earth that they leave behind. A life form so prolific that it has infested every area of North America particularly the desert Southwest in a very short period of time, and shows no sign of mitigation let alone stopping it's ceaseless and senseless progression into chaos and misery for the entire human race.

So who is this vile creature that wreaks such havoc and devastation on the earth and all the flora and fauna that dwell upon it ? The weekend ATV and Quad crowd that's who. The people that roll their ATV's out of the garage every Saturday morning, take off the mufflers and throw them in the trash, load one for each member of the family on a giant flatbed trailer and head for wherever I happen to be boondocking.

I am always happy to see parents spending time with the kids, Lord knows there's not enough of that going on nowadays. But when you put a 12-year-old kid on a 400 pound Quad that can go 50 miles an hour you're simply asking for trouble, either because it's very dangerous or because kids are just naturally self absorbed, and couldn't care less about the noise they're making, the dust there stirring up, the rocks there showering everybody with, or the bunny rabbit hiding behind the baby cactus they just ran over.

And if you put about 30 of these things running around a place like Box Wash it gets very noisy, very dusty, and very dangerous, very quick. So instead of taking my Yamaha, which by the way has a muffler on it, out on the trails like I had intended, I'm just sheltering in place until the holidays are over and everything gets back to normal so I can simply walk outside without getting run over by an ATV.

theboondork

There was a whole lot more ATV people here than this. Most of them had gone home by the time It was safe for me to step outside and take a picture.

4 Comments

Barney Ward

11/25/2017 04:15:47 pm

The equivalent mess happens on the water also.

theboondork

11/25/2017 05:29:28 pm

You got that right, the ATV equivalent on the water is the personal watercraft like the Sea-Doo. Which has no other purpose on earth than to let some idiot ride around in circles all day burning up gas and pissing off everyone in their vicinity. And right behind those guys in terms of uselessness are water skiers.

Tom

Vall & Mo link

11/26/2017 01:43:50 am

Tom, we feel your pain.

The last time we stayed at the BLM campground (not boondocking but a real campground with an iron ranger at the entrance to collect fees and all) at the otherwise wondrous Afton Canyon area in CA, it had just been overrun by a group of miscreants with ATVs and dirt bikes. Believe it or not, they even dug at the central campground maneuvering area (literally, with shovels) to build a ramp for the dirt bikes to jump over(!!).

We wanted to phone BLM and denounce them (we had a satphone with us at the time), but we were with a friend who was afraid of retribution from that gang, so we refrained. Of course, the reward for his fear and our inaction was that we had to spend the rest of the weekend enduring the constant noise and dust and even a couple of them driving right through our campsite. Can you believe that?!

On another vacation we spent a few days at the Dome Rock boondocking area near Quartzsite, and again the place was infested with these pests (and this time we couldn't call anyone on them as it was unregulated public land). The noise and dust and aggravation was at least more bearable as it was a much larger open area instead of a amallish, fenced campground.

Anyway, while we were hiking around, we came across a white sign where someone else had written "ATV = A-hole Transport Vehicle". We couldn't agree more...

Cheers,
--
Vall & Mo.

11/26/2017 10:14:53 am

Unfortunately I see no quick or easy solution to any of this. Simply because the problem is not with the availability of motorcycles, ATVs, or jet skis the problem is with the people using them.

Looking back on my weekend most of the people on their ATVs were acting responsibly, they drove slowly past the people camping here, their ATVs were reasonably quiet, and they waited to get out on the trails before they started driving crazy so at least they would be the only ones injured. There was really only a couple of them acting like idiots but they're the ones I remember not the ones acting responsibly.

So I guess there's always going to be some people engaging in any hobby that are going to be irresponsible, careless, self-centered and selfish, or all of the above.

I think we tend to have more of that nowadays possibly because kids were raised by parents that taught them they were the center of the universe and their "feelings" were the only thing that mattered. Or some folks just don't think about what effect they may be having on others because they have little or no empathy. And then there's always the chance that some people are just idiots.

I don't know what can be done to actually fix this problem but I do know what the ramifications are. the closing of public lands to motorized vehicles, closing lakes or parts of lakes to motorized watercraft, and a general loss of public land to be used for any purpose. And this unfortunately is our future.

Tom

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