You need to read the environmentalist literature and take note of what is said outside the press releases.
How many times have you seen offhand comments in other threads about "fat slobs on four-wheelers" or "get off your butt and hunt?" Plenty. And who makes those comments?
And yes, that's a legitimate concern, there ARE lowlifes out there. I've been blown a couple of times by "Mister Oblivious" and it kind of irritated me.
So I would support seasonal, need based restrictions on ATV's, like for game retrieval only, but the reality is, the bans are almost always year-around. Or, when the issues of access are discussed, the only access considered is by foot or hoof.
And yes, there IS a mystique to wilderness, to the idea that "no man has gone before." There's a legitimate role for wilderness areas, for outstanding places. But I've been repeatedly amazed at the actual experience of "wilderness" -- wall to wall horse trailers and mud, all the modern implements as the thundering herds of sportsmen launch themselves into the "wild." Or summertime trailheads, when it's wall to wall Subarus registered in the "big city" from Friday night to Sunday evening, and nothing the rest of the week.
Then, you go one ridge over, and you've got it all to yourself because it's not wilderness.
I had a county judge (basically, a one-person county commission) in Oregon tell me about the Strawberry wilderness use patterns. 90 percent of the visits for the entire 33,000 acres were day hikes on about eight miles of trail during three months. The other ten percent, the fall hunters, used more of the network and some camped overnight.
But the hikers then either drove back home or hit the motel, about half and half, and they of course checked off the Strawberry on their "wilderness bucket lists."
But that's not exactly being in the wild, as users were almost always in sight of others.
That's more the rule than the exception when it comes to wilderness and "opportunities for solitude" -- not a lot of mystique, really.
Oh, and did I mention that most of the wilderness had been burned over by a wildfire and the dead trees were tipping over onto the trail network -- which by LAW have to be cleared by hand tools, and hand tools only? Trust me, jackstraw jungle is not the greatest ungulate habitat.
