If a trail is going to ban the use of atvs/utvs then the use of horses and mules should be banned as well. I said what I said.
I hunted the South Piney region of the Bridger National Forest this last month. Due to the unusually warm weather (as I was told by locals), the elk were at very high elevations and due to the pressure were very deep. We found that there was no way we could compete with those on horseback, since we are not world class endurance athletes. I'm not against horseback hunting, at least I wasn't a month ago. haha I simply take issue with the governing bodies egregiously creating advantages for outfitters and small sector of the population over everyone else.
North Piney Trailhead was the most egregious example. They could have left that trail open so we could have taken our UTV a couple miles in. Instead the trail is such that after you've done several miles in on boot, your last 1/2 mile out is uphill simply because of where they choice to close the trail to UTVs. After a 13+ mile hunt that came up empty I had just enough energy left over to have kicked the guy in the face that decided where to close the trail.
I get that you don't want UTVs going anywhere and tearing up everything. I'm just saying, if you're going to close an ATV trail for hunting season it should be closed to horses and mules as well.
I hunted the South Piney region of the Bridger National Forest this last month. Due to the unusually warm weather (as I was told by locals), the elk were at very high elevations and due to the pressure were very deep. We found that there was no way we could compete with those on horseback, since we are not world class endurance athletes. I'm not against horseback hunting, at least I wasn't a month ago. haha I simply take issue with the governing bodies egregiously creating advantages for outfitters and small sector of the population over everyone else.
North Piney Trailhead was the most egregious example. They could have left that trail open so we could have taken our UTV a couple miles in. Instead the trail is such that after you've done several miles in on boot, your last 1/2 mile out is uphill simply because of where they choice to close the trail to UTVs. After a 13+ mile hunt that came up empty I had just enough energy left over to have kicked the guy in the face that decided where to close the trail.
I get that you don't want UTVs going anywhere and tearing up everything. I'm just saying, if you're going to close an ATV trail for hunting season it should be closed to horses and mules as well.