WiNN supports the coalition forming in opposition to expanded ATV use in Wisconsin

The Wisconsin Nordic Network board of directors agreed to support the coalition forming to oppose the expansion of ATV use on public lands in Wisconsin. This coalition, as yet unnamed, formed as a direct response to ATV-related environmental damage and vandalism in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

One of our board members will attend meetings as our representative. As a result, I feel I should publish our position as it stands now and some explanation of why we decided to take this action.

There is nothing inherently wrong with ATV use, and there is nothing about ATV use that automatically means that skiers should oppose it. There are certainly some among us who oppose ATV's just because they are gas guzzling power toys. There are some who don't have strong feelings about ATV's at all. There are some who own ATV's. That's a realistic cross section of the skier community.

It is easy to say though that skiers have no interest in sharing ski trails with ATV users, even if the ATV use is stopped in the winter. The vehicles are just too damaging to the trails, a problem made much worse in these low snow years where we try to make the best of six inches of snow way too often. It's also safe to say that skiers don't want to hear ATV's while they ski, and that they don't want to smell the fumes of ATV's. We've already been through that with snowmobiles, and we don't want to go through it again. Fortunately, with snowmobiles we are in a different place. We have settled into a fairly peaceful coexistence with snowmobiles. Trails are separate and seldom meet. Seldom does a snowmobile go on an adrenaline laced rampage over an off limits ski trail. The bar fights are over. But it wasn't always that way, and our view is that the ATV community is much more like the snowmobile community of old, than the snowmobile community of today. The snowmobile community has grown up. The ATV community-- that's questionable.

It seems to us that right now the ATV community is still finding its way in the world. On one side, you have groups of riders who want expanded trail use. They want to go fast and they want to have point to point trail rides. They want what many of them used to do on snowmobiles, but because of the global warming and climate change that's officially not happening here, are no longer able to do: go on long trail rides. ATV use on trails demands lots of maintenance work because the vehicles are pretty hard on the terrain. Snowmobiles travel on frozen ground, and by spring an awful large amount of the damage done is gone. As a result snowmobiles have gotten trail access to lots of private land. Private landowners want nothing to do with ATV riders and this puts the pressure on public land stewards to accept ATV use, and in our view puts pressure to accept too much ATV use on our public lands. 

Another group of ATV riders wants to go out "mudding", or deliberately tearing up pieces of land for fun. Few outside the ATV community believe that mudding is compatible with wilderness, but there are places where mudding is probably OK. But the ATV community is immature and some riders have proven they can't be trusted to stay on designated, maintained trails and head off to go mudding wherever they please. There's an environmental cost to that that we feel is too much to bear for outdoor loving types like we skiers. There's the chance that someone will head off a trail and discover a ski trail like the snowmobilers of old. There's a chance that in the summer somebody will mud up an area enjoyed by skiers and damage trails. Then there is just a love of the woods.

If these things were just a bad dream, you might argue that we shouldn't oppose the possible bad behavior of a few riders. But, it's not just a dream, damage is happening now according to the reports we are hearing. We generally agree that ATV riders will mature and find their place in the world like snowmobilers did years ago. But they haven't matured yet, and at this time we believe their progress at chewing up more and more state land must be slowed down. Their behavior must be monitored. Their clubs must learn to control the worst of their members. The moderates among them must learn to control their extremists.

Until that time when the ATV community has matured, we believe that we must resist expansion of ATV opportunities on state land. We will do this in a coalition with others in Wisconsin and in Minnesota to present a more unified and larger front. We recognize both the rights that ATV users have in a democracy and that some numbers of ATV users will not present any detrimental effects on skiers. However, it will be the challenge of the ATV community to build the cultural norms, the standards, the routines that make the rest of us feel like we can trust the ATV community with our shared responsibility to preserve our wilderness, our trails and the outdoor experience we all agree we can't live without.

Philip Nelson
President, Wisconsin Nordic Network.