West Mojave Plan FEIR/S - Desert Managers Group

Compliance With Regulations: Compliance has generally become better withimplementation of the CDCA plan. With the exception of a few areas, OHV free play hasgradually moved to the OHV open areas. Compliance is worst in areas of historic OHV use andadjacent to local communities. Compliance appears to be best achieved when a pro-activeapproach to vehicle management is used, including the identification of outstanding recreationopportunities to direct recreationists to, such as through quality signing and mapping to helpvisitors locate appropriate opportunities, as well as through enforcement and additional educationefforts.The best program for achieving compliance in designated route areas involves:• Keeping open routes well signed.• Revegetating and otherwise rehabilitating closed routes so that they are not apparent oreasy to use.• Maintain a field presence of BLM personnel to contact, inform visitors, and enforce the law.• Establishing BLM-trained and supervised volunteer groups who can assist in keeping theroutes signed and who can contact visitors in order to explain applicable use policies.Once vehicle routes have been designed, they need to be maintained as a way of keepingusers on those open routes. If open routes become too difficult to travel, recreational visitorswould be more likely to utilize closed routes.3.4.4.3.2 Driving OHVs to Access Other RecreationMany visitors use the vehicle as a means to attain a recreation end, rather than as the enditself. These recreation types fall into two classes: (a) point and (b) dispersed forms ofrecreation.Point Forms of Recreation: Often an OHV is driven to a specific destination such as atrailhead, staging area, or campsite. For instance, equestrians use an OHV to tow horse trailersand other equipment to designated staging areas where they can set up for horseback riding. Therecreational activity is not the driving of the OHV itself; it is merely used to access the stagingarea for the equestrian ride. Similarly, hikers may use an OHV to travel to a trailhead; oncethere, the recreationist would then begin their hike.Dispersed Forms of Recreation: This form of recreation is more dependent uponvehicle use than point forms, but the use of the vehicle is still not viewed as the primary sourceof recreation. For instance, a recreationist who desires to photograph a particular species ofwildlife or wildflower may hike, ride a horse or use an OHV to search for a subject. Driving avehicle is not the primary recreation; photography is. Because there is no specific destination,this form of recreation is referred to as “dispersed” rather than “point.”Chapter 3 3-249