Wet spring season inspires many to off-road without knowing consequences

Wet dirt roads, due to melting snow and recent rainfall, have inspired many to test their ATVs and vehicles on difficult terrain.

“We call it mudding,” said Connor Demain, an employee at Sportsman’s Warehouse. “You challenge yourself and you challenge your vehicle.”

Demain and his group of friends have found several dirt roads around Cache Valley they believe were created specifically for off-roading. They’re not alone in this belief.

“I talk to guys all the time at Sportsman’s about where they like to go mudding. It’s a pretty popular sport and now’s the best time to do it since it’s so wet,” Demain said.

The Logan Ranger District, however, has a different name for the sport — resource damage.

“It’s never OK,” said David Ashby, manager at the Logan Ranger District, a division of the Forest Service. “We never make or maintain roads meant for off-roading. These roads simply don’t exist anywhere.”

Roads that have been torn up by off-roaders, will gradually widen as cautious drivers veer off and on the road to avoid damaging their cars by driving over the previously created potholes. As the road widens, vegetation will be damaged. When off-roading occurs near a river, sediment will be flicked into streams and rivers that provide drinking water to the valley, creating more problems.

“There’s a critical time in the spring when we’ve got to keep vehicles off the roads until they have dried out,” said Joel Merritt, Cache County road foreman. “It takes a lot of taxpayer dollars to continually maintain roads.”

The Forest Department and Cache County Road Department will work together to close roads to the public if off-roading continues to be detrimental to the valley.