New Trail Ideas Highlighted at 2012 NOHVCC/INOHVAA Conf.

It was great to attend the 2012 NOHVCC/INOHVAA annual conference held this year in Great Falls, MT.

The National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council and International OHV Administrators Association worked hard to provide an informative and productive forum for professionals and volunteers involved in OHV recreation management.

 

The conference had representatives from land agencies, industry, trail contractors, and user groups.  Those OHV stakeholders included the BLM, FS, NOHVCC, MIC, SVIA, ROHVA, SVIA, Federal Highway Administration, ARRA, AMA, BRC, QWR, NOHVCC state partners, Trails Unlimited, RecConnect, Tread Lightly!, and many others.

 

Presentations covered a lot of interesting trail-related issues including a joint effort by the trail professionals at “GreatOHVTrails” to pen a new trail construction manual specifically designed for OHV use.  They urged users and others to contact them with ideas and suggestions for their new book.

 

John Mueller was there from Sutter Equipment to discuss their new Tier 3 EPA certified Trail Dozers and also daylight efforts to design a new narrower trail dozer for constructing single-track trails.  Gary Lambert was there from the new Nevada OHV Commission with info on trail projects in the Silver State.

 

Steve Pretzel, the Director for Trail Bike Management in Australia, gave a presentation on how users and the government are going from unmanaged OHV recreation to managed use.  It was interesting to see how similar the land issues, challenges, and solutions are in that country in comparison to the USA.

 

ROHVA presented a segment on side by side related safety training programs.   BRC gave a presentation on new 21^st Century congressional land-use designations.  Paul Turcke was there from The Cascade Project a new 501 (c) 3 non-profit recreation-oriented land trust.  That website should be up in a week or so.

 

Finally, it was nice to touch bases with old friends from the OHV community to discuss where OHV started from and where it is going.   Based on feedback from those attending the conference our future looks bright.  However, it was pointed out that we must remain ever vigilant to promote and protect responsible OHV recreation on public and private lands.

Here are some links to the aforementioned groups.

 

GreatOHVTrails

www.GreatOHVTrails.com
 

RecConnect

http://www.recconnect.biz/
 

Trails Unlimited

http://www.fs.fed.us/trailsunlimited/
 

NOHVCC

http://www.nohvcc.org/
 

BRC

www.sharetrails.org

MIC

http://www.mic.org/
 

ROHVA

http://cbt.rohva.org/
 

ARRA

http://www.arra-access.com/site/PageServer
 

AMA

www.ama-cycle.org
 

Sutter Equipment

www.sutterequipment.com

 

Tread Lightly!

http://www.treadlightly.org/
 

Trail Bike Management AU

www.tbma.com.au
 

SVIA

http://www.atvsafety.org/