Excerpts from Field Notes on
Illegal Off-Road Vehicle Use
Today I again checked the Old Rootville Road, which climbs from Manchester up the northern side of the ravine of Downer Glen to Prospect Rock and beyond. The Appalachian Trail-Long Trail follows this road for about three quarters of a mile, so this is one of the places where ATV use can affect the AT-LT experience.
I last checked this place on September 14, 2002. I then found that the road and the snowmobile trails leading from its end were heavily used by ATVs. They still are, though tracks indicate the pattern has changed somewhat, with significantly more four-wheel-drive truck use than before.
The best structural solution to reducing ATV traffic on the portion of this road coincident with the AT-LT would be to gate the Rootville Road at the end of the maintained portion. I surmise this has not been done because the Town of Manchester claims the road as a town road. However, the Green Mountain National Forest description of the day hike to Prospect Rock says use of the route is restricted: “No horses, mountain bikes or motorized vehicles.” Last year Forest Service personnel in the Manchester Ranger District office told me the road is closed to all vehicles except those belonging to owners of inholdings. So the Forest Service is telling the public that the federal government has jurisdiction over the road. If that is the case, it should be possible to gate it where maintenance ends.
A solution that would be less effective, but would probably help, is to erect fences on both sides of the gate now installed on the Old Rootville Road at the Winhall-Manchester town line, to prevent bypassing the gate by ATVs. The illicit ATV trails (mostly snowmobile trails) beyond this gate attract ATVs, which now can easily detour the gate. Blocking ATVs at the gate with fencing would eliminate ATV traffic above the gate, and would probably reduce it even below the gate, since the only attractant then would be Prospect Rock. The fencing could incorporate a stile to accommodate hikers. Legal vehicular traffic could still use the gate.
Weeds and brush are starting to colonize the bare earth of portions of the Old Rootville Road excavated in recent efforts to improve it. However, there is still significant siltation occurring into the forest next to the road, including into Lye Brook Wilderness.
Tracking conditions today were not ideal, since it rained on the preceding two days. However, I found some fresh ATV tracks, and lots of ruts indicating regular use on trails beyond the end of the road. The road itself appears to be much more used by four-wheel-drive trucks than last year.
While I was resting on Prospect Rock on my way back down the road, a four-wheel-drive truck drove by at 2:24 p.m., followed 10 minutes later by an ATV. Unfortunately I caught only a glimpse of the ATV, and was unable to photograph it. At Prospect Rock I was talking with a couple from Bennington, who were dismayed to find vehicles using a road which the hike description distributed by the Forest Service says is closed to vehicles.
The snowmobile trails beyond the end of the Old Rootville Road are regularly used by ATVs. The camp owners have posted “No Trespassing, No Snowmobiling” signs at the entrances to their two-acre camp property (an inholding surrounded by National Forest land). The signs are on National Forest land, at some remove from the property boundaries.
When bushwhacking around the inholding, I discovered an ATV trail leading from the inholding generally northeasterly deep into the National Forest. I followed it about a mile, taking GPS readings at intervals of about a quarter mile. (Satellite reception was good today, and I got accurate GPS readings quickly and easily.) In many places the trail is a rutted, muddy mess, and it even goes through a wetland. I documented these situations with photographs. In the photo descriptions this trail is called the “inholders’ trail.”
At two points along the snowmobile trail heading eastward from the end of Old Rootville Road toward VAST (Vermont Association of Snow Travelers) Corridor 7, the Forest Service has recently posted signs announcing that travel off the trail is permitted on foot only. At the first point there is no evidence that anyone ever has driven a vehicle off the snowmobile trail. The second point is at N 43 degrees 09.157’, W 72 degrees 59.364’ (18 feet limit of error), a side trail which I followed part way last year. I don’t know when the new sign was posted, but there has been repeated ATV travel on the side trail this year. Some of this travel took place after July, because it detours windthrow caused by the microburst activity that happened then. If the sign was placed any time before midsummer, it has been ineffective.
This year I followed this side trail until I reached a point where the only traffic had been a small party of ATVers who rode into the woods and did not come back the same way, as evidenced by saplings bent and scraped by the machines in only the outbound direction. I took GPS readings as I went. I did not follow the tracks of this party far enough to learn where they left the National Forest; they could have traveled many miles beyond the point where I turned around. This is the first unambiguous evidence I have seen of ATVs traveling cross-country through Green Mountain National Forest land following no travelway of any kind--not even a foot trail.
A dirt bike recently drove on the AT-LT beyond the end of the Old Rootville Road, but apparently did not go beyond the footbridge just north of the trail crossing at the northern border of Lye Brook Wilderness. There also were old ATV ruts on the Appalachian Trail just north of the footbridge.
GPS Coordinates on Trails
Inholders’ Trail
N 43 degrees 09.286’, W 72 degrees 59.580’ (21 feet)
N 43 degrees 09.438’, W 72 degrees 59.660 (17 feet)
N 43 degrees 09.611’, W 72 degrees 59.538’ (19 feet)
N 43 degrees 09.730’, W 72 degrees 59.398’ (23 feet)
Side ATV Trail from VAST 4F
N 43 degrees 09.157’, W 72 degrees 59.364’ (18 feet) (start of trail)
N 43 degrees 09.157’, W 72 degrees 59.151’ (24 feet)
N 43 degrees 09.178’, W 72 degrees 58.993’ (21 feet)
N 43 degrees 09.195’, W 72 degrees 58.829’ (30 feet)
N 43 degrees 09.243’, W 72 degrees 58.676’ (24 feet)
Turnaround on Northeasterly VAST 4F
N 43 degrees 09.631’, W 72 degrees 59.072’ (31 feet)
Photo Identifications
348: Snowmobile signage at bottom of Old Rootville Road
349: Canopy opening above excavated and altered portion of Old Rootville Road.
350: Continued siltation along excavated and altered portion of Old Rootville Road.
355, 358: Lye Brook Wilderness boundary marker bulldozed to the side of Old Rootville Road.
360: Four-wheel-drive truck tracks on Old Rootville Road.
361: ATV tracks entering VAST F4 at intersection with Old Rootville Road.
363, 364, 365: ATV tracks on VAST F4.
366: Connector between VAST F4 and inholding closed. Signs are on Forest Service land, not at property boundary. Faint trail to left is VAST F4.
368: Sign posted by camp owners on GMNF land.
373: Fresh ATV track on connection between camp inholding and VAST F4 (made in previous 24 hours--since last rain).
375, 376: Inholders’ trail in GMNF through wetland (N 43 degrees 09.438’, W 72 degrees 59.660’ (17 feet)
377: Inholders’ trail in GMNF (N 43 degrees 09.611’, W 72 degrees 59.538’ (19 feet)
378: Inholders’ trail in GMNF.
379: Inholders’ trail in GMNF (N 43 degrees 09.730’, W 72 degrees 59.398’ (23 feet)
380: Inholders’ trail in GMNF, just above wetland.
381, 382: Fresh ATV tracks on VAST F4 (made in previous 24 hours--since last rain).
383: ATV side trail from VAST F4. The sign was posted in the last year. N 43 degrees 09.157’, W 72 degrees 59.364’ (18 feet).
384: ATV ruts on side trail. N 43 degrees 09.157’, W 72 degrees 59.151’ (24 feet).
385: ATV ruts on side trail from VAST F4..
386: ATV bridge on side trail from VAST F4. N 43 degrees 09.178’, W 72 degrees 59.993’ (21 feet).
387: Windfall damage detoured by ATVs on side trail from VAST F4. Damage occurred in July; detouring machines traveled after that.
388: Ruts on ATV side trail from VAST F4. N 43 degrees 09.195’, W 72 degrees 58.829’ (30 feet).
389: VAST signage where VAST F4 forks--both forks go to VAST C7 (Corridor 7).
391, 392: ATV ruts on VAST F4, between Old Rootville Road and connector to inholders’ camp.
393, 394: Dirt bike tracks on the Appalachian Trail between end of Old Rootville Road and AT crossing of northern border of Lye Brook Wilderness; tracks degraded by the rain of the last two days.
395: Old ATV ruts on the Appalachian Trail just north of the trail crossing of the northern border of the Lye Brook Wilderness.
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