 GREEN MOUNTAIN NATIONAL FOREST
Old Stage Road West of Heartwellville
9-6-02
Fresh illegal all-terrain vehicle tracks on Old Stage Road (FR 73) on September 6, 2002. Signs indicate that the road is closed to vehicles by selectmen, and the Forest Service has closed the road to ATVs. Location coordinates by GPS receiver: at N 42 degrees 50.910', W 73 degrees 04.763' (21 foot limit of error).
Today I checked the rest of Forest Road 73 (FR 73, also known as the Old Stage Road) between Vermont Route 8 and its intersection with FR 273, at the upper end of Dunville Hollow. The segment checked today begins at a clearing at N 42 degrees 50.400', W 73 degrees 03.423' (32 foot limit of error). I also checked short stretches of FR 273. Most of the portion of the Old Stage Road I walked parallels the southern boundary of George D. Aiken Wilderness.
FR 73 is commonly believed to be open to ATVs, partly because it once was designated as a winter-only ATV trail. It is also sometimes asserted that it is a town road and the Readsboro selectmen permit ATV use. Regardless of its status, incursions into the Green Mountain National Forest from the road show that ATVers do not stay on a trail they apparently believe has been designated for them.
The designation of FR 73 as a winter ATV trail has been withdrawn because the ATV club with which the GMNF had a cooperative agreement is defunct, according to a sign posted at the parking area at the west end of the road (near Vermont Route 8). However, not all of the ATV route markers have been removed from FR 73, particularly the western portion that I walked today.
There is less all-terrain vehicle and four-wheel-drive travel on this portion of FR 73 than the eastern portion that I checked yesterday (September 5, 2002), and also less ATV and 4WD trespass off the road. There are no incursions into Aiken Wilderness. However, there is extensive ATV and 4WD travel on various travelways from FR 273. All of this ATV travel is illegal.
I also checked the crossing of the Corridor 9 VAST snowmobile trail and Route 8, which is about 1.3 miles south of the Green Mountain Power Co. wind turbine site in Searsburg (global positioning system location N 42 degrees 50.748', W 72 degrees 59.415' (21 foot limit of error)). There are ATV tracks in both directions on this snowmobile trail, despite a Forest Service sign on the Whitingham leg barring wheeled vehicles.
Walking west on the unimproved section FR 73, I saw fresh ATV and 4WD tracks (made since yesterday) on the road.
At N 42 degrees 50.363', W 73 degrees 03.657' (27 feet) I found a logging road bearing approximately 197 degrees magnetic. It was effectively blocked by a constructed barrier of large stones, with an earth berm on each side. The logging road had not been traveled by vehicles anytime recently, suggesting that constructed closures can be effective if they are substantial.
Judging by the lack of weathering of the stones, this barrier was constructed at the same time as other extensive earth- and stone-moving improvements to FR 73 were carried out to accommodate snowmobile trail grooming machinery. I have heard complaints that these improvements obliterated old stone culverts and other ìheritage resourcesî along the Old Stage Road. I don't know by personal observation whether those structures were there at one time, but they certainly are not now.
At N 42 degrees 50.686', W 73 degrees 04.118' (24 feet) I came to a snowmobile bridge across an unnamed brook that flows northward and feeds Camp Meadows in Aiken Wilderness. The fresh ATV tracks continued across this bridge (and continued all the way to the intersection with FR 273), but the fresh 4WD tracks stopped at the bridge. Just south of the bridge is a ford sometimes used by 4WDs.
Some of the ATV trail markers have not been removed from FR 73, so it appears to be an authorized route, though it no longer is, according to signage at the parking lot at the Route 8 end of FR 73.
Just east of FR 273, FR 73 joins a trail regularly used by ATVs bearing approximately 180 degrees magnetic at N 42 degrees 50.836', W 73 degrees 05.677' (27 feet). Near this point a sign warns eastbound traffic on FR 73 that it is closed by order of the selectmen for safety reasons.
I walked about a quarter mile of FR 273 northward, and the same distance southward, which took me to the end of the road. South of the junction of FR 73 and FR 273, ATV and 4WD tracks go off into the woods every which way, including down the Dunville Hollow Road and on the unmaintained extension of FR 273. A sawdust pile at the end of the maintained portion of FR 273 is littered with junk used for target practice.
|
|
More