These things are a prolonged injection of adrenaline! It's real easy to open your soul to the dark side and ngaf. They definitely need some regulation (as much as I hate to say it). Private parks and specific trails designated for their use seems to be the best course in my mind. Sponsored events put in by the manufactures, motocross style tracks with banked corners and table tops and open sand dunes with no vegetation to disrupt.
Back in Ohio there is a section of land on the north side of the Ohio River dubbed Wellsville after the town nearest to the area is an area where anything goes. Stay the trail has never been spoken in those woods. New tracks Are constantly being made when someone sees a route they they can push to make a sweet hill climb. The vegetation will take over these paths in a month if they are not used, trees will fill them within a year. It is not as damaging as it is out here where the time table to recovery is exponentially longer. It is redneck central. Drunk driving is the norm and injuries, some ending in death, are common. People get their machines stolen when they are sleeping, people pull guns on each other and fights break out all the time. I camped there once and ran the trails, I will never go back. I see the back country out here headed that way at a rapid pace. Disrespect for the slow to recover land, disrespect for the people and the flairing sense of entitlement is sucking the joy, peace and tranquility out of them. I'm all for share the space, but the respect needs to come with it.
coloradosun.com
