Off the road and out of bounds.

Four-Wheel Drivers Are--Slowly-Learning to Be Sensitive About Tracking Up the Wilderness

The ads feature cars perched on alpine peaks, on Old West plateaus and in remote deserts. Mud-caked cars are seen splashing through rainforest rivers and powering over bouldered trails. The cars are everywhere they shouldn't be.

With tag lines such as "This Theme Park Only Has One Ride" and "What Better Way to Become One With Nature?" these advertisements suggest that our few remaining wildlands can be easily tamed by those with the right horsepower. But 4x4s and other off-road vehicles, when operated irresponsibly, introduce a whole new set of environmental impacts, including: stream bank and bed erosion from cars crossing streams, which results in damage to fish habitat; adverse impacts on flora, and on irreplaceable archeological, scientific and historical sites from soil compacting; disruption of wildlife habitat and breeding; and air and water pollution.

These effects are observable across the country and in particular in western states such as Colorado, Idaho, Utah and California, according to George Barnes, a Sierra Club activist who helped craft the Club's off-road vehicle policy. A sequence of federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) photos taken at popular Dove Spring Canyon in California's Mojave Desert, "shows spectacular loss of vegetation. The area has been stripped," says Barnes. Use of 4WD vehicles on wet trails in the southern central Colorado Rockies has turned areas into mud bogs and completely destroyed meadows, he adds.

The once-typical image of the off-roader--that of a blue-collar hunting and fishing enthusiast--is now a fading anomaly. The average four-wheeler these days uses her vehicle more for hauling groceries than for hauling deer carcasses. About four million four-wheel-drive vehicles were sold in the U.S. last year, and you can buy anything from a Subaru station wagon to a Toyota Tereel with power at all corners. But, says Chrysler spokesperson Michael Coates, whose company developed the Jeep Cherokee series, "Our market research shows less than five percent of four-wheel drive purchasers ever take their cars off-road." Coates believes consumers buy these cars "for safety, security and perceived durability. Some buy because everybody else is buying them, because everybody on the street has one."

The cars we most often think of as four-wheel drive, sport utility vehicles, have also exploded in popularity in the last 10 years. According to the California Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs, they are the fastest-growing segment of autos in the U.S., with 1.4 million sold in 1993. The Ford Explorer was the sixth best-selling vehicle in the U.S. in 1993 with 300,000 units sold; in comparison the quintessential family car, the Ford Taurus, sold 360,000 units. Over one million sport utility vehicles are registered in California alone.

In light of the lack of monitoring of off-highway driving on many public lands, the potential impact of this new crush of vehicles is alarming. About 500,000 miles of American backcountry roads and trails are open to motorized vehicles. In California, for example, the BLM has 60 rangers patrolling 17.2 million acres of BLM lands for law enforcement and assistance to users, or one per 287,000 acres.

Four-wheel drive car manufacturers and enthusiast groups have taken some steps to educate off-road drivers about the environmental impacts of blazing their own trails. For example, Tread Lightly!, a 3,600-member nonprofit group funded primarily by major car manufacturers, explains low-impact principles and encourages responsible use of off-highway vehicles through a variety of programs, such as a guide to responsible four-wheeling and driver education in schools.

Most four-wheel-drive advocates contend they are barely keeping their tires above water to maintain access to the backcountry. "Whenever there's a conflict over trails with other user groups, the outcome usually desired by environmental groups is closure rather than rerouting or seasonal closures," complains Jim Bramham, president of the 7,500-member California Association of Four-wheel-drive Clubs. "The loser is always the mechanized access user." He points out the proposed Montana Wilderness Act would close about one third of available routes to backcountry drivers.

But that means two thirds of the existing routes would still remain open to motorists. In fact, compromise is almost always the outcome when proposed legislation pits environmental purists against mechanized trail users, who are well organized and vocal. For example, the 1984 California Omnibus Wilderness Act was passed on the condition that motorist access would continue on existing four-wheel drive roads linking the Dinkey Lakes and John Muir Wildernesses, and bisecting the Mokelurnne Wilderness.

The intense dislike between environmentalists and four wheelers is partially attributable to culture clash. On the one hand are those who view wilderness excursions as an austere, rare reprieve from noise and human society. Only the most rudimentary creature comforts are considered appropriate, and only if they are carried into camp on one's back. On the other hand are those whose preferred natural experience is to load the car to capacity with conveniences, and colonize a bit of prime public land real estate for the weekend. (At a large annual 4WD rendezvous on the Rubicon Trail near Lake Tahoe, event sponsors once helicoptered a grand piano into the backcountry for the evening barbeque.) No wonder each group thinks the other is crazy.

Tread Lightly! is endeavoring to develop a seminar for advertising agencies with car accounts, to get them to clean up their act. The group's effort is strongly supported by the California Association of FourWheel Drive Clubs. Association president Bramham seems just as insulted as any conservationist by the ad agency approach to peddling 4x4 vehicles, since the ads make groups such as his look so bad. "Most of the auto manufacturers use ads that display vigorous, environmentally-questionable practices on the TV screen and in print. We are horrified by these ads."

CONTACT: George Barnes, Sierra Club Off-Road Vehicle Subcommittee/National Public Lands Committee, 730 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109/[phone]; Tread Lightly! Inc., 298 24th Street, Suite 325-C, Ogden, UT 84401/[phone].