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Mendocino National Forest

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Motor Vehicle Route Designation

Map of Forest with links to the Quads containing routes of interest. Since 2005 the national forests in California have been conducting an inventory of all the roads, trails, and areas used by off-highway vehicles, identify a system of routes from that inventory, and designate those routes/areas for off-highway vehicle use. A Memorandum of Intent between the Forest Service (Region 5), the California Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Commission and the Off-Highway Motor Vehicle Recreation Division of the California State Parks and Recreation established a strategy to guide the designation process and sets a schedule for completion.

BACKGROUND
TIMETABLE
IMPLEMENTATION
CURRENT STATUS
MOTOR VEHICLE USE MAPS
ROUTE DESIGNATION GUIDEBOOK
TO CONTACT US

* Some of the documents on this site are in PDF format. If you need to download the reader plugin, you may obtain it here.

Background

The rapid expansion of OHV use on national forests and grasslands is impacting the natural and cultural resources of federal lands. The Chief of the Forest Service has identified unmanaged recreation - especially impacts from OHVs - as one of the key threats facing the nation's forests today. Unmanaged OHV use has resulted in unplanned roads and trails, erosion, watershed and habitat degradation, and impacts on cultural resource sites.

Improved management of wheeled motor vehicle use on National Forest System lands will allow the Forest Service to enhance opportunities for public enjoyment of the National Forest System, including motorized and non-motorized recreation experiences. The Forest Service has revised its national policy governing the use of wheeled motor vehicles to develop a system of roads, trails and areas designated for motor vehicle use to minimize or eliminate the undesirable impacts from unmanaged OHV use.

We are working with the OHV, environmental, and other non-motorized communities to identify existing OHV routes, areas and to refine the forest-level OHV route designations.

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Timetable for California

The following is a summary of the five steps that are designed to implement the Forest Service - State of California Memorandum of Intent, (Appendix B of the Route Designation Guidebook) and designate OHV trails and areas for OHV use on all National Forest land in California.

Map existing unclassified roads, OHV trails (both National Forest System and non-system), and off-route use areas, and enter the data in Geographic Information Systems and Infrastructure databases. Designate team leaders, compile Forest OHV Management Direction, assemble needed information, identify gaps in data, prioritize, develop action plans, and begin field surveys. Share maps with the public by December 2005 (earlier if possible). Collect comments by March 2006.
Issue temporary Forest Orders prohibiting wheeled vehicle use (including mountain bikes) off mapped roads, trails, and off-route use areas. Involve the public. Complete no later than June 2006.
Evaluate inventoried roads, trails, and areas; collaborate with the public in developing proposed systems of roads, trails, and specifically defined areas for use by wheeled OHVs; complete surveys of information and data gaps. Involve the public. Publish maps of proposals by September 2006. Collect public comments no later than February 2007.
Complete analyses and prepare National Environmental Policy Act documents designating all trails and specifically defined areas for wheeled OHV use. Involve the public. Complete no later than December 2007.
Issue Forest Orders to prohibit motor vehicle use off roads, designated trails, and specifically defined areas. Involve the public. Install appropriate signing, publish maps of approved OHV systems for public distribution, and implement any mitigation measures by September 2008.

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IMPLEMENTATION GOALS

Our goal is to have an OHV route system that is both manageable and sustainable. Since a designated OHV Route system is already established on the Mendocino National Forest, we do not anticipate our designated route system will be changing substantially in this process.

We will be reviewing our existing routes - our currently designated system plus the inventoried routes - and making adjustments to our designated system to improve some OHV routes through re-routes and/or additions, consolidate others to eliminate duplication, and close the routes that are of greatest environmental concern.

A 'manageable' OHV trail system would be designed and located on the landscape such that routine maintenance - barring the impacts of unforeseen events such as wildfires or floods - would allow the trail system to be maintained annually in an acceptable condition. A "sustainable" OHV trail system would be an environmentally sound trail system that could be maintained in an acceptable condition throughout many consecutive years.

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CURRENT STATUS

The Mendocino National Forest completed Step 1 of the Motorized Route Designation process in 2005.

Step 2 is complete since the Forest has an existing designated route system and a Forest Closure Order, 08-96-02, requiring users to stay on those designated routes.

The Forest completed Step 3, Proposed Designations and Public Input during 2006. On February 25, and March 4, 2006, public meetings were held in Ukiah and Willows. We asked the public to help us with the following items:

Access to dispersed campsites.
Decision Space and Decision Criteria.
Problem routes with environmental concerns or routes that go onto private lands without right-of-ways.
Opportunities such as lowering some Maintenance Level 3 roads down to Maintenance Level 2 roads to allow users to make loop trips on Maintenance Level 2 roads legally.

Another round of public meetings was held in June, 2006, to help us develop our Proposed Action (changes to the existing designated route system) which we would then take forward into the environmental analysis process (Step 4).
Over the summer we worked on the ideas and information we got from the workshops. We grouped possible actions according to the various needs to which they respond. We also screened them against the decision criteria and for obvious resource conflicts.

That work resulted in a set of Tentative Proposed Actions (146 kb) that we considered are affordable and ready for a decision. We presented these to stakeholders at public workshops held in Willows and Ukiah early in November. The idea was to gather comments or information to help us "fine-tune" the proposals before we started the formal scoping for the National Environmental Policy Act environmental analysis process 2007. We encouraged the interested public to provide their comments on the tentative proposed actions by mid-December, 2006.

As a result of comments we received from the public and our staff, some of the tentative proposals were modified. Changes between the tentative November 2006 proposals and the current ones are explained in the scoping documents (right) that were distributed to the public in July 2007.

In August and September we worked on several environmental analysis and documentation tasks:

Developed alternatives to address the issues that were raised by public scoping comments.
Analysed and documented environmental effects of the proposed actions and alternatives.
Prepared draft environmental documents for public review and comment prior to decision-making.

We released draft environmental documents for a 30-day pre-decision public review and comment period and then the final documents are released and posted here.

Final Environmental Documents

NOTE: Appendix C (19 kb) and Appendix D (28 kb) apply to ALL final actions.

Commander Tract Motorized Access
Environmental Analysis (113 kb)	Finding of No Significant Impact (60 kb)	Appendix L (32 kb) Appendix Z (37 kb)	Alternative Map 1 (304 kb) Alternative Map 3 (313 kb) Vicinity Map (285 kb)	Legal Notice (19 kb)

Hull Mountain to Bald Mountain OHV Hunting Connectivity
Environmental Analysis (129 kb)	Finding of No Significant Impact (62 kb)	Appendix E (53 kb) Appendix L (38 kb) Appendix Z (43 kb)	Alternative Map 1 (87 kb) Alternative Map 3 (89 kb) Alternative 1 Connectivity Map (62 kb) Existing Connectivity Map (57 kb) Alternative 3 Connectivity Map (63 kb) Vicinity Map (310 kb)	Legal Notice (19 kb)

Dispersed Camp Access
Decision Memo (64 kb)	Appendix A (69 kb)	Appendix L (50 kb)	Appendix Z (56 kb)	Map Index	Legal Notice (19 kb)

OHV Connectivity
Ivory Mill Saddle to Snow Mountain OHV Hunting Connectivity
Environmental Analysis (86 kb)	Finding of No Significant Impact (51 kb)	Appendix L (36 kb)	Appendix Z (42 kb)	Map Index	Legal Notice (18 kb)

Long Ridge Off-Highway Vehicle Corridor Connector
Decision Memo (52 kb)	Appendix L (37 kb)	Map Index	Legal Notice (18 kb)

Trail 68 Closure
Environmental Analysis (105 kb)	Finding of No Significant Impact (56 kb)	Appendix L (24 kb)	Appendix Z (42 kb)	Vicinity Map 1 (305 kb) Proposed Action Map 2 (650 kb) User Created Routes Map 3 (36 kb) Alternative 3 Map 4 (640 kb)	Legal Notice (18 kb)

Wolf-Trough-Letts OHV Riding Connectivity
Decision Memo (62 kb)	Appendix L (38 kb)	Map Index	Legal Notice (18 kb)

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MOTOR VEHICLE USE MAPS

The Motor Vehicle Use Map is a requirement of this process. The Motor Vehicle Use Map displays National Forest System routes (roads and trails) or areas designated open to motorized travel. The Mendocino National Forest has had a system of designated Off-Highway Vehicle routes in place for more than 30 years. These existing designated Off-Highway Vehicle routes, together with other roads designated "open for motorized travel" as a result of this process, are displayed on recently published Motor Vehicle Use Maps.

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ROUTE DESIGNATION GUIDEBOOK

The Region 5 OHV Route Designation Guidebook presents a 5 step process for designating off-highway vehicle (OHV) routes on the 19 National Forests in California, including the California portions of the Humboldt-Toiyabe; based upon existing laws, regulations, and policies. A detailed description of all five steps and a timeline that shows the interrelationships among the steps make up the main portion of the Guidebook.

Download the Route Designation Guidebook on the Region 5 web site »

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