Mounds Rock Crawl construction commences

[mitrail400ex]

I say the course if fine…It’s a recreational course, built in a recreational park to be used by recreational users.

The Mounds is a recreational area, yes, but it's one of the few scramble areas available to users in Michigan. We pay our ORV sticker costs, as well as travel costs, to use our recreational vehicles in designated areas, and those funds are meant to be used to improve our recreational experience.

When the government and members of GLFWDA were working together to come up with a usable plan for a rock course, it was my understanding that several guidelines and expectations were established, and aside from the broadly generalized expectation of "Put rocks here", the government and whoever they hired to build the course FAILED to meet those expectations.

While I can agree with the sentiment that it's nice to finally see them at least try to give us what we've been asking for, it's almost an insult for them to try and pass this along as what we wanted. Now, maybe I've got a bit of "spoiled kid syndrome" going for me, but if I'm promised one thing and given another, I can't help but feel slighted, especially when I paid for the whole ordeal. I liken this to going to McDonalds, ordering and paying for a Double Quarter Pounder meal, then receiving a cheeseburger instead and being told to be happy that I got anything to begin with. Would YOU accept that situation and be happy about it? I certainly hope not.

On the grand scheme of things, Michigan needs something along the lines of a state-owned version of the Badlands if we want to be competitive enough to draw people in from surrounding states. Aside from a trip or two to OSTC, people have no reason to drive hours to get here and spend their time (money) in Michigan. Would the promised rock course be that draw? Perhaps not by itself, but combined with a "complete package" of the wheeling experience, maybe we could steal some of the surrounding business and actually give the DNR a reason to listen to us from time to time.

[phittie1100]

Also remember I am taking notes from this thread (notes - not copy and paste with your names attached!) and others around the MI web-wheeling world. Sometime next month our ORV long-range financial planning committee will resume work on the long-term financial plan for the ORV program. Like the ORV advisory board, this committee has no direct authority - we are only there to advise the DNR on how we (the users) want the program to look when they revamp it, we cannot set policy, raise ORV sticker prices or anything else important - we can only make recommendations. However, most of the folks from DNR who DO make those decisions are part of the planning committee. At the first meeting I let them know that in general WE don't use what they make available - Silver Lake, St Helen, The Mounds we surely use, but the ORV route system was not designed to provide the types of riding experiences most of us prefer. They all looked a little shocked at that, and asked for a little more clarification. This discussion (and others like it on other forums) will certainly provide some additional clarification for them.

[Creative Fab]

here is a good example of a State owned offroad park where they have ACCOMPLISHED what the users desired

keeping in mind this plce had a lot of natural obstacles, but the MN DNR has also built and maintained alot of man made ones as well

http://www.ironrange.org/

[phittie1100]

http://www.in.gov/dnr/outdoor/2897.htm
http://www.in.gov/dnr/outdoor/2915.htm

Not the same types of opportunities as MN, but IN seems to get it too.

[DDS4X4]

YES to MN and YES to IN!!!

Come on MI and OH!!!!