Atv trails coming off private land onto National Forest.

Scott85

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Nov 22, 2018
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What’s the legality of atv trails coming off private land onto national forest land? I keep on finding likely hunting spots and get to looking at imagery and there are atv trails cutting through meadows where there are no road.
 
Get the Motor Vehicle Use Map (MVUM) for you local NF District (it may be a series of maps). If said trail is not on the MVUM, it is not legal to use an ATV/OHV there by the general public. However, if the adjacent landowner has a grazing permit there may be some allowance for using ATV for fixing fence and moving cattle - but that is by special permit. Worth a call to the local FS district office.
 
Need to check with the local forest ranger to see if it is legal or not. My gut instinct is it is not legal at all but someone who went off "established road" illegally. A lot of two tracks began with people going off the road illegally. Note: This differs from "designated roads" which you can review in your game regs or look it up online. Forest service sometimes closes some of the two tracks and ATV trails when too many people start going cross-country and ignoring the restrictions. There are a lot of examples of this in GMU 11 in Colorado by Meeker.
 
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