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Re: road closures, reduxPosted by Woody on May 20, 2002 at 15:45:04: In Reply to: Re: road closures, redux posted by Lara on May 18, 2002 at 02:20:10: Interesting discussion here. I'm planning a weekend trip myself to the valley soon, but I know this, I'll drive, not hike. Early june is going to be too hot for me to feel safe on-foot, back-packing all of my water. I'll admit, I'm an "off-roader". However, I've taken the time to setup my vehicle so that it will be as low-impact as I can make it, and will continue to do so (as funds allow). For instance, proper tires, tire inflation, and proper driving knowledge can turn a "soccer-mom's" suv into a trail-worthy truck that will easily leave only the prints of tread, not much worse than boot-tracks. But with street-tires and too high of air pressure inside the tires, and you're likely to break the tires loose and spin, creating all sorts of holes and ruts in the road. Those that off-road regularly end up knowing this through osmosis. If you spin the tires in sand/dirt/mud, you'll dig in. However, there really isn't much to do about a muddy road, a truck will leave tracks. I'm not expecting that to be a problem, though. Properly driven and equiped, a truck on a properly built dirt road (or 4x4 trail) should leave no lasting damage to the area. You need to drive carefully, and think about where you're going and how you're getting there, but it's not that hard. Yet everytime I've been off-road, I've seen people who are incredibly throttle-happy, and/or are in vehicles not properly setup to gain traction where they are going, and as a result end up doing more damage in seconds than an entire caravan of *good* vehicles would do. In my opinion, properly driven, you can leave almost no trace of your passage, other than the existence of the road in the first place.
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