ATVConnection.com ATV Enthusiast Community - No Tresspasing/Private Property signs

My guess would be damage being done to his property. I have seen a great place to ride closed because of the behavior and lack or common sense of the people riding there.

A group of us approached the landowner who also rode an ATV and asked if we could build some trails and ride on his very large farm. He agreed and we created trails and maintained them. We had miles of trails and it was great. There were ponds to fish in places to hunt, nice trails to ride and we even had some campsites. Everyone that rode there was considerate and didn’t tear stuff up or create a nuisance to the farmer. We rode reasonably quiet machines, closed the gates, didn’t ride on crops etc.

Unfortunately word spread about the nice riding area and a group of individuals we called “the banshee crowd” ruined it for the rest of us. They rode high powered sport atvs like banshees, raptors etc (I think sport atvs are great and don’t have a problem with them or the people that ride them responsibly) and made one hell of a mess. Their machines were loud and disturbed the farmer, his stock and his neighbors. They rode off the trails and wherever they pleased and tore up the ground by spinning their tires and “rooster tailing” all over. They would even drive up to his cattle and spin their tires to throw dirt all over the cattle. This “roosting” of the cattle resulted in the injury of one of the cows. A rock evidently struck the cow in the eye, which later became infected and resulted in the loss of her calf. They rode in the farmer’s fields and tore up crops. They did hillclimbs everywhere and caused serious erosion problems and made a mess in general. He had to hire excavators to come in and stabilize some of the hillsides they ruined with their hillclimbing. They also started cutting fences that were in their way (they actually carried bolt cutters with them) and rode on the neighbor’s property without permission and caused even more damage. They were banned from the area but kept sneaking in and created yet more damage with the hillclimbs and “roosting”. They even made racetracks in the middle of the farmer’s planted fields. The farmer finally had enough and banned atvs and everyone from his property. No more hunting, fishing hiking nothing. All of the work we had done building and maintain the trails and the campsites were ruined. All of the goodwill we had created with the farmer and adjacent landowners was ruined. We had been close to getting access to another neighboring large property for riding and recreation but that was ruined too. All of it was ruined by “the banshee crowd” and their actions. What took us several years to create they destroyed in the space of a few weeks.

Most of the time lad gets posted because of the actions of a few who ruin it for everyone.

I would ask the landowner what you and your group of friends could do as far as maintaining trails or repairing damage to gain access. Maybe you could arrange some sort of agreement to ride as long as you didn’t hold him liable for injury and would maintain the trail system. I would ask the landowner what you and your group of friends could do as far as maintaining trails or repairing damage to gain access. You could also agree to certain guidelines as to where trails could be maintained or created so as not to cause erosion excess damage etc. Maybe establish some sort of noise guidelines too. In my experience loud exhausts p*ss off non-atv riders more than almost anything else besides outright damage to property.

Good luck and hopefully if you do get access someone won’t ruin it for everyone like they did for us.