The Golden Crack is on the Golden Spike Trail which connects Poison Spider Mesa to Gold Bar Rim. There is no bypass. If you decide to run Golden Spike you'll have to get through the Crack.
Originally posted by mattadams
Ryan - that's a great shot, but I don't think it remains on the front page... tread lightly would have a fit.... but it's not being a good role model that's for sure! 
We're getting off on a tangent here, but an important one....
Okay, now I'm feeling a need to find a soapbox. No offense meant to any of us -- we all have our opinions -- but I can't go along with all of this.
I honor HIX's original point but believe that the great majority of us have followed the "Tread Lightly" philosophy on our runs. For example, there is a lot of the Cryptobiotic Crust (or whatever they call that stuff) on several of the Moab runs and we all made it a point to preserve and avoid harming any of it. I am a little concerned about Peter's observation and believe if you're leaking fluids, you don't belong on a trail. I would hope that example is the exception to the rule within our group.
I see absolutely nothing wrong with the shot of Ryan. If eco-nazi's want ammo they can find a lotter bigger caliber bullets to fire than that video. (I think they could start with all of the new J**p commercials showing TJ's tromping over young trees and vegetation, but that's another thread). He picked a stupid line - er, rephrase that - a "line I would not have chosen"
, which all of us have done at one time or another. It was on an established trail (mapped by coordinated effort between government BLM and local clubs and authorities) right smack dab in the middle of one of its most famous obstacles in a national park area set aside to do that very thing. What is wrong with that
Dead Link Removed
Ryan can finish his manuever next year if he wishes to, roll backward, and leave black paint scratches on the wedgie that will mix in well with the hundred J**ps that did the same thing, and he would have paid for that privilege as a tax-paying American who funded the area that asked him to come there and play on it.
I am reminded of a "greenie" experiment performed in Colorado back in the 70's and early 80's. All kinds of screaming went on about all those cruel hunters. Colorado's entire outdoor budget was funded through hunting and fishing licenses. The hunters were the ones that actually supported the outdoors and provided the funds necessary to protect wilderness and wildlife hatching and nesting areas, etc. So after listening to all the whining, CO released a stamp that any citizen could buy to support wildlife concerns -- apart from the stamps that all of the outdoorsmen had to buy to get licenses, hunting permits, etc etc etc. The entire state sold a couple hundred of those and the program was dropped.
We put our money where our mouth is. The greenies only have a mouth and don't really care about the areas they presume to protect. Look up last year's reports on the EJS that mentioned the eco-nazies that showed up tyring to ruin the runs. They did nothing besides try to get in the EJS way.
Think about that: what kind of person PLANS and STRATEGIZES his/her hard-won vacation time soley for the purpose of making OTHER people's lives miserable, instead of using the vacation time to enjoy on their own? What a sad life. In some ways I pity them.
Moab is where it is at for us. Most other national park areas are not designed and cannot offer us what Moab can. Look at the newly re-opened Helldorados. Both were established uranium mining roads that went unused for decades and were destroyed by flashfloods. But they WERE ROADS, so they ARE STILL ROADS. Even when the entrance looks like what Rick posted on the previous page:
This is a road. It was built in the 50's. Admittedly it looks a "little"
more difficult than the entrance to your local McDonalds drivethru, but it is still no different than any of the roads that paved the path to your condo and my house that wiped out habitat for all the animals that lived before us. The difference with this road is that there are now at least two areas on it (obstacles) that REQUIRE a winch to get through. Even Snipers cannot make it unaided! Why does it require a winch? Because it is more ecologically sound and "green" than the very roads that tore up habitat to reach the condos that house the greenie eco-nazies that complain about it in the first place. Winching straight up a dry waterfall will leave scrap marks on the rocks. However, they're a little less deep than the three feet of earth removed before laying a highway and the street thoroughfares to our homes.
Moab is THE national parks area left for us to explore and admire its beauty as only we (we being CITIZENS of the USA entitled to visit there) can in 4x4, supported by the local authorities who magistrate an area that would die and wilt away without the funds we pour into it to support. The rest of our great country's wilderness is being (or already has been) taken away nationwide.
I still agree with the intent of the posts made here. If you've got a leaky differential or harbor tendencies to wander off on Cryptobiotic Crust, don't join us in May. I want my son to enjoy this area too when he grows up. Any less of a wish would be irresponsibility in the greatest degree on my part.
But I'll fight for the right to enjoy this area of awesome grandeur of natural beauty known as Moab. I'm gonna be there, and I'll probably leave tires marks there too. If anyone thinks that's a sin, then they should restore the wetlands and habitat that used to exist on the very ground they are sitting above right now while reading this message, or shut up and quit being a hypocrite.
D@m#, broke another soapbox.
[Edited by GJarrett on 11-28-2000 at 07:07 PM]
hope to see you there and maybe at the badlands (Indy) before that. If not, enjoy. this will be my first time out there. wooohooo!
