A little over a year ago, the Hassayampa Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management completed the travel management plan for the Black Canyon Corridor in Arizona. The plan ended up leaving open many valuable routes – including several technical rock crawling trails.
However, it has become an unnecessary, hard-coded reality that BLM offices believe they have to close substantial routes through travel planning. As a result, this plan in Arizona closed 58% of the existing routes in this area.
For this reason, BRC joined the Arizona State Association of 4WD clubs, the American Mining Rights Association, and Arizona Backcountry Explorers to appeal this plan.
We traveled to this area in the spring to gain on-the-ground knowledge of the area, and we can confirm that many of the closed routes are high value routes that would provide important access into this area.
We are still waiting to hear from the Appeals Board on this appeal. You can learn more about some of our favorite trails and campsites in this area that were featured in Volume 2 of the Lost Trails Guidebook.
There are several other travel plans that are in development in Arizona. Just this week we released an Action Alert for the Gila San Simon Area, which could see a 54% route closure if we don’t speak up.