Avoid Silverton Colorado

[azdryheat]

If you RV and own or rent an OHV (Off Highway Vehicle) you can take Silverton Colo. off your list to visit as the town council voted yesterday to BAN ALL OHV traffic inside the city limits. I'm just trying to get the word out as Silverton is a very popular destination for RVers with OHVs.

We were in Silverton last September and fell in love with the town and surrounding area. Friends and us have toyhaulers and OHVs. We enjoyed driving our OHVs around town to go to restaurants, shopping, and to get to the outstanding OHV trails leading out of town.

Our basecamp was Silver Summit RV park, in town, and it was packed with campers and most had an OHV. The ban will not allow OHVs from this park to access the riding trails. During our stay there we saw all the other RV parks and boondocking sites were also full. Most of these campers were also OHV owners.

I don't know the rational behind the city council 4-3 vote yesterday to ban OHVs but it seems to me there is going to be a huge loss of revenue with the absence of OHV people. Time will tell.

[WhitehouseLV]

FWC wrote:
I entirely understand the residents of Silverton objection to ATV/UTVs, living with this on a day-to-day basis would have a major impact on quality of life. This is also not just a Silverton issue, Moab and lots of other towns are having this same discussion.

To start with, there are no street legal ATVs/UTVs in Colorado, and by default it is not legal to ride these on public streets. Silverton had made an exception to allow these on roads in town (as had Lake City etc) however I don't think anyone quite realized the volume of vehicles that this would eventually turn into and the resulting noise, dust and bad behavior. Not allowing ATVs on roads is really just going back to the status quo, not banning something that is otherwise allowed.

While I am sure the people who profit off ATVs are not happy about this, everyone else in town was bearing the brunt and reduced quality of life and have now spoken up about it. This is further exacerbated by the fact that many of the UTVs are rentals by folks with little experience in riding these, and little respect for public lands and the residents of Silverton. There has been discussion of a moratorium on any more ATV/UTV rental outfits in the area (as Moab has done) to try and reduce this impact.

I also hear you about loud Harley and other street legal motorbikes, but that is a very hard thing to enforce on a local level. I do wish the national parks would install decibel meters near the entrances and if you are above the legal limits they would not let you in.

quality of life is reduced because of an ATV/UTV?...seriously?

[Y-Guy]

Thanks deltabravo for sharing, for those that don't facebook...

CLARIFICATION ON VOTE REFERENDUM FOR ORDINANCE 2021-05

Citizens of Silverton:
At this time, OHVs/ATVs/Unlicensed Motorcycles are ALLOWED to operate within the Town of Silverton during the Summer of 2021.

We continue to ask that all OHVs/ATVs/Unlicensed Motorcycles continue to adhere to the rules and regulations set forth by the Model Traffic Code and the Town of Silverton.

Designated OHV Route maps are available by following the link below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1duiTWF3xXK0M0X5HAuQRtJ6xvy6Fgrtw/view?usp=sharing

For the most up to date information, please visit:
https://townofsilverton.colorado.gov

[deltabravo]

Tvov wrote:
So after reading this (very interesting, actually!) thread there is no ban yet? Still has to go to vote this fall?

I did some digging and found that they are allowed this summer.

Silverton Town Council posted clarification here.

[Grit_dog]

Chalk up a small reprieve for the good guys...
Maybe the NYC and Cali transplants will tire of Silverton and go back home...

[Tvov]

So after reading this (very interesting, actually!) thread there is no ban yet? Still has to go to vote this fall?

[timn]

Now I am confused can or can you not ride in the town of silverton?

[Y-Guy]

Thanks for sharing EYEMLOST!

[EYEMLOST]

An update:

https://irate4x4.com/attachments/1623272619734-png.394565/

[Bad_Brad]

dedmiston wrote:

mr_andyj wrote:
One down.
Have you been to Sedona? The worst thing about Sedona is those side-by-sides! They suckk. Noisy, and totally trash the dirt roads. They are rented by vacationers that shoulda gone and rode the roller coaster. They treat this nice peaceful wonder like a race track and think they are not annoying.
Did I mention that the dirt roads are destroyed all the time because of these side by sides?
Worst thing ever!

That’s definitely a minority opinion here in the Toy Hauler Forum.

Totally agree that it's a minority opinion here.
However, I'm very disappointed in a few folks who ruin it for everyone. It is certainly a small fraction of the owners who behave like idiots and tear things up. I'm also disappointed in the folks who think sXs's are the worst thing ever. Again, I don't see what some of these folks see in how badly things are tore up...and I ride many places and thousands of miles per year. I personally think there's a jealous factor involved in many of these statements.

I sure wished that law enforcement would do a better job managing the rowdy and noisy crowd. Lots of screaming, but very few tickets or citations.

BTW, there are many merchants in Silverton who are not happy about this ban. Given the mayor is from New York speaks volumes all by itself.

-Brad

[Dirtclods]

(BAN ALL OHV traffic inside the city limits) If your a plated legal vehicle they can not prevent you from driving in their town. They can stop you for frivolous B.S. .

[Grit_dog]

^ Having been an avid motorsports person since I was a little kid fabricating go karts from scratch with snomachine engines on them, it is sad.

We've rode sleds in Yellowstone, twice. Prior to the ban and the BAT/rentals only "allowance." That too was a bad move.

There weren't folks riding all over off the roads. I'm sure it happened, but it's snow for crying out loud! The tracks disappear after the next storm or when the snow melts.

That's like saying high country winter riding disturbs the wildlife...never a bigger crock was spoken. What wildlife?

The few birds and squirrels that are below treeline?

I can guarantee everything else moved downslope or found a hole to hibernate in while they could still hike out...

The Rampart example was a good one too. Usta ride there and understand it's much more regulated now.

Whatever, I'll stop now....

[timn]

This is very bad news. We have been coming up for years but i was scared this would happen. The outsiders have taken over co and want to impose there ways in all of us. But with that said I knew this would happen. People with utvs drive like they are in a hurry. We drive a utv and some riders are plain stupid or very rude with there riding. It wasn't that long ago that you couldn't ride to town to eat and shop. We usually stay on the other side of the mountain and take day rides over to silver ton guess we won't anymore, but I can see the day when we won't be able to ride anywhere. For example velocity basin north of silverton was torn up by some people from Texas I am told. They rode there atvs out in the tundra and ripped it up. I sure wished people would be considerate. Believe me the locals don't want you there and would use any reasons to ban riding.

[fj12ryder]

This is just my personal opinion. I used to be an avid dirt bike rider, and we made several trips to south Missouri to ride the forest roads down there. So I really like the riding.

However I mountain bike ride in this area, west central Missouri, pedal-type mountain bike that is. We had some fantastic riding up on the bluffs until some motorized dirt bike riders discovered it. Within a year the whole area was blocked off to all riders of any kind, only hikers allowed. The bluffs were totally torn up by the hill climbing dirt bikes. Huge gouges,ruts, and destroyed trails. The bluffs are easily damaged and there was no way to keep out just the dirt bike riders. They couldn't be bothered to stay on the trails and made a huge destructive mess. A few screwed it up for the rest of us. All it takes is one or two.

[dedmiston]

deltabravo wrote:

JIMNLIN wrote:
They will just use the tow vehicle to go to town.

Hard to do for a majority of folks from what I saw when I was there last year. Motorcoaches with enclosed trailers won't break camp every day to head up to Eureka to unload and hit the trails. Toy haulers won't either.
Nor will people like me that had a truck camper and a cargo trailer for my toys, though last year I was a dual sport motorcycle, not my UTV.

A very small percentage of SxS owner I saw double towed and could hook up their utility trailer and head to the drop off locations and hit the dirt roads. Some had racks on the bed over the truck that went over the cab.

In a lot of cases, people come as a big family / friends group and not all of them would be able to tow to the ATV staging areas to unload and ride out.

Silverton used to be huge for the Jeeping crowd, which was the case when I was there in 2009 and 2010. Not so much anymore after the UTV / SxS thing has gotten so big, and then Silverton allowing them in town and select city streets.

I think you misunderstood his post. I did too when I first read it.

He's talking about folks driving into town in their pickups to go shopping and eat. He's not talking about staging to the OHV trails.

The first is pretty simple and a no-brainer. The second (using your toy hauler to stage) is a deal breaker.