Will the long- haired, wool-wearing, granola-munching tree hugger please move aside!
You know who you are. You would rather wet yourself than piss on the bare ground for fear of causing erosion.

On my trail, which I have ridden for twenty years, you and your friends are nothing more than a human turnstile. An invitation to crack the throttle and leave a nice knobby print on your new Columbia windbreaker.

Ballsy of you to take your SUV up the logging road to the trailhead. You call it "off-roading." You access most of your favorite hiking areas via logging road or roads that used to be logging roads. In fact, your day trips are not possible without them.

Me? I rode four miles of god-awful rock outcroppings, root bound narrow trails, stumps, deep mud, sand and boulder hill climbs just to get to this trail. From here, I know it only gets worse but the prize at the end is a 700’ cliff and the vista it provides.

And you, the first hiker I’ve seen in twenty years here, have the nerve to give me a dirty look on my trail. Even though you are in my element, I slow to pass so as not to cover you with mud. A courtesy undeserved.

You are the Hyenas. It is you who lobby against the mechanized use of the environment. Our environment. Each resulting closure of public lands to the use of motorized exploration is a victory for you and your exclusive use of so-called “sensitive” ecosystems. You wear the blinders. I snowmobile and snowshoe, dirt bike and hike. I know the peaceful feeling you get hiking when you stop on a hillside covered in old growth cedar. It is the same feeling you get when you shut off your bike, take your helmet off, and sit down on that cliff, looking up and down the river valley below. The difference is, while I might find “hiker dude” and his attitude a nuisance, I would never seek to exclude him.

Off topic-my fault- sorry