Sunday, Nov. 14, 1999 | 9:35 a.m.
Soon after the Strip's first blush wears off, Las Vegas newcomers inevitably find their way to Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
Red Rock often is the first encounter many Las Vegas residents and visitors have with the Nevada desert.
It is the closest and the most accessible of Clark County's four federally managed outdoor areas, all of which are feeling the pinch from the Las Vegas Valley's breakneck growth.
Managers of those four areas have been working together for almost four years to solve shared problems such as law enforcement, fire prevention and litter control.
This year they have enlisted the help of some prominent businesspeople who are creating a foundation that can apply for grants, rally volunteers and otherwise garner the resources and support that federal officials can't muster.
Bureau of Land Management officials have come up with all kinds of ways for visitors to see Red Rock's 196,000 acres with trails for hiking, mountain biking, rock climbing, horseback riding and four-wheel-drive vehicles.
For the less adventurous there are picnic areas, a visitor's center with a book store and an outdoor habitat for the endangered desert tortoise and a paved 13-mile scenic loop drive that allows people to admire the breathtaking visual fanfare of geologic formations from overlooks or the comfort of an automobile.
"The handy thing with Red Rock is it's so close to town," said Gene Arnesen, the bureau's recreation planner. "I get calls from people who haven't even been out here yet, but they want information about it."
But with more than 1.2 million visitors a year, avid users say 196,000 acres seems smaller and more fragile.
On weekends the Scenic Drive loop traffic is nonstop, and parking lots for the loop's two Calico Vista overlooks typically are packed with the cars of rock-climbers crawling up Calico Basin's russet cliffs. Casual tourists sometimes can't stop just to look.
Even the backcountry areas are becoming more popular than some visitors would like.
"In the Cottonwood Valley (south of State Road 160) it's incredibly crowded because we haven't been able to develop any trails anywhere else. To me it feels like a superhighway sometimes," said Leanne Miller, a mountain bike rider and coordinator for the Las Vegas Valley Bicycle Club.
Some trail lovers are finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy their kind of fun without bumping into someone else whose idea of fun is a little different. Trail confrontations are rare, users said, but they are ugly when they do happen.
"Usually it's with the horses and the mountain bikes that there's a situation," said Craig Leets, president of the National Wild Horse Association. "Most cyclists are very good. But some of these guys come around those corners at 25 mph, and if you happen to be standing there, well shame on you."
Leets' Las Vegas-based advocacy group is devoted to making sure Nevada's wild horses and burros are healthy and kept on a viable, open range.
Most recently the group has turned its attention to a BLM proposal that calls for moving some of Red Rock Canyon's wild horses and burros to other areas or removing them completely through adoption.
That proposal is one aspect of an overall general management plan BLM officials are creating to guide how Red Rock will be used in the future.
The public's suggestions for that plan are stacked in Arnesen's office. Some have been read and filed alphabetically. Others are in a stack of papers waiting to be filed, and still others remain in the stack Arnesen methodically reads each day.
Keep the horses. Move the horses. Ditch the mountain bikes. Build more trails for mountain bikes. Keep the road to Mount Potosi open for rock climbers. Close as many trails and roads as possible for environmental reasons.
Arnesen is getting a lot of suggestions -- many of which don't go together at all. Most of the trail conflicts he sees are happening on paper.
But just wait until the BLM proposes new trails or changes old ones, he said. That's when the fangs come out.
"When it comes to new trail plans, it seems to surface more," Arnesen said. "It's like you protect your own interests, and then there's everybody else, and why are they there? I'll see them explain in detail what damage other users do, and then they have their own wish list."
Laurie Howard, also a member of the National Wild Horse Assocation, wants the BLM to place preserving the wild horse and burro habitat above recreational concerns. Her group also would like to curtail mountain biking in some areas because of confrontations with other users.
Bicycles don't always safely mix with horses and hikers, Howard said.
"Some bicyclists don't realize they have to give right-of-way (to horses). They come barreling down these ravines," she said. "We're walking, and they're going for broke. We've had people who become really, really nasty."
Howard recalled a conflict with a mountain biker in the popular Cottonwood Valley area. She and about 12 other equestrians were riding single-file when a mountain biker stopped just short of hitting them head-on along a steep, narrow path.
"We were at an impasse. There was no way for us to move off the trail. He got really angry, and he took his bike and shoved it into the chests of the first two horses," Howard said. "He was cursing at us and telling us he had the right-of-way. But he didn't."
Universally accepted rules of the trail say bikes must yield to pedestrians and horses and that all users must yield to horses, Miller said. A sign explaining that pecking order is posted at the Cottonwood Valley trailhead kiosk, which Miller and other mountain bikers built jointly with members of a local equestrian club.
Working together on such programs helps users understand each other and helps quell trail conflicts later on, Miller said.
Miller says she hasn't encountered any confrontations while pedaling in Red Rock but she knows it doesn't take much to damage a sometimes fragile relationship among trail users.
"It only takes one irresponsible user to create a bad impression for the entire user group," Miller said. "That one story will get repeated and enlarged over time."
All parties agreed that Red Rock visitors need more education about the rules of trail etiquette.
"Most mountain bikers have been real kind, but there are a few bad apples. We have stupid people who ride horses too," Howard said. "You need to let people know what's right and what's wrong."
archive
