Vertical limits: Off-road enthusiasts face natural and legal obstacles

Monday, Jan. 15, 2001 | 9:49 a.m.

Fasten your seat belt its going to be a bumpy ride.

While the majority of people who own a four-wheel drive vehicle rarely (if ever) take it off paved roads (and would likely have a heart attack if the paint got scratched), some owners use their trucks for what they were intended (defying gravity in the outback.)

Men and women with daredevil spirits put their ram-tough Dodges, Fords and even Cadillacs (at least the Escalade models) into four-wheel-drive mode and climb waterfalls, crawl over boulders and drive down cliffs in pursuit of the "pucker factor."

When they talk about "puckering up," they arent talking about kissing unless its kissing their behinds goodbye.

"The pucker factor," John Grul, president of Ari-Vada 4-Wheelers, explained, "is when you cringe in your seat so hard the seat cover comes up."

Ari-Vada was created in 1987 for four-wheel enthusiasts who primarily live in Arizona and Nevada. The club, one of a half-dozen four-wheel-drive enthusiast organizations in Southern Nevada, has 23 members who venture off paved roads at least once a month to test their skills and their vehicles against the environment, and to enjoy the bounties of nature.

"We went up this waterfall," Ernie Ashby, a long-time member of the club, said. "It was a dry waterfall, but an almost totally vertical climb. For a couple of seconds your truck is almost totally vertical."

The possibility that a vehicle might receive a dent (or end up as a pile of twisted metal) isn't a factor considered by extreme rock crawlers (as they call themselves).

"The pucker factor is worth it," Ashby said.

"It's like extreme sports. That's mostly what we do -- find challenging areas, like mountain-goat trails," Grul said.

One of the club's favorite areas, on former federal land 20 miles north of Las Vegas, was recently closed to them.

"Five years ago we adopted this area near Apex. In November we found out it had been sold and so we aren't allowed to run on it anymore," Grul said. "Five years of blood, sweat and tears cleaning it up and (a mining company) bought it out from under us."

While the club looks for another rural site to adopt, there are several places in the area they can go -- the east side of Sunrise Mountain, Little Red Rock Canyon (off of the end of West Cheyenne Avenue) and Valley of Fire, among others.

Uncharted territory

One of the most challenging trails the club has traveled is on federal land northeast of Phoenix.

"The BLM (Bureau of Land Management) tried to shut (the trail) down because they said it was impassable," Ashby said. "It was a trail we had adopted a number of years ago.

"We took seven trucks all the way to the (end) of the trail to show them it wasn't impassable. It was only 8 miles long, but it took us 11 hours to do it. That was extreme rock crawling."

Full-sized trucks are the most popular four-wheel-drive vehicles among members of Ari-Vada. Standard SUVs (sport utility vehicles) don't make the grade. They tip over before their big brothers.

"Most of the new SUVs won't do what we do," Ashby said.

"Not to take anything away from SUVs," Grul said. "They're more than welcome to come out, they're great four-wheelers. We can plan alternate routes for the SUVs that can't do the extreme rock crawling."

Even Hummers, a military vehicle drafted by civilians for street use, are not good for extreme off-road adventures.

"They have great ground clearance, but they're too big, too wide to get into some of the places we get into," Ashby said.

Off-road warriors

There are a lot of tricks to the sport, and club members are happy to teach anyone who wants to learn (at a cost of $35, most of which is donated to the St. Jude's Ranch for Children). Many people buy a vehicle and then call Ari-Vada for help.

"Half the people (who own a truck) don't know how to put it into four-wheel drive," Ashby said.

Grul said, "We stress that you know the limitations of yourself and your vehicle and where to put your footprints (tires) ... All four tires on the ground is total traction. In some cases, for us, that's not possible. We kind of like that extra tire floating in the air."

"Proper preparation is important," Ashby said. "You have to know where your differentials (gears connecting the two axles) are -- like on the Chevy, it's on the right side of the truck, and on the Ford it's on the left side. If you don't know that, you can hang up on a rock."

While extreme rock crawling may sound extremely dangerous, no member of Ari-Vada has been injured during a run. But the same can't be said for the vehicles.

"For what we do, you have to be mechanically inclined," Grul said. "You may throw (an engine) rod or break an axle."

"You would be surprised what we come up with to fix things," Ashby said.

"One time a Jeep snapped an axle and it took four of us to pick the Jeep up and set it on a rock. One of the guys took (the jeep's owner) back into town and got a new axle while the rest of us pulled the (broken) axle off. Then we put the new one on.

"No matter what you think might happen," he said, "something else will go wrong."

Which is why one of the club's rules is that no one goes into the desert alone. A minimum of two vehicles are required for a run. Most runs attract between four and 10 vehicles. Occasionally all 23 members show up.

"It's especially fun when we get the whole club out," Ashby said.

Which is one of the reasons for the club in the first place.

"Basically we like to go out and have fun," Grul said. "We try to make it a family affair. We take the family out and enjoy the scenery, the surroundings out of the city. That's why there are so many four-wheel drives out there today."

"We don't want to harm the desert tortoise or cactus. It's just a way to enjoy the landscape," Kirk Shelley said.

Shelley started Ari-Vada in 1987 with seven members. Today he is the treasurer. When he isn't going off-road for fun, he does it for profit. Shelley recently became a guide for Action Tours of Las Vegas, a company that offers tours (both on- and off-road) by van and SUV.

Shelley said neither Ari-Vada nor Action Tours wants to harm the environment.

"It is not our intent to go into an area and trash it," he said. "We want it to be available for our kids and grandkids to enjoy."

Speed bump

Ashby and Grul, both Las Vegas residents, are among nearly 10,000 members of four-wheel-drive clubs nationwide devoted to taking paths less traveled. Interests range from those (such as the Ari-Vada group) who like to pucker up on their rides, to those who simply want to drive on dirt.

The Sierra Club, one of the leading environmental protection organizations in the country, would prefer that such motorists take a hike.

"Off-road vehicles are out of control on public lands," Tanya Tolchin, the Sierra Club's spokeswoman in Washington, D.C., said. "They tend to be allowed to go where they can affect water quality and wildlife habitats. Historical and archeological sites can be affected as well.

"(Off-road driving) is becoming an increasing problem. Land-management agencies don't tend to have enough funding for enforcement to keep (the drivers) out of sensitive areas."

Also, she said, off-road vehicles (ORVs) contribute to soil erosion and cause noise pollution, which impacts wildlife.

"There is a place for ORVs on public land," Tolchin said, "but we want to protect the wildest areas that are still pristine. What we want is for the land-management agencies to do a study to determine if a certain trail can be damaged (by vehicle traffic)."

Tolchin noted that while many ORV clubs try to use trails responsibly, others don't. Hence, the Sierra Club and ORV clubs are natural enemies.

Many states have ORV clubs that formed a national association 25 years ago called the United Four Wheeler Associations. Based in Shelbyville, Ind., the UFWA has a lawyer on staff who keeps track of all attempts nationwide to close public land.

Frank Noel, a resident of Happy Jack, Ariz., is the spokesman for UFWA. "We are trying to preserve a sport called four-wheel driving," he said. "Our belief is that public land should be accessible by the public. The Sierra Club has a different belief. The Sierra Club uses money and emotions to try to keep ORVs off of public land."

According to Noel, UFWA's membership jumped 20 percent last year because of publicity about the federal government's attempts to close vast tracts of public land.

"We sued the National Forest Service for not following the law (by holding public meetings before closing land) and we won. The Forest Service had to change their ways," he said.

Ashby said the Sierra Club, the U.S. Forest Service and the BLM have nothing to fear from Ari-Vada.

"We follow the rules of nature -- leave it better than when you got there," he said. "We don't come back without a load of trash very often."

During one cleanup, they amassed 250 cubic yards of trash.

"We don't go out there and tear the land up," Grul said. "Where clubs and organizations come in, you treat the land as if it was your own. You're not out there to destroy the property. The last thing we want to do is leave our garbage and not show respect for the land. We don't want to destroy it for others."

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