Videos like this make me jealous!
The infamous yellow Jeep of Matt's Off Road Recovery! Very entertaining channel. Utah is quite beautiful indeed, I hope to make it up there one day soon. The dunes look a lot softer than the hard-packed sand dunes we got here in California.
The trail at the top of my list right now is Shut Eye Peak, hoping to get out there some time before the end of the year.
Unfortunately the best video of the trail is filled with Toyotas :(
I love the way they're all out there as a family with a flock of XJs :) I'd love to be able to roam offroad that freely. I thought the stock Jeep did amazingly well, and it looked almost camo with the red/orange paint against those dunes and rocks. Amazing.
I've been to Colorado (20 years ago) and hiked down into/out of the Grand Canyon with a couple of nights in tents at the bottom by the river. The countryside out there is absolutely mind blowing.
I know what you mean, seems like they were able to drive where ever they wanted rather than having to stick to a "trail". Not only did it do well, it was towing a UTV while doing it, pretty impressive. That thing had some really nice articulation going on.
It would be nice to be out in the bush with a flock of P38's :) I will say that I am lucky enough to have a huge Land Rover club in the area but no other P38's :(
That looks fantastic :)
I'd love to off road properly but in the UK your options are limited to paying for a couple of laps of an old quarry or meeting at a secret crossroads on the third moon after Michaelmas to exchange ancient scrolls containing the knowledge of the mystical Green Lanes - which have all been shut when you get there.
Haha, it's actually not that much better here, at least in the SF Bay Area. There are 2 off-road parks here but both are about 90 minutes away, and once you've been there a few times you've done everything there is to do, and it's not very scenic.
There are lots of trails in the Sierra Mountains but that's at least a 3 hour drive, which does make for great camping trips, but means that getting out in the bush is huge commitment. So I actually get to play with the Rover only a few times a year :( I guess I shouldn't complain though, it could be worse. Environmentalists tried to get the Pismo Beach Sand Dunes shut down, luckily that was unsuccessful.
Have you tried the uk equivalent of trails.com or offroadtrails.com? Sites like that, and local off road forums, will generally point you in the right direction for finding new trails.
There is a mapping app but it is owned and run by the Green Lanes association. You have to join to get access. I probably should.
The other option is to go to the local council and look at the "Definitive Map" which will tell you what is where, but the legal situation is complicated here since the only trails you can legally offroad (unless you own the land) are ancient roads which were never surfaced. Many of them have been legally shut to motor vehicles over the years and many others are impassable.
Even if you find a Green Lane that is legal, it may well have been served with a TRO due to damage/mud/potential damage to the track which isn't necessarily very temporary.
Basically this is a very crowded island so you'll always bump into someone and it can get a bit tribal between Hikers, Cyclists, Horse Riders, and people in 4x4s or motorbikes.
Meh, I'd just pay the membership fee, seems like they're putting the money to good use fixing the trails and such. Probably a lot of LR guys that are members on there as well, you might just find the flock after all.
There's always going to be those few people that seem to think they own the trail. It's a bit frustrating really because they can hike literally anywhere they want where as we are limited to certain trails where we can go off road, but that's life.
Hiking is also limited to the designated routes. Hikers have the most access, but if there's no right of way on the map you're trespassing.
I probably will join a group once the lockdown is lifted but I don't get a lot of time away from the keyboard and out in the room with the big blue roof!
When I was a kid we used to beach launch boats but I believe it's been illegal to take vehicles on any UK beach for a long time?
One of the places we took boats was Shell Island in Wales, the largest campsite in Europe and privately owned (at the time there was a loophole in the law that meant anyone could drive anything on private land even in public areas). Shell island gradually blends into sand dunes and a large beach at one end and along it's length there are wide but very rocky access paths down to various beaches. We were always boating so I learned to drive there when I was just tall enough to reach the pedals.. cars, tractors, land rovers, a lwb 6 ton lorry converted to a campervan... sometimes towing a boat at the back and pushing another boat (towbar on landrover front bumper) at the same time. Fond memories of being asked to take the car myself to the local town petrol station to buy petrol (which definitely was illegal as it did involve driving on proper roads) and taking the long way back doing a bit of off-roading on my own! But all those loopholes have been closed for years now, can probably still do whatever you want on private land but not in public areas - would you need special liability insurance for green lane-ing?
I don't think so as they are technically roads, just un-surfaced. There was a recent change in the law designed to remove rights to drive on Green Lanes which has made it a lot more difficult because you have to prove continuous use of the lane or it changes status to something only accessible to non-motorised traffic. But I'm getting out of my depth.
The bottom line is that 4x4 is only really practical on private land.
Jesus Christ. You guys need a revolution or something, the liberal nanny state is ridiculous.
Actually we need a revolution to remove the people who own all the land. The Government is powerless against those vested interests.
They bought it, they own it, they can do what they want with it. Historically, government seizing land from owners has never been good for the public.....
It's the legislators making laws banning use of green lanes no? Seems like the lobby that wants to ban recreational off road use is a lot stronger than the lobby fighting to keep them open.
That's the biggest problem in this country, virtually every square inch of land is owned by someone so it is private property. There's footpaths and bridleways (the difference being you can only walk along a footpath but you can also ride a horse (and I think a bicycle) on a bridleway) and even where these cross somebody's land, woe betide anyone that strays off the marked path. There's a few, very few, green lanes that are classified so they can be used by anyone, but in many cases they are either overgrown so impassible or someone has laid claim to them.
The worst offenders are the ramblers, those that want to walk in peaceful, quiet countryside and bugger anyone else. They will claim that off road vehicles, both 2 and 4 wheeled, are noisy so disturb the peace of the countryside and damage the natural habitat of wildlife. Sometimes they have a point and some green lanes have been churned up by overuse by vehicles but once they win in getting them banned from one place, it makes it easier for them to lobby to get them banned from others.
what is the best way to share a small video from my collection
eg (go pro video)
Upload it to Youtube and post a link to it.
kultur wrote:
They bought it, they own it, they can do what they want with it. Historically, government seizing land from owners has never been good for the public.....
It's the legislators making laws banning use of green lanes no? Seems like the lobby that wants to ban recreational off road use is a lot stronger than the lobby fighting to keep them open.
Very few of the large landowners bought their land, most of it is inherited. In many cases it has been in the family over 300 years.
But no, there's no danger of any government seizing land in the UK. When land is needed for roads or w/e they have a thing called a CPO (Compulsory Purchase Order) where a value is calculated and the owner has to accept it.
This isn't something that is relevant to offroading though.
Simply a matter of Land mass / Population size Kultur; The US is 40 times the area of the UK but only 5 times the Population...
In some parts of the US I have driven for an hour or so in the without actually seeing another vehicle (and not just on trails) !