Rental ATV Boom in North Country

[peakbagger]

I ran into a local familiar with the local ATV trends in the Berlin Gorham area. His claim is that the current fleet of 250 rental ATVs in the area should be expanding up to close to 600 this summer. I think the big expansion will be up near Jericho Lake State Park as the site currently renting ATVS in Gorham is just about maxed out as the rentals are occupying the entire lot. Gorham may be the preferred location for tourists to rent but relative to the current trail system its quite a distance from Jericho and its denser trail network. There is only one major connector route north from the trailhead at the trestle in Gorham and it a very dusty congested route. By putting more rentals near Jericho, it spreads the usage out a bit but at least currently there are minimal tourist services nearby.

The impact to the hiking public is that Fish and Game and to a lesser extent the towns are already spending a lot of overtime dealing with ATV crashes. The majority of crashes are by rental clients. Like lemmings, folks are still coming to rent ATVs and seem to be immune to the cost and risk of running an ATV with 20 minutes of instruction. Luckily the ATV routes tend to be in the valleys north of RT2 and are not permitted in the vast majority of the national forest and federal lands (maybe all if it?). The ATV routes are on a mix of industrial forest lands, private lands and some (but not all) state owned and controlled lands.

 

[Andrew]

There is only one major connector route north from the trailhead at the trestle in Gorham and it a very dusty congested route.

Its too bad better planning didn't happen with much of all this, as the major problems that arose in Gorham were predicted and maybe could have been avoided. It was intentional though as the promoters knew that it would just force the negative issues to be dealt with as they had the political support.

I (winter) groomed that trail once that connects Gorham with Jericho with a Piston Bully 185 (Trail Bully) and a 9'x18' drag early when it opened, and I was some scared. As it developed as such a major route, I always winced at the thought for the safety of some of the riders I knew were traveling on it.

 

[skiguy]

Its too bad better planning didn't happen with much of all this, as the major problems that arose in Gorham were predicted and maybe could have been avoided. It was intentional though as the promoters knew that it would just force the negative issues to be dealt with as they had the political support.

I (winter) groomed that trail once that connects Gorham with Jericho with a Piston Bully 185 (Trail Bully) and a 9'x18' drag early when it opened, and I was some scared. As it developed as such a major route, I always winced at the thought for the safety of some of the riders I knew were traveling on it.

Could you be more specific what the safety concerns are for that corridor? Is it the terrain itself or the amount of traffic? Possibly a combination of both?

 

[CaptCaper]

Could you be more specific what the safety concerns are for that corridor? Is it the terrain itself or the amount of traffic? Possibly a combination of both?

I'm sure if there is a part that is a problem it will be dealt with. Big boys and girls they are. Good for them. Good for the N.Country. Better then Casino's with drunks,pimps,hookers,drug peddlers,etc coming in. Or huge factories and the type they bring in. Might end up looking like alot of Mass ended up as if it went that way. Many families use the ATV system as well.

And they put more money into Fish and Game I'm sure then do hikers so if they need their service so be it with no complaints from me. I'm sure the ratio for rescues for hikers vs atv's and the costs accrued with fees to the Fish and Game will show ATV's pay their own way.

Short season so why not.

 

[Jazzbo]

Renting ATV's offers benefit avoiding cost and headaches of purchasing, ownership, maintaining, insuring, registering, towing your own machine. Normally we kayak, but last summer we rented a power boat and had great day out on Squam Lake. Renting is not cheap, but still beats all the headaches of ownership of expensive toys and if it benefits the local tourist economy I'm all for it. it would be different story if we lived up north then we might invest in purchasing a boat or snow mobile.

 

[NHClimber]

We've rented before and gone up the Gorham to Jericho trail several times. Not particularly challenging IMO and I'm not into the ATV scene, but I'm happy to see people enjoying themselves. Went through Gorham this AM and it was utterly dead quiet other than the rental place. So seems a decent activity to generate revenue for the town. Every activity has its costs and people getting themselves into trouble. ATV, snowmachine and other off-road activities are no worse than many other sports in terms of people getting themselves into trouble. And as someone above said, better to see recreational sports than casinos or general economic degradation. I laugh every time I see pictures of the lines going up the South Col on Everest or, for those of us with less lofty pursuits, the lines of flip-flop wearing folk headed up Tucks in the summer.

 

[Andrew]

It's what became known as Smitty's Trail. It's a nice enough trail as it heads generally south out of Jericho and negotiates over a ridge. But as it drops towards Gorham and connects to the old truck road that is Corridor 16 (snomo trail), it runs down a very steep slope quite a way where they had to cut the side-hill. This was just after the trail was first cut and I'm remembering now that I think I was with the White Mt. Ridgerunners trailmaster who was driving the groomer, with me terrified in the passenger seat. Always fun when you are tugging along over a ton of metal and snow behind you that wants to slide sideways down the hill. I rode this trail one other time on a snowmachine, as I would sometimes ride out of Moose Brook State Park up to the warming hut in Jericho in order to shovel the snow out of the outhouse and clean it. The trail made me nervous, and I often had concern towards some individuals I knew were using it (like the family with young children asking the quickest way to ride back to Gorham late in the day). At that early point the trail was not so much cut and ditched into the side-hill, but more just plastered to the slope and heavily pitched.

The only other available direct trail route to Gorham was the only original route between Gorham and Berlin (Jericho) is the old railbed on the east side. But this involves negotiating roadways in Berlin that is not always preferred by riders, despite this being the hope of Berlin businesses and part of the design. The current route through the woods, heads north out of Gorham behind Pike Industries on an old logging truck road that is the superhighway of snowmobile corridor 16. There is only one little wiggly section in the middle between Gorham/Jericho and it is open for snowmachine traffic, but unpermitted for ATV use. I was one of the principles with the development of Jericho Mt. State Park, so was often in the room or part of the discussions on many of these developments. When finding the route for Smitty's Trail, the trails bureau had to compromise much of the location per the request from Town of Gorham (Water Dept.) to keep the trail out of the town forest watershed.

Peakbagger is absolutely right that it is a struggle for the growing ATV rental businesses to operate and expand out of Gorham as both him and I have lived with and seen the struggles with this traffic. That's why North East set up a trailer just outside of Jericho even though their business is in Gorham, so that they could more easily rent to folks who want to ride in Jericho. And in Gorham when this all started, I stated at the first town meeting as a resident, that the best thing to do would be to develop a large trailhead to accommodate trucks with trailers within close walking proximity to businesses, have an information kiosk, and provide toilets. This was not done and instead a neighborhood was terrorized for some time to the point of suing the State of NH, with a safety/traffic nightmare on Rte.2 and people driving 3 hours to get out and pee in private lawns and not know where they are going. I would say this was poor planning and ironic that they just finally developed into the Polaris parking lot/trailhead that should have been there in the beginning. I was fully committed to developing the success of the ATV park at Jericho and the larger community and worked very hard towards this end, but man when they got vicious and ran roughshod over everyone else's concerns, I had no interest.

And I'm sorry I really don't want my wildlife enforcement professionals time totally wasted by silly ATV issues. I know this is where the law is now but it's a shame. What a waste of talent for something that should be a function of DOT, Dept. of Safety, or the NH Trails Bureau itself. The Trails Bureau personnel used to be sworn enforcement officers for OHRV laws. Around 2008 they removed this from the job role in order to keep current staff employed and eligible for some promotions where maintaining police certification and standards and training was required. Also, Coos County Sheriffs Dept. has contracted to enforce OHRV rules for years now and it is the perfect group to do so. I know all those guys and they retire from NH State Police, NH F&G, and Coos Sheriff's Dept. to get rehired as part-time Coos Deputies and most love riding ATV. It's just beyond me that in a state that is short on Wardens takes a group of people highly trained in wildlife issues and skilled and equipped in technical rescue have to spend an inordinate amount of time playing traffic cop and OHRV accident response/reconstruction. I for one value wildlife and attention to these issues more. In fact, Lt. Ober from Region 1 announced over a month ago that they would no longer respond to OHRV incidents on town roadways as it was an inappropriate drain on the limited warden resources, more appropriately handled by local law enforcement.

But I know, it's all about the money.

 

[NHClimber]

I think the trail to Jericho is more of an issue for ATV'ers than snowmachine users. It is nothing special in terms of difficulty for snowmachines (again, just my opinion -- trails like Cherry Mountain, Pleasant Mt. in Bridgton and Mt. Will in Bethel are steeper and are single track, to name a few) and, as noted above, I never found the Gorham-Jericho trail to be challenging on an ATV, although perhaps I was not the typical rental customer (it was painful listening to the orientation). Granted, the Gorham side is somewhat steep in sections, and perhaps for some inexperienced renters it might be more daunting (at least when going down). But I have found that the people who get themselves into trouble will do so in just about any sport in which they participate b/c it's an issue of using proper judgment. So, like most activities, we need to do the best we can under the circumstances to manage the activity and I'm not for dumbing down trails to meet the needs of the most inexperienced user (we'd have to abandon a lot of our favorite hiking trails in the Whites). And in terms of steepness, the trail is not so steep as to be a problem for drainage and erosion. Perhaps the better course is to require more rider education on the nature of the trail just so that people are reminded that it is not a rail trail but it is also within the average rider's wheelhouse provided they aren't acting stupid.

I think the train left the station a long time ago re: deployment of F&G beyond wildlife management. I agree that in a perfect world that's what they would focus on, exclusively. But woods recreation encompasses all categories of use and F&G shouldn't be deployed to police and rescue only certain "preferred" land users.

I think we have to give the local community some degree of economic prosperity and whether we like it or not, the focus needs to be on a practical means by which to accomplish that, even if those means are not to the liking of certain groups (which will always be the case) or carried out in a manner that we all can agree on (will never happen). That said, .gov can nearly always do a better job of management, but it is becoming hard to build consensus these days due to an increasing lack of civility in our culture such that discussion inevitably devolves into name calling and shouting over each other b/c no one will compromise on anything. Add to that the fact that in our culture, people just can't stand losing. One of the reasons I increasingly take a step back and realize that in the big scheme of things, I am not going to lose any sleep over not getting my way.

I was glad to see that they developed the new trailhead in Gorham -- better late than never. Interestingly, it seems that the old trailhead is still for snowmachines, though I haven't checked in a while.

 

[peakbagger]

I am confused, I thought the only ATV route open to Jericho was via the old B&M railroad track on the East side of the river. It does get the vast majority of the traffic. That trail is about as straight as an arrow for much of its length. After the rails were taken out, it was regraded for vehicle traffic. Unfortunately, the soils it goes through are a silty clay that has been pounded into brown baby powder. In dry weather the plume from the passage of ATVs is visible on the other side of the river and sled riders were on occasion running into each other as the visibility was so poor. There were improvements to the entrance from RT 16 at the trestle and the closing of the parking on Rt2 to ATVs had reduced traffic past adjoining properties. Snowmobile traffic has been far less controversial along the B&M line. Unlike the ATV traffic the former B&M right of way is open and maintained west of the RT 2 lot all the way to Whitefield, a major point of contention with the ATV community who want the same access.

 

[Andrew]

Peakbagger- the east side route was the only original direct route between Gorham and Berlin, but there was a need/desire for an all woods route between the two, and eventually Smitty's Trail was cut as an option, and it branches off the old truck road that leads up behind Pike. NHClimber I'm sure this is a great trail for many experienced riders, but for the inexperienced renters that are bursting out of Gorham, it does present a challenge for many. I had said that I only rode Smitty's once in the winter to perform maintenance in Jericho when starting from Moose Brook, but I did this often by other trails that were more direct and efficient between the two locations (in winter via snomo). Basically, I found Smitty's more of a challenging/longer diversion and did not like to use it. Many of the less-experienced riders that I and park staff talked to daily were often asking for alternatives. There are actually a lot more accidents than people hear about, (which I'm not complaining or condemning about - people can take the risks they are comfortable with) but it does seem that we hear quite often locally, that there was yet another atv accident on Smitty's Trail and almost always a renter.

So as a former resident of Gorham being well aware of all the impacts and issues the community is dealing with; it's understandable for people on the sidelines to scratch their heads about seeing major expansion of the atv rental businesses in the heart of downtown Gorham. There has been contention between Berlin and Gorham over who would be the major recipients of benefit from the new atv business, and I think most thought it was Berlin. But it has unfortunately evolved more to Gorham as the more attractive destination, but maybe that will change in the future if Berlin can get more hospitality infrastructure investment. I guess people also like Gorham since the mountains are right there around you and you have the feeling of being in a tourist hub, although I always enjoyed the lower slung ledgy rugged hills around Berlin.

I for one respect the desire for some to ride ATV's for sport, and fully support that a state would develop specific properties and trail networks to do so. I personally don't think this use is a natural fit for existing conservation properties, as I see it as somewhat antithetical to the conservation goals the properties were established for. Having lived and worked in heavy atv use locations, it can be a significant negative impact on your life, hence I myself left Gorham, and live in fear that atv use will expand over here. Listening to those machines grinding through the woods and revving for hours makes me wish I was dead.

add:

I do want to apologize for my extreme perspective on this issue, I obviously suffer from ATV induced PTSD causing me some mental illness that apparently really gets under my skin.

I did want to say that I would prefer seeing more light industry up north here if it has limited negative impacts on the community as well as recreation. Especially in the Gorham/Berlin area there were limited full time, long-term stable jobs, with recreation associated jobs mostly being part time and seasonal. To some people there is advantage towards the seasonal job opportunities, like for teachers, youth, and retirees.

 

[dug]

Better then Casino's with drunks,pimps,hookers,drug peddlers,etc coming in. .

I can't comment on the pimps and hookers, but you'd be naïve to think there aren't drunks, drug "peddlers", etc. in the ATV crew as well.

 

[peakbagger]

BTW, there is a casino in Berlin http://www.northwoodscasinollc.com/ I do not think the mob has moved in to run it yet.

Operating under the influence is cited on occasion for ATV accidents and enforcement sweeps. https://atvman.com/nh/#:~:text=Unsu...hire, the same,and loss of driving privileges.

Sadly, like all of NH, illegal drugs are a concern all over the state. Maine has made it incredibly convenient to access adult use marijuana with facilities right over the state line in West Bethel and Fryeburg. It is legal to consume on private property in Maine but illegal to bring it into NH

I too cannot contribute much too the pimps and hookers discussion.

 

[skiguy]

Operating under the influence is cited on occasion for ATV accidents and enforcement sweeps. https://atvman.com/nh/#:~:text=Unsu...hire, the same,and loss of driving privileges.

Also of note rescue costs even if you have a Hike Safe Card, fishing/ hunting license, or OHRV registration are not covered either if Alcohol is involved and you are proven negligent. In other words if your going to be negligent don't be consuming alcohol. Lot's of beer and alcohol gets consumed on Summits these days evident by all the pictures on social media. I don't recall any hiker rescues involving alcohol and negligence that have come into the spotlight.

 

[CaptCaper]

I can't comment on the pimps and hookers, but you'd be naïve to think there aren't drunks, drug "peddlers", etc. in the ATV crew as well.

Come on man. You can't compare ATV guys to the huge influx of folks casinos and the like draw. You must be lliving in a huge bubble I'm sure of that. I don't own an ATV but I do a snowmachine.

And it's much easier rescueing a atv incident then hikers stuck on the side of the mountains. Or frozen stiffs on top of one and having our rescue guys put in harms way going up there in nasty conditions.

Better think about opening up the welcome mat for atv's etc or Berlin/Gorham North Country will or could go downhill fast. Belin is the most depressing spot followed by Groveton and Gorham.

 

[dug]

Come on man. You can't compare ATV guys to the huge influx of folks casinos and the like draw. You must be lliving in a huge bubble I'm sure of that. I don't own an ATV but I do a snowmachine.

And it's much easier rescueing a atv incident then hikers stuck on the side of the mountains. Or frozen stiffs on top of one and having our rescue guys put in harms way going up there in nasty conditions.

Better think about opening up the welcome mat for atv's etc or Berlin/Gorham North Country will or could go downhill fast. Belin is the most depressing spot followed by Groveton and Gorham.

Can't make this up....

I made no mention of whether I am for or against the ATV's in that area. I have family that live there, and THEY are for and against it. Not sure how your post relates to hikers needing rescued, either.

That being said, you are the one that lives in a bubble if you think a large subset of ATV drivers don't have a few. I, personally, have never been on one without....

 

[skiguy]

Come on man. You can't compare ATV guys to the huge influx of folks casinos and the like draw. You must be lliving in a huge bubble I'm sure of that. I don't own an ATV but I do a snowmachine.

And it's much easier rescueing a atv incident then hikers stuck on the side of the mountains. Or frozen stiffs on top of one and having our rescue guys put in harms way going up there in nasty conditions.

Better think about opening up the welcome mat for atv's etc or Berlin/Gorham North Country will or could go downhill fast. Belin is the most depressing spot followed by Groveton and Gorham.

I agree. Unfortunately it is easy to misunderstand the comments here at times as the tone and underlying intentions of OP’s can be misconstrued. There certainly IMO is a difference between facts and propaganda. I have called out the moderators here numerous times on the allowance of certain posters obvious political agendas which can be offensive to some including myself. This is most certainly evident when it comes to the so called “North Country”. The answer from the moderators is always they don’t see it and that it is not a violation of the boards rules. So I guess I get my tough skin on. Yet I try to filter through the political BS and stick to the facts. I will admit living at the foot of the WMNF I have a bird’s eye view of what is actually substance therefore being able to form my views based on facts.

 

[Andrew]

I do think they are going to have to address carrying capacity issues at some point, and it may be that within the limits of the state park just in that the parks agency is aware of such issues and has and continues to develop methods to act as they have at other parks. It's unfortunate now that many of our state parks are getting difficult to access without advance reservations. We had numerous discussions about trying to require and collect fees at the park trail boundaries, with most of us at the site not being able to figure out a reasonable way to do this (as Concord HQ wanted us to do it), especially in a fair manner that considered all users. Sorry- another subject, but we held to only collect fees from those to which we provided direct visitor convenience services to. So at Jericho it was just to park in our o-so-fine parking lot, use our flush toilets, and get a map (although I was fighting with the staff as they felt they should not provide the map). Use of the trails is covered by the NH OHRV registration fees.

I rode quite a bit during numerous ATV events and the trails would get some-busy and people loved it as a great mobile social event, but I hope, and don't think the trails are that busy yet on a regular basis. Heavy use is tough on the trails and the Trails Bureau crew struggled for years to keep up as it is difficult to find ideal periods to close major trails and get the excavators and the grader out. Just when I left, they had bought a rock crushing unit that attached to a new tractor they also just bought, and the thing would move along and lay down crush. Problem is the property is a boulder field.

I know not all, but really many folks up here who are not fans of expanded ATV use in their communities and favorite woodlands, nonetheless welcome and accommodate those that are here.

 

[peakbagger]

Not everyone in the area is thrilled with the impact of ATVs in Gorham

https://www.conwaydailysun.com/berl...cle_ba9978ae-9358-11ec-8eda-035d43c1ad4e.html

The town and state have been spending a lot of taxpayer money and on occasion trying to ridicule the litigants hoping this lawsuit would go away and managed to chip away a lot of the substance. The private individuals on the other hand have been paying out of their pocket.

 

[skiguy]

Not everyone in the area is thrilled with the impact of ATVs in Gorham

https://www.conwaydailysun.com/berl...cle_ba9978ae-9358-11ec-8eda-035d43c1ad4e.html

The town and state have been spending a lot of taxpayer money and on occasion trying to ridicule the litigants hoping this lawsuit would go away and managed to chip away a lot of the substance. The private individuals on the other hand have been paying out of their pocket.

Very unfortunate for those individuals. Even if they get compensated it would truly take a realignment of the corridor to alleviate or negate their problem.

 

[maineguy]

I have no interest in ATV activity, but am curious about this. Were the houses there before the corridor?