Noblett's Canyon has been the source of much interest and controversy for the last decade. The Kamas Ranger District has been involved in Noblett's Canyon issues in order to protect and maintain public access to National Forest System Lands in that area. We felt that increased development of the private lands in the Weber drainage was reducing public opportunities to access National Forest System Lands.
There are two primary areas of controversy in this area—the Nobletts Canyon area to the north and the South Fork of the Weber.  The Nobletts area contains an unimproved road that was built for extracting timber many years ago.  In 1985, the Wasatch-Cache National Forest Plan designated the Nobletts area as NON-MOTORIZED. A later Travel Plan, completed by the Kamas Ranger in 1996, re-analyzed all potential motorized road and trail routes on the District and made the decision to either permanently close or keep each road/trail.  The decision depended on public access needs, natural resource protection, wildlife disturbance, and effects to adjacent private lands. During this process, the decision was made for the Nobletts Area to remain closed to motorized use in the summer for watershed protection.  Snowmobiles are allowed when there is adequate snow-pack to prevent soil disturbance.
In 2000, Congress initiated a program to increase funding for Forest roads. Many designated “open” roads were scheduled to be maintained or improved.  In addition, roads designated as “closed” and routes that had been built for short-term, logging access were scheduled for decommissioning. One has to remember that nationally, the Forest service has between 300,000 miles and 500,000 miles of road most of which is not maintained. The Forest Service has received substantial criticism that the agency does not know how many roads there are on forest lands, that there are many user-created routes not in forest inventories, and that it is fiscally impossible to manage the large existing inventory of roads. They provided money so those roads not authorized in a Motorized Travel Plan would be decommissioned. It is important to note: NO ROAD IN FOREST INVENTORIES CAN BE DECOMMISSIONED WITHOUT GOING THROUGH A PUBLIC INVOLVEMENT PROCESS SUCH AS A MOTORIZED TRAVEL PLAN. Of course, a road or route pioneered illegally can be removed at any time.

The decommissioning process involves scarifying soil and covering the area with down wood and debris to promote plant re-growth and reduce soil erosion during the recovery process.  In some cases, building barricades to prevent trespass is required.  The old logging road in Nobletts, designated closed in 1985, was decommissioned in July 2001. Also decommissioned were some adjacent routes that had been created by 4- wheelers.  This decommissioned area is the area that the photographs on the website www.utahatvtrails.com were taken.
The second area of controversy, the South Fork of the Weber, consists of numerous parcels of private land beginning at Hwy 213 and extending to the National Forest Boundary approximately 2 ½  miles from the highway.  A county maintained road runs up the South Fork of the Weber Canyon from the highway to the forest boundary.  This road remains open to all motorized use and connects users to a forest road that is also open to motorized use for several miles.
Despite the non-motorized designation in 1985 of the Nobletts Canyon and the availability of motorized trails and roads in the South Fork canyon, there have been repeated trespass problems in the area. A parking area for horsemen, mountain biker and hikers was constructed in Nobletts Canyon at the forest boundary in 1997.  The lot was graveled and a cable fence was placed to delineate where motorized access ended and non-motorized access continued.
 

A sign was posted to describe the project: NOBBLET'S CANYON PARKING ALLOWED Please be good citizens and neighbors! Respect the private land rights and boundaries along the South Fork Road and the Lower Nobletts Canyon Road to this parking area. Remember that Noblett's Canyon is open only to pedestrian, equestrian and bike users beyond this point.

Within a few weeks motorized users were ignoring the non-motorized designation and lifting their ATVs over the cable fence and riding up Nobletts Canyon.  In addition, summer homeowners were riding ATVs from Hidden Lake and Pine Mountain down into Nobletts. Initially, the Forest Service tried additional signing which was either removed or vandalized. In 1998, we constructed a buck and rail fence in lower Nobletts and signed upper Nobletts with Carsonite markers. Over the next two years, the buck and rail fence was vandalized at least twice with chain saws and signs were removed, presumably by motorized users so they could continue to trespass in a designated non-motorized areas.  As the Forest Service beefed up our fences to keep 4-wheelers out of the non-motorized area, it was called to our attention that we had made access difficult for snowmobiles (which are allowed) to access the area.  In 2000, we attempted to make snowmobile access to Nobletts easier and again the barrier was vandalized with a chain saw.

During the Nobletts decommissioning process of 2001, we discovered 1.2 miles of trail constructed illegally by ATV use on the ridge north of Nobletts Canyon.  All of our signing was gone, routes across private land from the east and west crossed onto the forest and a route up Nobletts Canyon was being pioneered up onto Slader Ridge (about two miles).  The route up to Slader ridge was up to 45 degrees in steepness in some places resulting in substantial erosion.

As the decommissioning process in the area progressed, the Kamas Ranger District received comments and complaints about the visual unattractiveness of the way the area looked. We recognize that this rehabilitation process looks initially destructive.  However, we have done extensive rehab work over the last ten years on our district, specifically during a 6-year dam restoration project. We have found that the techniques we used are very effective. We scarify the soil with a track hoe, distribute native seeds and push down trees to provide the shade, stabilization, micro-environments and humidity, all of which greatly enhance plant growth and reduce the occurrence of noxious weeds.  (Note: the existing roads in Nobletts were all vegetated with shallow rooted noxious weed). In a year there will be substantial new growth in vegetation and the Forest will look no different that many other areas where wind storms have blown down trees.  In addition to the purpose of enhancing revegetation, the down trees also provide a physical barrier to travel off the rehabilitated areas.  In places where we have only scarified soil and seeded routes, ATVs have continued to travel over the rehabilitated area and damaging our rehab efforts.

We received a number of calls about horse/hiker/snowmobile access. We explained that a hiking/horse/mountain bike route was under construction.  While we were working on a single track for horse/bikes/ and foot traffic in lower Nobletts and up to the ridge our SWECO dozer needed repair. Unfortunately, several weeks passed without being able to work on a single-track trail that is wide enough for a snowmobile. Currently, we have several more days work. When completed snowmobile, as well as, horses, hikers, and mountain bikes will be able to reach the upper ridge north of Nobletts.

In conclusion, it is important that if ATV users wish to protect their right to ride, they need to work together to ensure that they are doing so in a responsible manner. Riders need to contact local Forest Service offices to obtain a copy of the routes open to motorized use. Be sure to always follow the rules of the road, including Utah State Off-Highway Vehicle Regulations. Stay on designated routes and be courteous to other users. Lastly, get involved in the travel management planning efforts early and stay involved.