712: Help Keep Your Trails Open: Volunteering, Grants & the Forest Service Shake-Up

Just Jimmy and Tyler kicking off June with something that’s been on Jimmy’s mind since the Rubicon trip — and since the Barrett Lake outhouse project started spreading to other forests. The short version: the National Forest Service is being restructured in a way that removes local regional offices. The closest regional office for El Dorado National Forest, Tahoe National Forest, and Stanislaus National Forest is now in Salt Lake City. That means people who have never set foot on our trails are making decisions about them. Jimmy draws the parallel to what happened at Gemini Bridges and Labyrinth Rims — 2,200 miles of trails evaluated and closed by people working off a map. No boots on the ground. And those were local BLM offices. Now imagine Salt Lake City. The call to action is clear: the off-road community needs to show up at the table before the restructuring finishes and the table gets moved somewhere else. Jimmy runs through what that looks like in practice. The Mad Hatters just completed their adopted section of the Rubicon Trail. Friends of Fordyce and Friends of Rubicon had a big work weekend. Spree to Four (or the Granite Bandits — Jimmy goes back and forth) does Corral Hollow every year and opens more roads than the county can staff. There’s a work party at Moon Rocks coming up to install 32 named obstacle signs, with BLM permission. And the Barrett Lake blob bathroom project — the one the off-road community funded and built — is now being copied onto Fordyce at Committee Crossing and Wind Chill 3, and at Observation Point on the Rubicon. Tahoe National Forest, which historically does not collaborate with El Dorado National Forest, asked to copy the project. That’s what showing up looks like. How to get involved: contact your local ranger district, come with questions not demands, keep digging until you find the person who can actually answer them. Search Facebook groups for your specific riding area. If nothing exists, start the conversation. For funding, Onyx has their Trail Revival Program live right now — $5,000 grants, Jimmy applied and got one last year, the main ask is media showing the work was done. Tread Lightly and BFG also have trail grant programs. The window for making a real impact is right now, during the restructure, not after it’s done. Also in this episode: today (June 1) is the last day to use the Devos LightRanger 500 group buy discount code. The Russo May giveaway has closed — winner announcement coming Thursday. The June giveaway is not announced yet but Jimmy teases it’s a company they’ve worked with before and it’s a good one. Apple Podcast reviews are approaching 800 (Onyx Elite giveaway waiting at that mark), and Jimmy drops another hint on the big SnailArmor Black Friday launch — “we’ve already changed how inflation and deflation is done globally, and we’re about to do it again.” We have a massive discount this month with Rusoh Fire Extinguishers. You can get 25% off this month only with the discount code Rusohcrawlers. Go grab yours today! SnailTrail4x4 Discord: https://discord.gg/yFyFFkQbuyCome hang out with us on the SnailTrail4x4 Discord — it’s the easiest way to connect with Tyler and Jimmy directly, chat with fellow offroad enthusiasts, and get firs