The Surprise Canyon Road Closure in 2001

In growing concern over off-road vehicles driving and winching over waterfalls, through streams, and over riparian plants year after year, Center for Biodiversity, the Sierra Club, and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibilitysued the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in 2000 over a number of desert protection issues, including Surprise Canyon. Instead of undergoing a long drawn-out fight, BLM agreed to temporarily close Surprise Canyon to vehicles above Chris Wicht Camp, until a new Environmental Impact Study was completed. Visitors were greeted by a bar gate across the stream channel, and a sign posting BLM's closure at the trailhead.

In 2005 the California Off-Highway Vehicle Commission decided to enact a policy to protect sensitive desert riparian areas:

"Desert riparian lands should be conserved and restored, and protected in their natural state. Off-road vehicle recreation should not be expanded, encouraged, or maintained in fragile desert riparian landscapes. It is the policy of the Commission that absent extraordinary and demonstrable need, it will not fund or support any grants or cooperative agreements which will directly or indirectly encour­age, increase, or maintain off-road vehicle use in or through the bed, bank, or channel of any existing desert riparian botanical area. The Commission shall maintain a list of priority Desert Riparian lands and shall evaluate the list at least every five years to maintain the integrity of these protected areas. The Division shall not solicit or approve any grant or cooperative agreement which will develop or rees­tablish off-road vehicle use in a desert riparian area unless exempted from this policy by noticed vote of the Commission."

Other groups continuing to support the closure are Friends of the Inyo and California Wilderness Coalition.

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