FOREST SERVICE: Spiked booby trap found on popular Colo. OHV trail
Phil Taylor, E&E reporter
Greenwire: Wednesday, May 14, 2014
The Forest Service is searching for whomever placed a spiked booby trap on a popular off-highway vehicle trail in the Pike National Forest in Colorado's Front Range.
The homemade device was discovered May 5 on a single-track trail by a rider in the Rampart Range Recreation Area about 35 miles southwest of Denver.
Forest Service officials say the partly buried device was designed to puncture a tire or injure an unsuspecting hiker, posing a significant public safety risk. No suspects have been identified and a motive is unknown.
"The safety of the public and our employees is our highest concern," Laura Mark, a special agent in charge for the Rocky Mountain Region, said in a statement. "Anyone who has information about this is encouraged to contact the Forest Service law enforcement officials."
The Rampart Range has been open to OHVs -- mainly motorbikes, but also smaller all-terrain vehicles -- for decades and is highly popular due to its proximity to Denver and Colorado Springs. It offers 115 miles of trails through scenic, mid-elevation ponderosa pine forests.
Forest Service spokeswoman Barbara Timock said the agency is taking the incident "very, very seriously" and hopes to arrest and convict whoever placed the device. She described it as barbed wire and nails wrapped around a piece of wood.
This spike strip was found partly buried on a popular OHV trail in the Pike National Forest. The Forest Service is investigating the incident. Photo courtesy of Jerry Abboud.
"We really don't know what the intent of this was," she said. "We just want people to be aware, so they are very alert."
Timock did not disclose the location of the device, citing the ongoing investigation, but she said she was unaware of an incident like this occurring before. Neither the Teller nor Douglas county sheriff's departments were aware of the incident yesterday afternoon.
Jerry Abboud, president of the Colorado Off-Highway Vehicle Coalition, said booby traps were found in at least two locations.
He provided a photo of one of the devices, which consisted of a footlong steel rod wrapped with 2.5-inch spikes. He said whoever made it would need to be an experienced welder.
Timock declined to comment on the device in Abboud's photo nor would she say if multiple devices were found.
Abboud did not speculate which group of recreationists the device was targeting, but he said similar devices in the past have targeted motorized users. He said one dirt biker got thrown from his vehicle and injured his ankle, and at least three other blown tires were reported.
"It's a little scary," he said of the sophistication of one of the devices. "It makes people nervous."
The device was also a major hazard to hikers, mountain bikers and equestrians who use Rampart, Abboud said. Had a horse stepped on the partially buried spikes, it could have reared on the narrow trail and landed on its rider, he said.
"If you don't like motorized recreation, you're probably best off not killing a bunch of other trail users," he said.
Conflicts between motorized and nonmotorized trail users is common in the West, where an increasing number of people are recreating on a finite amount of public lands. In online social forums, OHV riders blamed liberal environmentalists for placing the device, but some also suggested it could have been an ATV rider upset over lack of access to the single-track trails.
The device was found days before roughly 50 ATV enthusiasts took part in an illegal ride through southeast Utah's Recapture Canyon to protest the Bureau of Land Management's closure of the area to motorized vehicles to protect archaeological resources.
