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♦ Coral Pink is almost here! Check out the pre-trip crossword on page 5 to test your knowledge of our Coral Pink trips and other useless Southern Utah trivia. This year’s trip will be our 20th trip up there in 19 years.

♦ Since it is almost July, that means August is coming up and that means it is time to head to Lake Havasu. This year’s trip will be the weekend of August 16-18. Make your plans now for a river weekend in Don and Shirley’s and Jerry and Linda’s neighborhood.

♦ A few of us went to the Pomona swap meet on June 2nd and had fun both as vendors and shoppers. We are considering getting a few spaces for the August 11th event, so if you’d be interested in taking some items to sell, contact P.J.

BLM Proposes

Glamis Annual Pass Fee Increase The BLM has released details of a new business plan for the Imperial Sand Dunes Recreation Area, in which the cost of an annual pass will increase to $150, and weekly passes will increase to $35 when purchased off site. Fees would be eliminated from April 15 through September 30, shortening the fee season. This news comes after earlier proposals to eliminate the annual pass option were reported. According to a BLM press release, “In response to input from Imperial County and the general public on earlier fee proposals, the season

permit was re-instated and proposed fee increases were reduced. The BLM has been working to reduce operating costs while meeting obligations for multi-ple use management and still providing services for recreational visitors within a viable budget.”

According to an article in the Press Enterprise, costs of managing the recreation area have climbed over the past decade, while visitors and revenues have fallen steadily since 2007.

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July 8th-11th: Pre–Coral Pink time in

Mesquite, NV at the CasaBlanca.

July 11th-20th: Coral Pink! We’ll arrive

at the park on Thursday July

11th and leave on Saturday July

20th, making for 10 days of dun-

ing fun.

July 20th: Night in Mesquite on the

way home from Coral Pink.

August 11th: Pomona Swap Meet.

August 16-18th: Havasu River trip at the

Fords and now Trantams

neighborhood.

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“We know we’re not providing everything we should be providing now. We’re also overspending. Over the last three years, on average, we overspent by $562,000,” said Neil Hamada, dunes manager for the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. The added fees would help close a $1.5 million budget gap, he said.

Without the extra revenue, “there will be times when 911 calls go un-answered,” Hamada said.

In order to keep fees low, the BLM has decreased the ISDRA operating budget from $6.1 million in the 2003 Business Plan, to $5 million in the 2012 Draft Plan, to $4.6 million in this plan. To do so, the BLM has cancelled activities such as "Mini-Clean-up" days, OHV registration events, outreach and education events, and ATV safety courses. Facil-ity maintenance is now restricted to removing sand from existing roads and staffing levels are significantly reduced from 2003 levels.

Most of the emergency calls on the 214,700 acres of public land come on four weekends: Thanksgiving, Halloween, New Year’s and Presi-dents’ Day. Those holidays account for about half of the 1.2 million annual vis-its, Hamada said.

Last year, law en-forcement rangers had contact with 32,000 people over the four weekends and park rangers handled more than 300 rescues on the dunes using an off-road ambulance. Around Thanksgiving, when visi-tation surges to as many as 200,000 people, the BLM brought in three additional rangers, bringing the total to nine, he said.

It is worth noting that officers from other agencies must not be included in this total, because total law enforcement staffing at the dunes on the busy weekend far exceeds nine units. It is not clear whether the cost of additional law enforcement from other agencies is included in the pub-lished budget numbers.

The Press Enterprise article quotes Nicole Nicholas Gilles, executive director of the American Sand Association as saying, “It’s the highest-visited area for OHV recreation in the state of California, if not in the nation. You’d think they would receive the appropriate amount of fund-ing to properly manage the area.”

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Under the proposed business plan, fees would contribute about two-thirds of the revenue needed to manage the recreation area. The remaining funds would come from annually appropriated federal funds and grants from various sources.

A copy of the plan is available online at: http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/fo/elcentro.html. The public can submit comments through June 30 by email: ISDRAsubgroup@blm.gov. Then the plan will go to an advisory council in August for approval.

The fee increases would take effect Oct. 1, when the 2013-2014 season passes will be required.

Sources: BLM News Release No. CA-CDD-13-43, Press Enterprise June 8, 2013.

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After the long-anticipated Havasu RZR weekend, the marathon 87 mile RZR made me begin to question whether I was made of RZR material. I didn’t even wash it, or take it out of the garage the rest of April, or all of May. I even wondered if I should sell it. Today, June 2, I gave it another try, and decided to attempt a ride I have considered since before buying it. I wanted to leave the house, and take the RZR to the Arizona shore of Lake Mohave, just across from Cottonwood Cove. I attempted the ride last winter, but it was very cold, and I had to turn back. It took three hours under the electric blanket for me to stop feeling cold! Today the forecast was for temperatures in the high 90’s, so I figured I wouldn’t be cold. I loaded up two ice chests and five extra gallons of gas, and headed north. Looking at maps, there doesn’t appear to be any dirt roads connecting Golden Valley and the Cotton-wood Valley, about 20 miles north of the house. I could take Highway 93, but it’s a 65 mile per hour road that is the main route from I-40 to Las Vegas, with lots of truck and bus traffic. Not the kind of road I want to drive a RZR on, although we’ve seen people do it. The maps show about a five mile gap with no mapped roads. Last time, I got into the supposedly roadless area, and after going cross country for a mile or so, found a dirt road heading in the right direction. Shortly thereafter, I turned around. Today I tried a more easterly route, and took a pole line road into the supposedly roadless area. Things were going pretty well, until the power lines dropped into a steep sided sand wash. I didn’t want to drive down the steep slope without backup, so I turned cross country and paralleled the wash for a couple of miles. I had seen a house in the distance, and figured there must be a road

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near it. I worry when going cross country that I am on private land, but never pass a no trespassing sign, and only go through open gates, or those that have a sign telling users to leave the gate as it was when they found it. A mile or so from the house, which turned out to be HUGE, I came across a road that headed in the right direction. After about four miles on this road, I came to a cross road, Cottonwood Road. While scouting for a place to live a few years ago, Nancy and I came across this road, and took it towards the lake, and got to a summit from where we could see Cottonwood Cove. As I recall the road was quite rocky, and as we were in Nancy’s Subaru, we turned back. There would be no turning back today. The road was perfectly smooth, allowing me to take the RZR up to 60 miles per hour at times. Even on the downside to the lake, the road was perfect. I could see the lake and Cot-tonwood in the distance. As I entered the Lake Mead National Recreation Area, there was no fee station, only a sign saying stay on roads designated with a particular symbol, kind of an orange arrow, with a route number through the arrow. I took Cottonwood Road, now designated road 36, right down to the wa-ter’s edge. I was a couple of miles south of Cottonwood, on a cove we have boated to occa-sionally. We have seen vehicles at several dif-ferent places on the Arizona shore for years, and always wondered how far of a drive it was from the highway, and what kind of roads were there. Today I found out. I took other desig-nated roads to both sides of a cove we often swim in, and then to a bluff directly across from Cottonwood. I continued to a peninsula where we often see trucks and camps in two different locations. I now know why we see them so of-ten in those spots; they’re the only two places on the peninsula where the roads go to the lake-shore. I took another road to within a hundred yards of the Cole’s favorite houseboat beach. I headed back to the bluff overlooking Cotton-wood Cove, and, much to my surprise, had much better cell service that we do at Cotton-wood. I called P.J., then Nancy to tell them where I was. I had put almost 70 miles on the RZR. I headed back towards home, and tried a slightly different route. I rode past what seemed to be a Brahma bull, and some other cattle, and even though they ignored me, I figured I was where I shouldn’t be. By this time the RZR’s gas gauge was flashing empty, and I didn’t want to stop, but feared running out of gas and having to stop near some irate animal. I soon found some tire tracks in a sand wash and followed the wash to a dirt road, where I put all five gallons into the RZR. I followed the dirt road towards home, and did pretty well retracing my steps, with only a few short sections of cross country, which I could have avoided if I was willing to backtrack. When I got home I had traveled 125 miles, and loved every minute of it. The RZR continues to impress me with its versatility. I was so excited, that as I was telling Nancy about all the stuff I saw, she suggested we could take a picnic lunch and go together next time. I think we ARE made of RZR material. I can’t wait for Coral Pink, the other long-anticipated RZR event. -Jim

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Across 3. Type of tall evergreen tree that is prevalent in the upper dunes. 6. Our name for a half bowl dune formation in the lower dunes named after a banked NASCAR track. 7. ____ Friends animal sanctuary is near Coral Pink North of Kanab. 11. Name of the restaurant with famous Ho-Made Pies (and great breakfasts) in Mt Carmel Jct. Utah. 12. Between Mesquite NV and Utah is the ___ river gorge. 13. Name of the road that creates the shortcut between sand dunes road and Hwy 89. 16. Closest national park to Coral Pink. 17. Utah town on the way to Coral Pink just north of Colorado City AZ. 19. The first city we pass through in Utah is St. ___ 20. Animals at the ranger station include mice and their con-sumer, a ___.

Down 1. "I'm making a trip to the Ranger Station, anybody need any ___?" 2. ____ Island was the original name of the Casablanca Resort. 3. Color of the sand at the dunes (Don't over think this one!) 4. The ___ Canyon dam makes Lake Powell 5. St. George suburb just North of town on I-15 and the name of the county both cities are in. 8. Environmentalists want the dunes closed to OHVs to protect the Coral Pink ___ Beetle. 9. Name of town and lake North of Coral Pink off Hwy 89 with surrounding riding trails. 10. ____ Head is a ski resort North of Zion that the Kastles drove through last year. 14. Family owned markets in Kanab are Honey's IGA and ___'s Food Town. 15. ___ Post Pawn Shop in Kanab. 18. Name of fugitive polygamist leader rumored to have hidden out in the Southern Utah area: Warren ___

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Those of you who have been reading the last few months newsletters saw that we sold John’s shortstar, installed a V8 in my car, and had a little issue with sand getting into it. While it ran great at Dumont, we knew we wanted to do something about pulling it apart and fixing it. Well, that something turned out to be buying another wrecking yard motor and swapping it into the car before Coral Pink. I found a deal on a higher mileage cast iron block motor out of a Ta-hoe, and sent John and Scott to work on it. They ended up with another nicer motor from the same wrecking

yard for $400 after tax and a core refund. We gave them parts from one of Scott’s badly sanded 5.3s, and all they wanted was the block and heads, so we got to keep lots of good spare parts. Speaking of spare parts, the plan is for this motor to be a spare that we’ll keep in the trailer at the dunes in case any of us needs it during the season. That is, after we throw some rings in my original motor sometime after Coral Pink and get it back in my car. We were able to do the swap in a cou-ple of Tuesday nights, and the new motor is all ready to go. We will be able to test it at Coral Pink with it still under the 90 day warranty. Hopefully it will all be good, and we will end up with a good spare on the shelf. -P.J.

This month we’d like to thank Jim Kastle for contributing an article. We invite everyone to send in their summer stories to let the club know what you’re up to. If you have summer trip plans that you’d like to share with the group let us know so we can put them on the calendar and on the website. Next month we’ll have lots of details about the annual trip to Utah, and we’ll be looking forward to Havasu. -PJ, Melissa and of course Allison

The Rooster

John had a funny idea, and this ended up on the side of my car. I think there’s an extra V6 kill there, but who’s counting?

Hmm, we’ve got some space to fill, so how about some of our favorite Coral Pink Pictures: