By Chad Love

A controversial bill designed to limit the ability of the Idaho Fish & Game Department to regulate ATV hunting in backcountry areas has narrowly passed the state's senate resource committee. If signed into law, state wildlife officials warn they'll lose one of their key management tools.

From this story on necn.com:

The Senate Resources Committee approved the bill on a 5-4 vote, with two Republicans joining committee Democrats in casting no votes. The slim margin of victory in committee, coupled with objections lodged by the state's top fish and game official, could hamper the bill's chances of clearing the full Senate. The measure, approved in the House earlier this month, takes aim at Fish and Game rules that require ATV-mounted hunters in a third of Idaho's hunting units to avoid off-road vehicle trails. Agency officials claim regulating where hunters using ATVs can travel is a crucial tool for managing big game populations. A similar measure was tabled last year so an interim committee could hammer out a compromise.
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By Jim Baird

Turning around is never easy.

The day after we called off the rest of the trip, we ferried our quads over the manageable braid in the Twitya. We winched the quads up that same dug-out hillside and started down the same trail that took us two previous weeks to cover.

The following day, after stopping in to see Stan Simpson and the gang at Ram Head Outfitters, we were at the Ekwi River.
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By Michael R. Shea

An Editor’s Note From Tim Romano: As a fisherman and whitewater-rescue trained individual watching snippets of the Canol adventure have made me cringe at times. Not just for the sheer brutality of the trip, but there are a few instances when safety precautions in or near the water are not adequate. To the viewers of this specific episode: You should know to never, ever try what you're about to see unless it's a do or die situation, which for the two on this trip it nearly was. Some things to consider:

- Crossing a river without a PFD is dangerous when you're near help. When you’re days away from rescue, this could spell disaster.

- When "pendulum swinging" the raft, Jim wraps his hand around the rope and walks to boat down. Please don't do this. Anchor the boat to a tree or rock and let it swing. Bad things happen when you're holding onto hundreds of pounds being pulled by the force of rushing water.

- You see them cross a deep, powerful river with a backpack on and a rope tied to it. First, never cross a river with your pack on and around your shoulders. Take it off and put it above your head or swim with it next to you. Should you fall and a piece of the backpack gets stuck in the rocks or a piece of wood there is a high potential for drowning. It's very, very difficult to get out of. Additionally, a rope attached to the pack presents more dangers. Not only do you have a pack that can get stuck, you also have 100+ feet of material that can wedge anywhere in the river bottom or woody debris. If that happens, it will knock off your feet and the force of the water will hold you down.

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By Jim Baird

Anytime we asked anyone back in Whitehorse about the weather, they had one word: wet. We launched this epic ATV adventure at the tail end of the wettest summer anyone up North could seem to remember.

It rained as we prepped our gear in town. It rained as we moved down the Canol Road to the trailhead. It rained when our ATVs finally touched trail dirt and it kept on raining. With three rivers to cross and dozens of ancillary creeks, water levels quickly became our No. one concern.
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By Jim Baird

Even the best four-wheelers need a trail. So when discussing possibilities for a backcountry ATV trip with the editors of Field & Stream, one route came to mind: The Canol Trail.

Nine hundred miles east of Anchorage, Alaska, at the spine of the staggering Mackenzie Mountains, the Canol Trail cuts through some of the most remote country in North America. Short for Canadian Oil, the Canol is an abandoned pipeline trail in Canada’s Northwest Territories that was built by the U.S. in World War II to transport oil from the fields at Norman Wells to refineries in Whitehorse, and on to Alaska. Only used for one year, the oil line was shut down and, in the end, deemed a huge waste of money.
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By Jim Baird

It’s the Big Question: How much gas do we need? Too much gas is definitely better than to little gas—to a point. If you carry way too much, you will stress your machine and you are more likely to run into mechanical problems. Good jerry cans are key, or you may have to deal with spillages and leaks, which will definitely knock back the miles you travel. At the end of the day you will have to narrow it down as much as possible until you have to make an educated guess.

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