As a result of safety risks and damage posed by unauthorized riding on private land, eastern Idahoans will soon have a new public space for their off-highway vehicles — complete with maintained trails and educational areas.
An OHV park officially opens to riders Friday at the city-managed Idaho Falls Raceway, 8433 W. Arco Highway. It represents several years of collaboration between the Idaho Falls Trail Machine Association, Idaho Falls Parks and Recreation Department and Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation.
The park will have more than 6 miles of trails, both developed and relatively primitive. Much of the space will be accessible to beginner riders, which makes the park a family resource, Idaho Falls Trail Machine Association member Tim Thomas said.
“This is designed to get people out of the vacant lots and ditch banks, and give them an area where they can ride close to Idaho Falls that’s somewhat controlled where they aren’t trespassing or breaking laws,” he said.
Thomas, who spearheaded the project, grew up in eastern Idaho. From age 9 onward he rode through the foothills east of Idaho Falls, but much of that land has since been developed.
Thomas and other association members approached parks department officials in 2014 to repurpose unused land at the Idaho Falls Raceway 7 miles west of the city. He wanted his daughters and granddaughters to enjoy trails similar to the ones he used as a child.
“It was one way to give back. I wanted to give other families the opportunity to experiment how we did,” Thomas said.
Parks department officials saw an opportunity to keep recreationists from generating law enforcement attention riding through canal banks and private property, Director Greg Weitzel said.
The new park is wrapped around the Idaho Falls Raceway’s motocross and stock car tracks. It was built with state parks department grants totaling more than $46,000, as well as coordination between a handful of local, state and federal agencies.
To build the trails, city officials had to secure permission from the U.S. National Guard, which has frontage land near the park. The National Guard then had to gain permission from the Bureau of Land Management to authorize the city’s request due to convoluted property ownership in the area.
Archaeologists also had to sweep the area for Native American and homesteader artifacts.
“It’s been educational for me to hop through these hoops,” Thomas said. “That was a process itself, but it all worked out.”
Association volunteers and parks department employees built a gravel parking lot and 7,200-foot fence around existing raceway tracks. A bathroom and more than 70 signs were added, while litter and other debris was removed.
Meanwhile, more than 500 volunteer hours went into the new trail system, which was created partially from endurance racing ruts dug years ago into the 375-acre Idaho Falls Raceway footprint.
Volunteers used a state parks department trail building machine to cut new paths through the sagebrush, where riders are liable to see badgers, jack rabbits and deer. At certain points Taylor Mountain and the Lemhi Range can be seen peeking over the desert.
The park allows families to ride without making a day trip to a national forest or other public lands, Thomas said.
The main trail loop is accessible to beginners. There’s also more primitive offshoot trails.
“Those are a little more challenging,” Thomas said. “But there’s nothing out there too difficult to navigate. It’s somewhat of a training area to go use an off-road motorcycle or ATV and get acclimated to the terrain and how the machine operates.”
The park will be open from dawn to dusk until snow closes it for the season. Vehicles can’t be wider than 50 inches. No fee is required, though riders must have state OHV stickers and helmets. Riders also will have access to a training site where they can take the official state OHV safety training course.
“There was a lot of people riding where they shouldn’t have been, now there’s a good place for new riders to get the safety training they need,” Weitzel said.
The Idaho Falls Raceway, formerly Noise Park, has made strides in recent years. Idaho Falls Lions Club members gave up their lease on the land in 2013 due to declining membership, at which point city officials, including Weitzel, had a meeting.
“We had a decision to make,” he said. “What do we do? Do we go forward or do we walk away and let the park continue to deteriorate?”
City officials decided to rebuild the motocross and stock car racing tracks. Now, Weitzel said each motocross practice averages more than 60 riders, and there’s eight to 10 stock car races per year.
“It’s been one of those things — if you build it or invest in it people will come. Now here we are in this third phase; I think there’s been a huge turnaround. It’s been good for our community and economy,” Weitzel said, emphasizing the work of volunteers and funding partners.
There’s plenty of open land still available at the Idaho Falls Raceway. Depending on ridership and stewardship of the initial trails, more could eventually be on the way.
“We’re talking about that. We’ll keep a close eye on how this goes,” Weitzel said. “People should be safe and follow the rules. We’ll probably continue to see improvements out there as long as people continue to take good care of it.”