Growing up in Boise, and taking all of those Sunday drives to places both near and far, I can attest to the beauty of the desert.

I was struck by the observation that the tiny fish were northern pikeminnows - which are invasive to Oregon, and for which a bounty is paid along the Columbia.

Even visiting isn't for wimps...

While working timber in the north back in the day, Claude Lafayette Dallas was a big name in that country. He still walks the earth. the other two don't.

As someone who visits this neck of the woods on an annual basis I find it disheartening that the Owyhee would be locked up by not permitting off-road-vehicles in the area in question.This land is all of ours not just a special interest group who wants it all to itself.

I would dare 'anyone' to find evidence that any type of ORV was present on that land as its remoteness and vastness simply won't show their presence.

Here's evidence of several types of ORV usage showing its presence in other parts of central/eastern Oregon:

http://oregon.sierraclub.org/groups/juniper/media/presentations/ORVs%20-%20Motorized%20Mayhem%20or%20Wild%20Nature%20Min.pdf

There's a middle ground in the on/off road motor vehicle debate and in some parts of Eastern Oregon we've reached an amiable detente.

It's a difficult issue - ruin the solitude of the great wilderness with the rapacious scream of two stroke engines, or cut off access to these wonderful places for the aged and people with disabilities? And then there's the hypocrisy of the (sacred) cows... how you gonna let one guy run 1000 one ton cows in the same place you tell another guy he can't even mountain bike?

Personally I'm sorry to even see a marked trail or a map and especially the publicity when it comes to this spot... You pdx I-used-to-be-on-mt-hood-ski-patrol types will get lost and die down there. You might as well be on the moon. Whatever you do: Do not try to run this river without an experienced guide. She is quickly changing and unpredictable; a gentle brook turned raging torrent from storms you did not even see.