Generally speaking all roads are owned by someone... if you wheel it be respectful to the owner.
Money shot! It takes time and money to put a road in, especially with all of the permitting and environmental impact statements and hoops to jump through. A always belongs to somebody, and they have a right to close it off.
In the west you have FSR (Forest Service Roads) managed by the BLM (Bureau of Logging and Mining). They control access (which they are closing to Jeepers) which may cross private land. FSR's are generally well maintained and passable in a stocker
Up here we have FAS, Forest Access Roads that are on Forest service land and are maintained and built by the Forest Service. The quality ranges from paved and striped two lane blacktop to decent gravel. Then there's the FSR roads, Forest Service Roads built for access to natural resources or interesting features. Mostly dirt and gravel. Lots o'fun in a Jeep. Many of these were built for logging access to the backwoods by timber companies and then turned over to the Forest Service. Skid Trails are a subset of these and are the most interesting. Dirt and rock. As the Forest Service puts it "Passable to high clearance vehicles only". Sometimes, they aren't kidding! BLM has pretty much the same road network structure around here, but they do way less maintenance. Fire roads are like unmaintained Forest Service roads. The State (and County) Forestry Roads can be bunched into this group as well. You can start out on a state highway (two lane blacktop) and cross a couple of miles of backwoods and hit all four (five?) road ownership types, with a private road (public access) or two thrown in for good measure. The catch is, each jurisdiction has a different road naming scheme. Makes you crazy at times trying to tell your buddies what road you were on. Lots of good arguments there.
Powerline "roads" are usually a right of way that the land owner has sold to the Power Company. He retains ownership, the PC only has a right to access the right of way for maintenance, no one else.
Power line easements are mostly closed to public access here. Gated and fenced with signs. Even on public lands the power line easements are off limits. You'll get spanked for using them, sometimes hard. There are exceptions though.
Logging or skidder roads really fall under the same category as Powerline roads but are built only to access the product. Once the product is removed so is the right of access.
On public land here, these get turned over to the land owner...USFS, BLM, State Forestry when the timber deal is done. Many of these are getting cut and bermed, by contract, after the timber companies are done logging now. Technically speaking, the road is still open to motorized traffic in many instances, but it's pretty obvious that the Forest Service doesn't want you back in there. They do get pissy about it on occasion. The new specs for "erosion control features" look a lot like cutting and berming a road. Just not as deep or wide. Sometimes you have to make a judgement call on whether it's a drainage cut or an access denial cut.
I suspect most private roads that are not posted will not really care if you wheel on them so long as we are respectfull and stay the trail.
The big timber companies post their roads, the smaller ones don't. Same with gates. You know for sure you're not where you're supposed to be when a Deputy Sheriff stops you and asks you to leave around here.
Navigating the backwoods around here is fun and exciting! Even if you know where you are, you are never really sure if you are actually supposed to be there.
Oh, and I forgot about the Reservations! It pays to know where those boundaries are, because you will get smacked, hard, if you get found wandering around without a permit. Lord help you if you are hunting, fishing or carrying a firearm.
