AOAA: At this point there is no set date to open until Governor lifts the ban.
With the COVID-19 outbreak the AOAA has made the very tough decision to close until further notice. We are taking an over abundance of caution for the safety of our riders, the staff and families of the AOAA. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience.
Rant:
I regularly check in on the websites of both parks I frequent to see if they’re open & above is the message from AOAA, Rausch has a similar one.
I understand it, generally speaking off-roading is not ‘essential’, at least in the life or death sense anyway. But what I don’t get is the buckshot approach in closing everything that’s non-essential even if it poses no risk, & I believe off-roading easily falls into that category. Certainly at first it made sense as it was a bit of a panic situation. But we’ve had plenty of time to think about all of this & it no longer makes any sense to
keep these places closed. The only time I’d normally get within even 10 feet of someone up there in the mountains is when I’d walk into the little office trailer to pay the entry fee, which can easily be done online, & from that point forward the only people I’d come anywhere near are buddies I’m wheeling with when we stop for lunch but that could easily be modified just like we do everything else these days. I guess perhaps in a real hairy recover situation two people might ‘have to’ be close to one another, but maybe not even then.
By keeping these parks closed the government is telling me that while they trust me to stay 6+ feet away from people at 'essential' stores and/or out walking around the neighborhood, somehow I'm incompetent to do the same thing INSIDE my Jeep in the mountains where the bears outnumber the humans?
Granted PA is part of the epicenter of this mess but still, maybe its time for the Governor in PA (& everywhere) to begin looking at businesses that can effectively open with no risk
regardless of the overall situation in that state. If a given activity is safe, it's safe, and banning it isn't helping anything. I’m exposed to far more people in the 20 minutes it takes me to go grocery shopping every weekend than I’d see in 12 hours in the mountains, & when in the mountains I’m nowhere near those people I see unlike the store.
I think starting to look at ground level businesses like these off-road parks that could open safely & start moving the economy forward again makes perfect sense.
But of course I’d say that, I own the greatest off-road vehicle ever made
End Rant.
For now the closest I get is looking at a picture of my rig at AOAA hanging on the wall at my office.