Cooperative Wildlife Management Question

[ttora4runner]

Got a question for you all about the Cooperative Wildlife Management areas, something new too me since I've only in been in Utah for a little over a year. Wondering if you all can explain something too me.

I've already been to the CWMA website but couldn't find what I was looking for.

Anyhow, at the end of Skyline Drive up behind Bountiful is Trail 001 (hiking, biking, horse riding trail), a portion of the Great Western Trail. The trail I'm assuming is maintenance by the Forest Service and it passes though private property that is part of a Cooperative Wildlife Managment Area.

From I was told previous is that the public still has access too the trail as long as you stay on the trail and adhere to rules of the CWMA (went to the website to look at). Anyhow, I was out biking that trail today and ran into the land owner and he mentioned that the trail closes in August for the hunt but he reopens it in September for the Wastach 100. The guy was completely cool about the the whole thing (kind of surpised to see a mtn biker out there this time of year) and he didn't mind that I was out on the trail (didn't mind if I continued on the trail since he didn't have any hunters out there).

We ended up talking for about 10 minutes. Even though he was cool about me continuing on I just decided to turn back anyways (didn't want to burn any bridges).

So here are my questions:

1. What is the ruling with CWMA and public access to trails that are part of a establised trail system (FS trail system, I'm assuming)?
2. Can the land owner close the trail to public access (I can understand not wanting anyone out there due to the hunting season and safety concerns).

The whole CWMA is something new to me.

 

[Floppy Hat]

My guess is that this situation is unique to that particular Cooperative Wildlife Management Unit and the rules over the seasonal closure are probably spelled out in an agreement between the private land owner and the Forest Service. There are not many CWMU's, this may be the only one, that have established public trails passing through them.

The rules that govern CWMUs are established by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and the private owner of the CWMU. Those rules mostly pertain to hunters and hunting access. I don't think you will find any general CWMU rules that would pertain to this trail.