man, what a drag. they make it so complicated. It's discouraging.
I'd be lying if I didn't agree to you. For an individual or small group of friends to go out an recreate, no problemo. Once you start planning, charge money, invite the general public, involve any high risk activities, advertising, instruct, etc... you might need a permit
I'm working on 3 different event permits right now in 2 different BLM officer, each has their own way of interpreting things and wants different things. In one case we have to identify not only the routes we plan to travel but the routes we will travel in case of emergency, carry toilets, etc, etc, etc. Once it has even a hint of 'organized' or 'commercial' the logistics and planning input grows exponentially. Start involving race cars (baja buggies) and high dollar excursions and things get really involved.
The U4 looked into 'intro to 4x4' class options years ago, they ran into similar roadblocks, insurance, permits, etc not to mention just running the events. Welcome to the new face of public lands.
I was working with a client to potentially do some tours or 'jeep rides' in AF Canyon for charge. It obviously needed a permit so I started by calling some of my contacts in the FS office. Due to lack of staff they have a moratorium on new 'outfitter' permits for the area, if you had one before your OK but until they have the manpower to process the permits, no new ones
Did I mention they can charge for the time it takes them to 'prepare' the permit. Say they have to go out on site and look at the routes you want to run and make sure they are suitable for your plans, they can charge you for that time. There used to be an event in the Mesquite, NV area run by a non-profit LC club in Vegas. The applied for a permit to run their event as they had done many times in years past but under new RMP rules they got a bill for the permit prep, nearly $4k. The event was canceled and has not been run since.
Say you do get a permit and you charge for the event, they can ask for x% of the net revenue of the event as well as a per/person per/day fee. SITLA, FS and private owners might ask the same. Plan on taking commercial photo or commercial video while on public lands, ie a commercial, movie, calendar shot, even wedding photo... they might want a film/photo permit as well. Again, welcome to public lands.
Run without a permit you say? You could chance it, but I can think of more than one that has been caught including at least one RME member. He received a court citation in the mail after his trip and ended up paying a rather hefty fine. Just last month a group from Colorado was planning an 'expedition' through Utah en route to the Overland Expo in NM, they were charging per rig but only planned to have ~6 rigs in their group ie rather low impact. Well, I'm told they just got a phone call from the BLM asking about permits.
There was a moto club in the Price area that planned a ride, they showed up and were greeted by a BLM ranger that informed them they would receive a ticket if they in deed went out as a un-permitted group. I expect these occurrences to happen more and more as the guidelines become stricter and the budgets of the land managers constricts, permits are an obvious source of revenue.
Sorry to rant but as you can tell I've got a bit of experience with this lately.
