Six Rivers National Forest
77 miles of road and motorized trail here are open to vehicles today. The Forest Service is rewriting the rule that decides which ones, and 73 miles of this forest’s motorized trail have no mapped location in the agency’s national route data.
This forest’s own boundary on the USGS topographic map.
Six Rivers National Forest
The Forest Service records 77 miles of designated road and motorized trail here, and almost none of it has a mapped location in the agency’s national route data. Below is what each class of vehicle may use, and what’s missing.
Almost none of this forest’s routes have a mapped location in the agency’s national data
The Forest Service records 77 miles of designated road and motorized trail on the Six Rivers National Forest. Of that, 4 miles have a mapped location in the agency’s national route data. The rest, 73 miles, don’t. These aren’t empty records: the routes are named, listed as existing, and many carry live vehicle-class designations. They carry no location, so no map built on that data can show them, including this one. The mileage above is real. The location data is missing. This is a count of that national data, which the proposal would make the legal record, and not an audit of this forest’s own printed map.
That’s why this page has no map, and it is the reason this forest matters to the rule change below. The proposal would make digital maps the authoritative source for what is designated. On the Six Rivers National Forest, that source is 5 percent complete.
Check the forest's own Motor Vehicle Use Map before traveling. It is the legal document; this page is not.
What each vehicle class can use
These are miles where the Motor Vehicle Use Map affirmatively designates the class as open. A blank value in the source data means the class is not designated on that segment. It is not the same as a closure, and no closed figure is published here because the data cannot support one.
| Vehicle class | Road miles | Trail miles | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Passenger vehicle | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| High-clearance vehicle | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 4WD over 50 in | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2WD over 50 in | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| ATV | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Motorcycle | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other wheeled OHV | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Tracked OHV under 50 in | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Other OHV under 50 in | 0 | 0 | 0 |
What the national data holds for this forest
The national dataset holds only 2 road records for the Six Rivers National Forest. That is a gap in what the agency has published, not a forest without roads, and it is why the map above shows almost none of them.
| Ranger district | Road records | On the map | Motorized trail records | On the map |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mad River Ranger District | 1 | 1 | 116 | none |
| Lower Trinity Ranger District | 1 | 1 | 25 | none |
| Orleans Ranger District | none | none | 4 | none |
| Gasquet Ranger District | none | none | 2 | none |
Counts are records in the USDA Forest Service Enterprise Data Warehouse MVUM service, roads and trails layers, harvested 21 August 2026. “On the map” means the record carries geometry a map can draw. A district with no road records is not a district without roads; it is one the agency has not published to this dataset.
Why a route with no mapped location matters
A route on this forest is legal to drive only if it is on the forest’s Motor Vehicle Use Map. Every route the Forest Service designates gets a recorded length in its database; only some get a location anyone can pull up. A route with no location can’t be looked up in that data, can’t be proved legal from it, and can be left off the next map without anyone noticing. The proposal would make that next map the legal record.
This map is being rewritten, and comment is open
On 24 August 2026 the Forest Service proposed rewriting 36 CFR parts 212 and 261, the rules that produced this map. Today a route on the Six Rivers National Forest is closed to vehicles unless the forest studied it and put it on the map. The proposal flips that: open unless someone documents a reason to close it. It also removes the national rules that tell a forest supervisor to weigh damage to soil, water and wildlife, and conflict with other visitors, before a route goes in.
That change lands here in a specific way. The proposal would also make digital maps the authoritative source for what is designated, and 73 miles of this forest's motorized trail have no mapped location in that data at all. A route with no location is a route that’s hard to defend, hard to prove you may ride, and easy for the next map to leave out.
Public comment ran through docket FS-2026-0100 on regulations.gov until 23 September 2026. Comments that name a forest and say what the writer knows about it are the ones the agency has to answer. You know this one.
Three minutes, in your own words. Your letter carries this forest's 73 miles of motorized trail that have no mapped location in the agency's national route data, because a comment that names a place is one the agency has to answer.
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When the rule itself lands, we will tell you
One email when the Forest Service files the proposed rule, and when a comment window opens on the public lands you use. Nothing else.