\u201cMany roads or trails have been in place for decades,\u201d Chiapetta says. Some even started as wagon tracks in the 1800s. The soil is compacted and stable, making it able to stand up to the weight of vehicles passing over it. On such routes, off-roaders can safely travel into or through fragile ecosystems without further damaging them, she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a hiker starts a devastating fire, the world at large doesn\u2019t get the idea that hiking is a negative activity,\u201d says Duane Taylor, executive director of the National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council<\/a>, referring specifically to last year\u2019s Eagle Creek Fire<\/a>, which was started when a teenage day hiker threw fireworks into dry brush in Mount Hood National Forest. Yet readers don\u2019t complain about our hiking coverage.<\/p>\n So we\u2019ve established that most off-roaders aren\u2019t tearing up fragile landscapes. But what about the deleterious effects of the fuel the vehicles burn, you might ask?<\/p>\n Sure, I do burn a lot of fuel in my old Land Rover, which averages about 11 miles per gallon when I take it off-road. During a typical camping trip in the Land Rover, I\u2019ll do roughly 100 miles on dirt. According to the calculator on CarbonFootprint.com<\/a>, the off-road portion of that trip (I\u2019m not including highway miles here, since I assume we all drive somewhere occasionally to pursue our hobbies) nets .08 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions.<\/p>\n The thing is, I don\u2019t actually take the Land Rover off-roading all that often. More often, I\u2019ll fly, visiting family, going on work trips, taking vacations, or this year, buying our\u00a0first house with my girlfriend in Montana. To do that, we\u2019ve flown from Los Angeles to Bozeman five times this year, a trip that nets .44 tons of CO2 for each round-trip.<\/p>\n One of the main reasons for that move is to enable us to spend more time outdoors without the need to get on an airplane or log tons of highway miles. We will actually be reducing our carbon footprint substantially by off-roading more and flying less.<\/p>\n Hands down my favorite thing to use the Land Rover for is hunting, which replaces store- or restaurant-bought meat in our diet with a healthier, wild-caught alternative. It also helps reduce our carbon footprint even further: 2.2 pounds of beef creates .027 metric tons<\/a> of carbon pollution. The average American eats 79.3 pounds of beef<\/a> every year. If I replace that beef in our diet with elk and venison, it offsets 2,200 miles of off-roading. I will do far less than that this fall by netting far more wild game.<\/p>\n My point here is that it\u2019s the regular cycle of consumption that accounts for the majority of pollution we create, not any hobby that we\u2019re only able to enjoy infrequently.<\/p>\n![\"Just](\"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/10\/off-road-defense-1.jpg?width=800\")
The Environmental Footprint Isn\u2019t as Bad as You Think<\/b><\/h2>\n