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3 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? e-edition | subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Since You Asked: Rumble strips will be back on Interstate 5 ... Phoenix High ag teacher is tops in state ... Still no sign of missing doctor ... Since You Asked: Rumble strips will be back on Interstate 5 ... Phoenix High ag teacher is tops in state ... Still no sign of missing doctor ... Since You Asked: BLM roads on private land can be gated Recently a couple of friends and I were looking at local maps and decided to take a fun drive. One Jackson County map showed Forest Creek Road going all the way up to Foots Creek Road and on to Rogue River. This appealed to our sense of adventure, because all of us are local, born-and-raised Oregonians. MailTribune.com Writer Posted Apr. 24, 2010 @ 12:20 am Posted Apr. 24, 2010 @ 12:20 am » Social News p bs:newslist StartDate="20121121" EndDate="p bs:datecalc Months="3"" DateSort="1" UseObjects="1" ObjectClass="81" Taxonomywords="2325,665" ExactTaxonomyMatch="1" Image="1" Count="4" --> Recently a couple of friends and I were looking at local maps and decided to take a fun drive. One Jackson County map showed Forest Creek Road going all the way up to Foots Creek Road and on to Rogue River. This appealed to our sense of adventure, because all of us are local, born-and-raised Oregonians. To our surprise, about two-tenths of a mile after county road maintenance ends on Forest Creek Road, we encountered a gate. The gate is unmarked regarding ownership and it's locked. Can this road be blocked off like this? Our maps show both of the roads with road numbers issued by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and would ordinarily be usable as indicated by the maps. Do you have an answer? We would very much like to know. — LeRoy A., Medford We have answers, LeRoy, but they're not simple. When it comes to roads and the Bureau of Land Management, there are public roads, and there are roads that are open to the public, but they're not necessarily always the same thing. Jim Whittington, BLM's information guy for the Medford District, acknowledges that the roads on the agency's Southern Oregon forestlands are confusing. The short version of his explanation is that BLM has negotiated easements to build roads across many parcels of privately owned land to reach other BLM acreage. Some of those easements may give the landowner the option to gate the road even though it's built by BLM and may have a BLM road number on some maps. Whittington says most of the land in the area you're describing is privately owned, so the owner may well have the right to gate the road and close it to people such as you and your friends. Whittington says even roads that are completely on BLM land may not necessarily be open to public use. That's a fundamentally different arrangement from, say, U.S. Forest Service roads, which are almost always open to public use. The strange status of BLM roads in Southern Oregon can be traced back to the old Oregon & California Railroad. In the great age of railroad building, the federal government gave public land to railroad companies in a checkerboard pattern as an inducement to build the railroad. When the O&C went bust, the land it had been given went back to the federal government (in our case, BLM) in that mile-square checkerboard pattern. By then, private owners had acquired much of the other surrounding land. BLM could not reach some of its squares on the board and had to negotiate easements to gain access. Whittington says public access on BLM roads on these O&C lands is relatively restricted. Unless you have a pretty detailed map, you won't necessarily know the O&C lands from the "ordinary" BLM lands. Hope that's not too confusing, LeRoy. Send questions to "Since You Asked," Mail Tribune Newsroom, P.O. Box 1108, Medford, OR 97501; by fax to 541-776-4376; or by e-mail to [email protected]. We're sorry, but the volume of questions received prevents us from answering all of them. MailTribune.com Writer Posted Apr. 24, 2010 @ 12:20 am » Comment or view comments Terms of Service /* $( document ).ready(function() { // Jquery mobile is trying to style the button and leaving a blank gry button on top of a white button $("#viafouracoms .vf-comment-controls li.vf-right").html(' Submit '); });*/ » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. calendar Connect with MailTribune.com Facebook Twitter RSS Back to top Reader Services Reader Services Home Subscriptions Subscriber controls Contact us Submissions Photos Events Letters to the editor Corrections Announcements Obituaries Story ideas Since you asked Alerts Email Alerts RSS Feeds Text Alerts Advertise Media Kit Home Products and services Ad rates Advertising contacts Propel Marketing Mail Tribune Daily Tidings The Nickel Shop Our Valley Blogs Mobile Site Stay Informed Email newsletter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. 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