Trail closures threaten livelihoods and slowly limit access to ordinary families, says Dave Hellman, owner of Xtreme 4×4 Tours in Moab. Wilderness advocates argue that stronger protections are necessary to preserve fragile landscapes. As lawsuits reshape trail access across southern Utah, Moab increasingly sits at the center of a growing conflict over who public lands are really for.

Hellman says he didn’t grow up getting what he wanted. If he wanted something, he had to go out and get it or build it. When he was 10, he saw his neighbors get dirt bikes. He bought one himself, took the engine apart, and learned to “wrench” and work on vehicles himself.

Forty years later, when he decided he wanted to own the ultimate Moab rock-crawling, Baja-style racing truck, he didn’t look at a catalog. He decided he would “chop up a Suburban and build it” himself. He built his blueprints on paper and calculated the curves for his roll cage and seating. “I don’t do computers. I hire someone else to do that,” he says. 

Hellman is Dr. Frankenstein, and his creation is the Monster, aka, Buggy. But this monster is a seven-seat truck that offers no resemblance to a Suburban. It can drive the fine line between chaos and order, tipping over while remaining in balance and performing reckless tricks with abandon while nailing the landing. 

We raced through dunes, up and over what appeared impossible in any other vehicle on Hell’s Revenge. Darting around, up and over, Hellman seems to throw caution to the wind, but he always ends up remaining in perfect control. He says the lowest possible price for such a vehicle would be $300 grand, but his expertise in engineering decreased the cost to around $100K, but with 900 man-hours of labor.

Hellman is a Moab trail legend. It’s difficult to fathom that one man can possess so much energy. “There is only so much time in a day,” he says. But apparently just enough time to both engineer his own rock-crawling creations and create a tour on Moab’s Hell’s Revenge that takes his riders to the deepest depths of fear and adrenaline and ends up on another side where there is sheer joy that one can still plant two feet firmly back on the ground.

However, Hellman believes his lifestyle and his company are in jeopardy due to the growing number of people who share the sentiment that 4×4 and off-road vehicles have too much access to public lands. We decided to explore this topic in detail.

The Battle Over Moab’s Public Lands

“There are millions of acres out here,” says Hellman. “If you were flying over at ten thousand feet, Moab would be a tiny little speck on the map, and they want to close down anything that you can walk on.”

Hellman has spent years building a livelihood around those landscapes. Over the years, he has watched legal battles, federal land planning decisions, and growing political fights slowly reshape public land access. Conservation organizations such as SUWA push for stronger protections. Recreation users fight to preserve access. Hellman believes too many people have stopped listening to one another long enough to find common ground.

SUWA’s Conservation Efforts

Few organizations have shaped that debate more significantly than the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, commonly known as SUWA. The organization has become one of the most influential wilderness advocacy groups operating in Utah, and has actively challenged Bureau of Land Management travel plans through lawsuits, appeals, and public land advocacy efforts. 

According to SUWA’s public financial reporting, more than 90 percent of its funding comes through memberships and donations. The organization says roughly three-quarters of spending goes directly toward program work focused on protecting public lands and preserving wilderness-quality landscapes throughout southern Utah.

One of the highest-profile examples of SUWA’s efforts involves the Labyrinth Rims and Gemini Bridges travel planning area near Moab, where the Bureau of Land Management completed a travel management framework governing approximately 300,000 acres of public land. Under that plan, federal officials designated roughly 700 miles of routes open to off-highway vehicles, approximately 100 miles restricted to certain uses, and roughly 300 miles closed to motorized recreation. 

SUWA argues those restrictions represent responsible land stewardship rather than recreation elimination. The organization points toward archaeological sites, wildlife habitat, riparian ecosystems, and increasing recreation pressure as reasons why stronger protections are necessary.

Following litigation involving the Labyrinth Canyon and Gemini Bridges planning process, SUWA Staff Attorney Laura Peterson summarized the organization’s position directly: “Unfortunately, there are some who will not be satisfied unless every inch of Utah’s public lands is blanketed with off-road vehicle routes, regardless of the damage these vehicles cause.” 

SUWA has also argued that thoughtful land management protects wildlife habitat, riparian systems, and cultural resources while still leaving substantial trail access available for motorized recreation.

“We stay on the trails off-roading,” Hellman says. “We’re not just driving over bushes. We’re staying on the trails that have been there for years and years.”

Many of the routes recreation users rely upon today originally existed decades ago as mining roads, industrial access corridors, and historic transportation routes before recreation became central to Moab’s economy. Hellman believes many responsible recreation users increasingly feel portrayed unfairly by people who do not fully understand how trail systems operate.

Moab’s Economic Backbone

Tourism supports hotels, restaurants, mechanics, guides, outfitters, and recreation businesses throughout Moab. Hellman argues that restricting recreation categories eventually affects local families trying to build businesses and support themselves.

“You’ve been here,” Hellman says. “You’re trying to make a living. Your living depends on trail access. Why would you come into this town and shut things down for people who are trying to make a living for their family?”

The disagreement also exposes a larger philosophical question surrounding who public lands are intended to serve. Many visitors experience the canyon country through guided vehicles because they cannot physically access those landscapes through hiking, mountain biking, or backcountry travel.

“There are so many people that are in wheelchairs and have disabilities,” Hellman says, “that they’ll never get to go out on a trail and experience the beautiful area of Moab unless you’re in some kind of vehicle to get you out there.”

Hellman also believes recreation debates increasingly favor certain user groups while limiting others.

“You have a thousand times more area to go hiking than we have to go driving,” Hellman says. “Look at Moab from ten-thousand feet in the air and the town looks like this little blip with millions of acres of land in and around Moab. There is a tiny amount that we access with our vehicles, and a much greater access for hikers. There is plenty of land to go around.”

We will continue this series on Trail Legends of Moab. We hope to speak with Park Rangers, hikers, bikers, rock climbers, and capture the voices of everyone who lives, plays, works, splashes, and considers Moab a special place.

Images by Jack Sagen.