Plenty of blame to go around Re: RC: American River Ride

[Teresa Van Hove <tvanhove@uswest.net>]

Dear Robert Will, Supervising Park Ranger, American River district
cc ridecamp 
 
It really sounds like both the ride managers/organizers and the park
rangers blew it here and the ride attendees were caught in the 
crossfire.  If ride management failed to alert attendees to the park 
rules and had ignored the rule in the past why did you not send a 
ranger to the ride meeting or at least out there before nightfall and
call your own meeting to explain the rules?  Yes we endurance riders
can be independent, ornery cusses at times; but we are also very willing
to help out each other and ride management.  If the park rangers had 
explained the situation I expect that folks w/o campers could and would
have worked out with those who had "self contained campers" to watch
horses so the "tenters" could camp in the approved areas; and/or 
the scc folks would have invited folks without scc's to double up 
with them to stay within the rules.   I am neither a California 
resident or a member of this endurance region.  If I were I 
would be asking this question to my state representative 
and also demanding a good explanation from ride management
and would refer the situation to the sanctioning director 
and/or the entire AERC board of directors if RM did not have a good
explanation for not knowing the park rules and informing the ride
attendees of them.  I have no tolerance for letting people get 
caught paying a fine for violating a rule because RM disagreed with
that rule.  OTH I was a 1st year ride manager last year and if this
was a new RM who did not know the situation ahead of time and then
got overwhelmed with all the many details of RM and dropped the ball
they have my sympathy.  

Teresa Van Hove
(Colorado resident and glad of it)