Good morning guys! Right now I'm still trying to get over the answer to the question of what a cattle guard is, LOL! A lot of people keep asking questions like this about roads going through private property and the answer is this. Just because it's a county maintained road in the public land areas does not mean that it necessarily allows access across private property. Generally if you see a numbered road it will be maintained by either the state, county, BLM, or FS. The state maintained roads are the easiest to spot and any public land they go through would be deemed accessible if you can legally park off the road and not hinder traffic. It gets a lot trickier when you start talking legal access on the other roads when they go through private property because generally they have to have negotiated a public easement through that land in order to allow the public to continue through on it. If they haven't, you may be on one and all of a sudden get to a no trespassing sign. Sometimes this is the case where the owner allows the jurisdiction to go through to allow the easy maintainence of the entire road, but there may not be a legal easement for everyone else to drive on through. There is one road over in antelope unit 23 where that is the case and there were so many tickets being issued and threats by the landowner when they would catch people on the private part that the G&F now has a warning in the WIHA section about it. The main thing you have to realize is that the GPS chip doesn't tell you anything about road access and only shows what the land ownershp is. If the OP has a question about that section of road then he should either call the county and ask the question or contact the landowner to see if he can go through with no access fee. One other thing to realize is that just because a road has a name assigned to it on the map like the one mentioned by the OP does not mean it's a public road it's entire length. It may be, but there is also the chance that only part or even none of it is and the name got on there because it was an old ranching family in the area, etc. Find out by making some calls and get the scoop now BEFORE you go on your trip so you don't get any surprises. If you can't easily get to where you want to hunt one way, you may have to either find a completely different route if there is one or scrap that plan and find another spot that's easily accessible. I found this all out the hard way on my first trip in 1992 and it's not a mistake I've made since then when I'm planning on going anywhere that I haven't been before.
Make sure and take chains and plenty of extra gas, water, and food because up where you're talking about is heck and gone from any services, so you really need to be self sufficient to patch or blow up a tire if you have a problem, etc. I carry a small generator, battery charger, air compressor, chains, and always at least one perfect full size spare whenever I'm off the main roads anywhere out there. Simple stuff like that could save your bacon if the unexpected happens. Now as far as what a cattle guard is, in simple terms it's some spaced out pipes that you can drive over and animals can't walk over to get out of their assigned pasture! Just slow down some when you see one ahead as they can be like a speed bump in a parking lot that you have probably been over before.
. I didn't explain real well, but as long as it is a public road you can drive through private property, you just need to stay on the road.
