Environmental organizations monitoring the race observed both legal violations and environmental damage. On March 29, Forest Guardians and a local activist filed appeals challenging amendments to the Bureau of Land Management's Lower Gila North Management Framework Plan and the Lower Gila South Resource Management Plan. The amendments include provisions opening the Vekol Valley Grassland Area of Critical Environmental Concern to off-road vehicle use. In addition, the appellants argue, the BLM never conducted biological studies and never considered the Plans' effects on species protected under the Endangered Species Act. Snowmobile fatalities were the result of avalanches, drowning in lakes, and collisions.
Serious injuries are also a concern.
An average of 20 percent of those seriously injured on snowmobiles are children, and, between 1991 and 1997, roughly a quarter of those have suffered brain or spinal injuries. The study also identified a strong relationship between drinking and snowmobile accidents. The Edmonton Journal reported April 11 that a farmer from Stony Plain, Canada is on trial for destroying one snowmobile and damaging another with his 10-ton John Deere tractor. The farmer then drove his tractor onto one snowmobile while it was stalled at the bottom of a ravine and lowered the tractor's plow-blade onto another parked nearby, causing minor damage. The remaining snowmobilers headed for the gate, but the farmer's brother had locked it before calling the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.