News & Blog

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News. Trends. Helpful tips. Personal stories. If it’s about the recreational lifestyle – hunting, fishing, camping – anything outdoors, we’ll share it. Have a story to share with us? Recently purchased a PotlatchDeltic property? Just bagged the buck that you’ve been watching all season? We’d love to share your stories too. Email us

With winter in full force, being safe out in the woods on your ATV requires some extra planning. With that in mind, we asked two of our Potlatch Preferred Brokers, Rick Musick and Phil Hyde, for some tips.

“You need to treat your ATV just like you would a car in terms of maintenance,” said Musick, of United Country Musick & Sons in Grangeville, Idaho. “Make sure you check the oil, the battery, your gear boxes, everything that might cause you trouble.”

Getting stuck in the woods is no fun, and in fact can be dangerous, so this maintenance is extremely important, says Hyde, of Bear Island Land Co., Inc. in Ely, Minnesota.

“Every fall, I take my ATV to a maintenance guy who checks all the fluids and everything,” he says. “Your life could literally depend on whether your ATV works in cold weather.”

Beyond doing basic maintenance, here are three other tips that Musick and Hyde say are important to remember:

• Let people know when you are going out in the woods. “I may joke to someone in the office that if I am not back by noon, send the Mounties,” Hyde says, “but it is very important for someone to know you are out in a remote location.”

• When possible, go in pairs or groups, so if someone has trouble, friends can help solve the problem. “Sometimes you are in areas with no cell phone reception, so this can be critical,” Musick says.

• Make sure you use quality fuel and consider using a fuel stabilizer, which can help fuel maintain its octane when the ATV has been sitting in storage for a while.

Having an ATV on a recreational property is both fun and practical. In addition to using an ATV to roam your property, it can also come in handy for such tasks as gathering firewood or for getting to prime hunting locations.

And if you decide you want to own your own piece of land, start by contacting a Potlatch Preferred Broker, who can help with any question you have about buying and owning recreational property. They might even take you out to tour the property on one of their well-maintained ATVs!