Work Begins on Hiking Trail in Agoura Hills

Agoura Hills city officials and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy on Monday celebrated the start of construction of a 1.8-mile hiking and horseback-riding trail they hope will form an important link in a longer trail from Simi Hills to the Pacific Ocean.

Connecting fragments of the longer trail, called the Zuma Ridge Trail, has been a priority of conservationists in Southern California since the early 1970s, Linda Palmer, president of the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, said during the ceremony in Agoura Hills.

Before urban expansion began encroaching on open space in northwestern Los Angeles County, Palmer said, “people would walk the dirt roads from the hills to the north of us all the way to the ocean.”

The Zuma Ridge Trail is an attempt to resurrect that tradition, she said.

In December, 1983, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy awarded the city of Agoura Hills a $250,000 grant to build the trail, much of which will run north along Chesebro Road. Grading the terrain, posting signs and raising fences is expected to cost $97,000, said city Public Works Director Vince Mastrosimone.

Mastrosimone said the city is negotiating with the conservancy to use the extra $153,000 for maintenance and to acquire about an acre of land near the middle of the trail link for a stable and rest area.

The trail link will be carved along road rights of way, which are owned by the city, as well as on private property through which the city obtained easements, said Agoura Hills City Manager David Carmany.

Councilwoman Fran Pavley, who became Agoura Hills’ first mayor in 1982 when the city was incorporated, characterized the agreement between the conservancy and the city as mutually beneficial.

“This part of the city is home to a lot of people with horses,” Pavley said, “and in our first city plan we made a commitment to maintaining that life style.”

The portion of Agoura Hills through which the Zuma Ridge Trail will run is a mostly rural area just north of the Ventura Freeway.

Creating one continuous trail from the Simi Hills to the Pacific is still a tenuous dream for conservationists, however.

Much of the southern portion of the trail runs through land in Zuma Canyon purchased by the conservancy in 1985 with $3 million allotted it by the state, said Rorie Skei, the conservancy’s chairwoman.

But the money was allocated to the conservancy on the condition that the National Park Service take over the property and repay the conservancy by the end of 1988, which has not happened, Skei said. Otherwise, the conservancy must sell the land to recoup the funds.

According to Skei, no money has been budgeted for the Park Service to make the purchase. “It is imperative that the government fulfills its promise and corrects its mistake,” she said.