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Forest Trails

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In response to “Trail Maintenance Long Overdue,” editorial, Oct. 12:

The Forest Service has two interesting ways of dealing with poor trail maintenance, in addition to failing to insist on reallocation of funds from logging roads to trails. One is to allow a trail to get overgrown and drop it from maps in succeeding editions. An “antique” Forest Service map of the Los Angeles Padres Forest, the 1969 edition, shows a number of trails so treated. Trying to hike up the east side of Cobblestone Mountain is an example. Chaparral has obliterated the trail in enough places that it takes an expert in reading maps to make one’s way.

The second approach is to get groups to “adopt a trail,” or at least to work on it, using Forest Service tools and some supervision. Although hikers have risen to the need, especially under the leadership of Ken Croker in the Cleveland National Forest, and Charlie Jones and John Robinson in the Angeles, there is an implicit guilt trip laid on hikers unmatched in other parts of the service’s activities. We do not expect volunteers to cut down timber, although possibly that’s next, since so much logging is subsidized by the Forest Service.

SALLY M. REID

Pine Mountain Club, Calif.

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