COMMENTARY : Modern Trailblazers Face Some Modern Obstacles

Hikers hate to see a good trail go bad.

When the forces of nature or the hands of humans wreck a trail, hikers feel sad. Somewhere out there, back of beyond, is a swimming hole or a summit, a shady sycamore grove or the ruins of an old mine that can no longer be visited.

These days, a lot of longtime trail users are upset--or at least uneasy--about the state of the Southland’s trail system.

Gone are Monrovia Peak Trail, Tom Sloan Trail and more trails in the Angeles National Forest.

Gone are Roque Canyon Trail, Horse Gulch Trail, Sespe Creek Trail and more in Los Padres National Forest.

“How do I find the trails in the Santa Monica Mountains?” asks veteran hiking guidebook writer Milt McAuley. “By parting the brush.”

McAuley is only half-kidding. No one knows exactly how many trails are lost to neglect or mismanagement, but many trail experts say the state’s trail system is heading downhill.

According to a recent report by the U. S. General Accounting Office, the use of national forest trails rose by one-third during the 1980s while funding fell by 39%. Other statistics:

* Walking for exercise is by far California’s most popular form of outdoor recreation, yet only a handful of county, state and federal parks allocate even 1% of their annual operating budgets for trails.

* In California, about 7,000 miles of national forest trails need work or reconstruction at an estimated cost of $27.6 million.

* In fast-growing Southern California, trail-building is lagging far behind trail use. In San Diego County, for example, bias against trails in the county’s general plan has meant that only four miles of new trails have been dedicated since 1982.

“It’s a moment of truth for trails,” said long-time trails advocate Tony Look at the recent annual meeting of the California Recreational Trails Commission.

“We have to raise consciousness about trails, particularly in Southern California, before we lose more of them, or ever hope to build more.”

Protecting old trails and promoting new ones is the mission of the five-member California Recreational Trails Committee, whose members are appointed to four-year terms by the governor. The committee receives a small amount of logistic and clerical help from the state Department of Parks and Recreation. As a political body, the trails committee is powerless; however, as a cheerleader for the state’s trail groups and as a clearinghouse for trails strategy, the group serves a useful function.

At the committee’s recent annual trails conference, more than 100 trails advocates got together to swap “success stories” and “atrocity stories.”

Bouquets went to planners of the Merced River Trail, which will use the historic Yosemite Valley Railroad bed, and to the Bay Ridge Trail, a 400-mile route around San Francisco Bay. Brickbats went to Caltrans, which balks at letting pedestrians and cyclists on bridges, and to the U.S. Forest Service, which subsidizes costly roads in timber harvest areas, but gives the budget ax to trails projects.

The mood of the conference was largely upbeat, for trails enthusiasts feel their time has come.

“I have never seen such an interest in trails as there has been during the last year,” said Ilse Byrnes of San Juan Capistrano, a two-term member of the California Recreational Trails Committee.

“It comes with an incredible increase in environmental awareness. People say, ‘My God, this was open space last month. It was green and now it’s gone.’ When they see the land disappearing--whether they’re a hiker, a cyclist or an equestrian--they get concerned about trails.”

The idea of a grizzled old ranger, with a pick and shovel and mule, heading into the wilderness to scratch out a trail is romantic and colorful, but not how trails are made these days.

Sophisticated trails advocates argue their cases in the lingua franca of the land-use planner, a jargon sprinkled with phrases like “viewsheds,” “visitor-use days,” “greenbelts,” “easements” and “environmental-impact reports.”

To aid trail-ignorant Southern California urban planners, enthusiasts often refer to main county trails as “freeways” and narrower connector trails as “on-ramps.” The modern trailblazer cuts deals with local politicians and county planners, and isn’t afraid to go eyeball to eyeball with developers to demand paths.

Byrnes, whose expertise is trail-short Orange and Riverside counties, believes that even gung-ho developers are starting to be convinced that trails are beneficial to their real-estate projects.

“Most planners now realize that open space and trails add to a development’s value. Developers can actually charge a little more for a property that has some green space and a couple of miles of trail around it.”

Trail planning wasn’t always such a complex process. In fact, planners and hikers often puzzle: Who built the original trails in Southern California?

Bears, still plentiful in the first half of the last century, designed many of the Southland’s best trails and speeded exploration and settlement of the area. Prospectors used bear trails to get over passes, and many of today’s best recreation trails are superimposed over the prospector’s trails, picked out by Old Bruin long ago.

So the first Southern California trail makers were wild animals, breaking down brush as they journeyed to and from water. Indians used these ready-made trails and fashioned new ones for trade and travel. Indian trails rarely climbed via switchbacks; instead, they took the steepest and most direct route.

The Spanish blazed few new trails, contenting themselves with Indian paths. But restless Americans who came later were tireless trail makers. They hurried to build routes into the mountains to dig for metals, to graze cattle, to cut timber. Trees were felled; brush was cleared. Gunpowder was rammed into holes drilled into rock and the most immovable granite was blown away.

Fortunately for the Southern California landscape, mountaineering became popular. During the latter part of the last century, great tracts of land stretching from San Bernardino to San Luis Obispo were set aside as Timberland Reserves by the federal government.

The years between 1890 and 1930 were a classic time in Southern California to hit the trail. “The Great Hiking Era,” historians would later call it.

Southland residents rode the electric Red Cars to the base of the San Gabriel Mountains and then hiked trails up Arroyo Seco or Mt. Wilson. The clomp-clomp of hob-nailed boots also rang through the San Bernardino Mountains, San Jacinto Mountains and Santa Barbara back country. Trail camps, fishing camps and resorts were established in local mountains. Soon, the Southland was crisscrossed with trails leading to these resorts and camps and to the best fishing spots and highest peaks.

An astonishing number of local trails were built by young men enrolled in the Civilian Conservation Corps between 1933 and 1942. Faced with massive unemployment during the dark days of the Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked Congress to establish a program to put young men to work in America’s great outdoors.

The CCC completed conservation work that is valued today in the billions of dollars. During the nine years the program operated, the corps built some 20,000 miles of trail, several hundred miles of which led through Southern California’s mountains.

Trail mileage peaked in the early 1940s. During the last half-century, more than one-third of the nation’s forest trails--about 50,000 miles--have been lost to brush, erosion or urban encroachment. Drive-in campgrounds and paved roads now replace trail camps and trails.

Trails, to the modern trail builder/planner, no longer symbolize the lonely wilderness paths of the mountain man. Nature trails, urban bikeways, suburban greenways and historical paths are a few of the more popular trail projects. Some trails groups are busy converting abandoned rail lines to trails, while others are working to provide trails for disabled hikers.

Trails are not an end in themselves, say trails advocates. They must be viewed within the broader context of the environment through which they pass--whether that environment is a remote wilderness or an urban greenway. And any cost of the path must be measured against what is lost by losing the trail and the land.

Often it is not just a path that is endangered, but a whole area. Besides its obvious recreational value, a trail can be seen as a kind of miner’s canary. Miners of old carried caged canaries into the mines with them; if a bird died, it meant environmental conditions were poor. Trails, too, say advocates, can be seen as an indicator of environmental conditions. When people walk a streamside, mountainside or desert trail, they likely form a constituency that cares about the past, present and future of the land the trail crosses. Conversely, when people can no longer walk a trail, it is likely that some land misuse or abuse will soon follow.

“We shouldn’t shy away from the cost of trails,” said Tony Look, who founded the Trails Center in Los Altos. “They’re a priceless resource. They’re a way for people to get out of the traffic and into our green spaces and wilderness . . . (and) help keep a little green on the map.”

Most hikers take trails for granted. They figure some governmental agency is in charge of keeping pathways maintained.

But in most cases, it’s not park employees but trail users who have adopted trails and the responsibility for their upkeep. Trail users who turn out for a day of digging often get an unexpected benefit: It’s a lot of fun and a great opportunity to meet interesting, dedicated conservationists.

In Southern California, trails need repair for two chief reasons: brush and erosion.

* Native shirt-shredding chaparral grows quickly, particularly after a fire, and can crowd the sides of a trail until the way becomes first narrow, then impassable. To the hiker, chaparral is a formidable obstacle--too high to step over, too low to crawl under, too dense to push through. Chaparral is to the trail worker what plaque is to your dentist--growth to be removed.

* Erosion is the other enemy of trails and affects what is called the “tread”--that part of the path trod by hiking boots.

Under compaction by boots, hoofs and mountain bike tires, the tread’s soil becomes so hard that it can’t absorb surface water and erosion begins. Water travels about 15 times farther and faster on a compacted trail than natural soil; the resulting rivulets tear the trail and wash away the surface. Erosion causes a trail to become rocky, dusty and scarred by deep gullies.

The trail builder fights erosion by building water bars that drain trails and keep water from puddling up or running down the trail. Logs, rock piles and railroad ties are used to prop up the trail.

In the last few years, baby bulldozers, complete with blade and bucket, have been used to build and maintain trails. The tiny tractors enable one person to do the work of a dozen. But the machines have yet to be widely used (they’re not permitted in wilderness areas), so most trail work is still done the old-fashioned way--by hand.

Trail work can be hard work. Volunteers work on the trail tread with pick and shovel, and cut back brush with pruning shears. Trail workers learn to paint trail markers, build bridges and rock walls. They master the cross-cut saw, the ax, the hoe, the crowbar.

Above all, the volunteer trail builder learns about the environment and how to respect it.

“Santa Monica Mountains trails are in pretty good condition because some very good people volunteer to work on them,” said author McAuley, 70, who often spends his weekends working on trails. “My goal--and that of the Santa Monica Trails Council--is to have every trail adopted by a trails group.”

Tony Look started the concept of “Trails Days” in the Santa Cruz Mountains in 1969. That year, more than 2,000 people turned out to build 11 miles of the Skyline-to-the-Sea Trail through the redwoods, a trail-building record that still stands.

Look’s idea of mobilizing trail users to turn out for a day or weekend of trail work has been adopted by many hiking clubs, equestrian groups and conservation organizations throughout California. In 1986, the concept went statewide and now, every spring, thousands of volunteers turn out for California Trails Days.

Trail Days Events

Many trails groups sponsor construction projects on an ongoing basis.

To find out who’s doing what where, call a national forest headquarters, state park office or the Sierra Club.

Next weekend, April 21-22, several Southern California organizations will celebrate Earth Day by sponsoring California Trails Days projects. Some of these projects are:

LOS ANGELES COUNTY

* Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council and the Sierra Club will be building and maintaining trails in Point Mugu State Park, (818) 706-1310.

* City of San Dimas will be organizing trail maintenance at Sycamore Canyon, (714) 592-4347.

* City of Montebello and the California State Horsemen’s Assn. will be planting trees and cleaning up debris at Rio Hondo Equestrian and Bike Trail, (213) 725-1200, ext. 440.

* City of Glendale will be improving the trails, clearing brush and putting up signs at Brand Park, (818) 956-2000.

ORANGE COUNTY

* REI of Orange is sponsoring trail rehab work in El Moro Canyon of Crystal Cove State Park, (714) 634-2391.

RIVERSIDE COUNTY

* Chino Hills State Park will host hiking, cycling and equestrian groups that will upgrade trails, (714) 780-6222.

* U.S. Bureau of Land Management is sponsoring trails maintenance projects along two segments of the Pacific Crest Trail in Palm Springs, (619) 323-4421.

* Yucaipa Parks and Recreation District is upgrading trails at Wildwood Park, (714) 797-3292.

SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY

* Trails enthusiasts will repair portions of the Pacific Crest Trail at Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area, (619) 389-2281.

SAN DIEGO COUNTY

* San Diego Trails Council will be maintaining trails in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, (619) 442-4612.

SANTA BARBARA COUNTY

* A new trail will be constructed in Gaviota State Park, (805) 968-1711.