Storms Take Toll on Hiking Trails, Mountain Roads

State and federal park officials, still digging out from this month’s heavy storms, said that several trails and roadways in the Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains remain closed and that hikers, equestrians and mountain bikers should use caution on other stretches of badly eroded trails.

Several mountain parks normally accessible to vehicles are open only to walk-in users because of flood damage to access roads or parking areas, officials said. Only a few trail segments have been closed due to safety hazards, but in many areas hikers may have to detour around rock falls or washed-out sections of trail.

Rangers also said they have yet to check conditions on some of the more remote backcountry trails.

Even with damage reports incomplete, park officials estimated that it will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to repair roads, trails and other facilities. They said they weren’t sure where they will get the money.

In Topanga State Park, the trail to Eagle Springs over the Eagle Springs fire road is closed due to flood damage, officials with the State Department of Parks and Recreation said. The officials also said that Fire Road 29, a hiking and biking trail that connects the end of Reseda Boulevard to Topanga at the Mulholland crest, is deeply rutted near the top.

In Malibu Creek State Park, heavy runoff also tore a hole through Waycross Drive, a patrol road that remains closed to ranger vehicles. A ranger said hikers and equestrians should use extreme caution in the area of the washout.

“We’re just barely getting up to these locations that are farther inside the park to do assessments,” said Frank Padilla, resource ranger with the Santa Monica Mountains district of the state parks department.

“It’s great that we got the water, but it does create a lot of work,” Padilla said. “I’m pulling hairs here . . . on where we’re going to get the funding to fix our trails.”

Dan Preece, state parks superintendent for the Santa Monica Mountains district, estimated that it will cost $200,000 to repair roads and trails at parks in the district, which includes Point Mugu State Park and Will Rogers State Historic Park in addition to Malibu Creek and Topanga.

National Park Service officials, who run the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said their 130-mile network of trails remains open, but that they are still canvassing their trails to assess damages. Spokeswoman Jean Bray said the national recreation area has asked the Park Service’s San Francisco regional office for $80,000 for emergency repairs, part of it to restore ranger residences at Paramount Ranch and Rancho Sierra Vista that were damaged by flooding.

Bray also said that parking lots at Cheseboro Canyon in Agoura and Rancho Sierra Vista in Newbury Park remain closed by flood damage, but that there is walk-in access to both parks.

Several roadways into parklands of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, a state parks agency, also remain closed because of flooding, according to Ruth Kilday, executive director of the Mountains Conservancy Foundation, which is affiliated with the mountains conservancy.

The conservancy estimates it may cost “nearly three-quarters of a million dollars to put things back the way they were,” Kilday said.

At Solstice Canyon Park in Malibu, where the conservancy has its headquarters, the access road will be closed to the public until an engineer certifies its safety, Kilday said. She said she expects an engineer to examine the road next week.

About six miles of trails in the park will also be closed until landslides can be cleared, Kilday said.

Access roads into Towsley Canyon Park near Santa Clarita and into Red Rock Canyon Park between Topanga and Calabasas are also temporarily closed due to weather damage. Kilday said visitors can park along roads near the parks and walk in.

She said the Towsley entrance road may be opened next week with the help of Chevron, a neighboring landowner.

In Angeles National Forest, spokeswoman Denise Rains said she had no reports of trail closures, but she urged hikers and equestrians to use caution.

Rains said that in the Saugus ranger district, west of the Golden State Freeway, all campgrounds remain closed by storm damage except the Bouquet Canyon Campground.

Two roads north and east of Lake View Terrace and Sunland that were closed for several days--Little Tujunga Canyon Road and the Angeles Forest Highway--have been reopened, Rains said. But a third road in the area, Big Tujunga Canyon Road, remains closed by rocks and mud, she said.