Countywide : Hikers, Bikers Get Antsy Over Closures

After nearly two weeks of rain, Rob Castillo, an avid hiker, developed a burning case of cabin fever.

So when the sun finally shone on a weekend morning recently, Castillo, 36, of Anaheim was tying the laces of his hiking boots at dawn. But at the entrance to Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park near Lake Forest, his plans began to bog down.

“The sign said Whiting was closed. I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “I mean, it was a beautiful day. So I went to another park, Caspers (Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park), and it was closed. I gave up that weekend for lost and went jogging by the beach.”

Mudslides and erosion also have forced the closure of Featherly and Aliso and Wood Canyons regional parks, wiping out miles of hiking, biking and equestrian trails. Although Caspers has reopened a portion of the 7,600-acre park ,it may be weeks before any of the others can dig out of the muck.

“We’re all in the same boat because of the severity of those storms,” said Tom Maloney, a park ranger at the 3,400-acre Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park. “I don’t know where people are going to do their hiking and biking.”

Thousands of people normally use the regional park system on the weekends, county officials say. Now, dozens are turned away.

“Some of us carry photographs to show them why” the parks are closed, Maloney said. “Most people look at the wiped out trails in the picture and say: ‘ Oh, I’m glad I didn’t go.’ ”

Many of the disappointed nature lovers went to the beach last weekend instead, said Pat Schooley, county parks supervisor.

“Southern Californians aren’t used to being cooped up for long periods of time,” Schooley said. “My rangers said there were a lot of people on the beach Sunday. A lot of them go there to look at the debris washed up by the storms.”

Only Doheny State Beach was closed during the weekend due to the lingering effects of a sewage spill related to storm activity. Health officials expect to open the beach this week.

Repairing the damage to the regional park system is expected to take much longer.

“We have canyon areas that were once level that dropped 12 to 14 feet,” because of mudslides, Maloney said. “It takes heavy machinery to re-grade these areas. But the ground has been too soft to get them in. What we really need is a few more days of dry weather.”

They also need heavy machinery, but bulldozers and earthmovers have been needed for critical excavation work elsewhere.

Parks officials hope to get the heavy machinery this week. Once work crews are on the job, it could take up to a week to put a park like the Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park back into shape.

Some nature enthusiasts refuse to wait that long. The SHARE mountain bicycling club showed up at Whiting Ranch on Saturday to lend a shovel to the cause.

“There’s a lot of controversy over whether mountain bikers do damage” to the parks, said Bob Loeffler, president of the Orange County SHARE chapter. “Mountain bikers are one of the largest users of the county system. We really enjoy (Whiting) park and want to put something back into it.”

The bikers on Saturday grabbed shovels to dig out buried trails and fill cracks and crevices that could mean disaster for a speeding bicycle or horse rider.

“It’s pretty dangerous in places,” Loeffler said. “In one place the rain runoff dug a perfect four-foot-deep ditch that came right around a sharp curve. All of sudden there’s a big chasm on the trail that would put a hiker in jeopardy. It’s wet and soggy around here and it’s going to take a lot of work.”