Trails and Tribulation : Rangers Try to Help Bikers, Hikers and Equestrians Get Along

By BERKLEY HUDSON

Aug. 19, 1993 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

SAN GABRIEL MOUNTAINS —

From a vista point on a narrow, winding trail in the Angeles National Forest above Pasadena, the rider gazed out from her perch atop a horse.

Without warning, two mountain bikers hurtled around the corner and startled the horse. The animal tumbled to its death, taking the equestrian on an injurious fall down the mountainside.

This horror story from last winter is the type that fuels the perception that mountain bikers, hikers and equestrians absolutely can’t get along in the Angeles National Forest.

It is the extreme example of the tensions and conflicts that have been building among the three recreation groups as more and more mountain bikers pedal their way into canyons and onto the mountaintops that once were the domain of hikers, joggers and horseback riders.

Bikers discuss rumors of sabotage on the trails. Is it true, a group of bikers asked one another last Saturday in the forest, about the reports of boards with nails found on another trail?

More than flattened tires or actual broken bones or bruised bodies, the tensions center on the mere specter of such occurrences. It is largely a conflict confined--for now--to the realm of emotions and territorial rights: People are frightened or startled on the trail. Sometimes words are exchanged in anger.

A century after its inception, the Angeles National Forest, one of the nation’s most heavily used chunks of public land, is on the cutting edge of the nationwide battle over trail access. Increasingly, the forest is being jammed with mountain bikers, hikers and horseback riders.

Managers of public lands and parks throughout Southern California and elsewhere have responded to similar pressures by limiting access to mountain bikes and then studying whether to later expand it.

But Angeles officials, observing a mandate of “multiple use,” the policy of accommodating as many different uses of the national forest as possible, have been loath to restrict access.

In the process, the Angeles National Forest has become a refuge for mountain bikers, sometimes hundreds of them occupying individual trails and roads on weekends.

The forest provides one of the country’s biggest stretches of “single-track” (narrow) trails in close proximity to a major metropolitan area. A biker, hiker or equestrian can go for miles and miles “and never touch pavement,” said Alan Armstrong, one of the founders of the Mt. Wilson Bicycling Assn.

Bikers have virtually free rein over the 1,000-square-mile national forest with its 561 miles of trails and 700 miles of fire roads. Mountain bikes are banned only in the established wilderness areas and along the Pacific Crest Trail.

Now Angeles officials, who for nearly a decade have struggled to manage the prickly competing interests, are weighing the findings of an environmental study on the issue. By this fall, they expect to create a formal policy, at least for three trails in the Arroyo Seco District, one of the forest’s most heavily used sections.

“Mountain biking is a legitimate recreational use,” said Mike Rogers, supervisor of the Angeles National Forest. “The philosophy is to allow as much of it as we can,” he said, “without endangering other users” or causing undue damage in the forest.

During the past decade, bikers have forged an uneasy alliance with hikers, equestrians and U.S. Forest Service officials over trail access throughout the San Gabriel Mountains.

“We have managed over the years to reach some degree of harmony,” said Terry C. Ellis, the ranger in charge of the Arroyo Seco District.

But to critics like hiker David Czamanske of South Pasadena, the situation is far less harmonious than Forest Service officials say.

The bikers are becoming so dense in some spots, he said, “they are driving out the hikers.” Overcrowding is as much a problem as discourteous riders, he said.

Czamanske, vice chairman of the Pasadena group of the Sierra Club’s Angeles Chapter, said, “I can’t say I’ve had any bad incident happen to me. But there are certain trails I won’t even bother to go on anymore,” especially the Gabrielino Trail where it traverses the lower Arroyo Seco in the forest.

The Forest Service, Czamanske said, “has done next to nothing” to resolve the conflicts.

The time for the Forest Service to have taken action was four to five years ago, said Czamanske, who several years ago had meetings on the subject with other hikers and Forest Service officials.

Armstrong agrees that bikes can be a problem for non-bikers.

“You’re out there in the mountains. You get in this meditative state. All of a sudden you hear something coming up behind,” he said. Then, wham-o, a biker zooms by.”

Once, in 1987, one of the country’s top mountain bikers was training on the Mt. Wilson Toll Road and raced down the mountain, amid the crush of a weekend traffic of hikers, bikers and equestrians.

He ignored the basic rules of etiquette. Several other mountain bikers, who recognized him, reported him to Forest Service officials, who later tracked him down. As penance, the biker in public appearances apologized for his behavior and cautioned his colleagues to be considerate of others on the trails.

The peer pressure among bicyclists can become so intense that “we had actual fights almost break out between bikers,” said George W. Geer, an Angeles unit ranger who has worked closely on the issue.

“The bicyclists (in the Angeles) are much more aware now than they were in the early years about standards of behavior,” Armstrong said. “Bicyclists are much more willing to put pressure on those who are not following proper etiquette.”

Armstrong praises Angeles National Forest officials for working with hikers, bikers and equestrians and for keeping the trails open to all groups.

“Things are pretty good,” said Armstrong, a Pasadena City College welding instructor. For his efforts in fighting for trail access and for building and repairing trails, and for attempting to foster harmony among hikers, bikers and equestrians, Armstrong was named last month to the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, based in Crested Butte, Colo.

Some equestrians share the view that strained relations among hikers, bikers and equestrians have eased.

“It’s definitely gotten better,” said equestrian Lori Smith, 25, who rides into the forest from her home in Altadena and who sometimes rides a mountain bike.

Astride her mustang on a fire road above Pasadena, she said: “There are a few jerks that fly by on bikes. I just yell at them.”

As she spoke, a mountain biker approached her, said hello, dismounted and then walked quietly by to avoid startling her horse.

Jack Kennedy, a security consultant who lives in Covina and oversees equestrian volunteer patrols in the Angeles National Forest, was watching all this. “There is a good example of how it should be done,” said Kennedy, 53, who helped to rescue the woman whose horse was killed in the accident last winter.

The efforts of groups such as the Mt. Wilson Bicycling Assn. have helped to ease tensions in the forest, Kennedy said. “You have to throw your support to them. Mountain bikes have been kicked out of almost everyplace else. This one of the last strongholds.”

It was in the early 1980s, Geer said, that the Angeles National Forest first began to see a noticeable increase in bikes. Particularly evident were young boys riding BMX bikes. Locally, several BMX tracks had closed due to liability problems.

In search of another place to ride, the youngsters found refuge in the forest. They trekked up the Mt. Wilson Toll Road and then, to the chagrin of hikers, joggers and equestrians, barreled willy-nilly downhill.

At the same time, mountain bikes began streaming into the San Gabriels.

Countering the critics, Geer said that the Angeles National Forest has taken an aggressive stance to deal with the relations among hikers, bikers and equestrians.

With the help of representatives from hiking, biking and horseback riding organizations, he said he developed a pamphlet and a trail sign to educate all users of the forest. Recreation areas throughout the nation, Geer said, have since adopted or modified the use of the sign and the pamphlet.

The pamphlet outlines a “cyclist responsibility code.” The trail sign lets bikers know that they must yield to hikers and horses, and that hikers must yield to horses also.

The Mt. Wilson Bicycling Assn., Geer said, helped the Forest Service to work with local bike shops and to educate new riders. In the case of two bike shops whose salespeople promoted “gonzo” biking that was harmful to the forest, he said, biking association members staged a boycott that forced the stores to change their approach.

As a way to slow bikers who speed downhill, the Forest Service has instituted the equivalent of speed bumps. Thick posts, or in some cases two large rocks, are embedded in the narrow path, creating obstacles that force bikers to dismount and walk.

In a test program, the devices were placed at half a dozen particularly treacherous locations on blind, steep curves where mishaps could occur.

Another engineering strategy is building up the trails to make them harder and prevent erosion-inducing gutters from forming.

To limit use on some trails, Geer said, some signs now indicate that mountain bikes, though not forbidden, are not recommended because of the narrow, steep conditions.

To Patrick Phillips, an Altadena horseman who for a dozen years has ridden both horses and mountain bikes in the Angeles, all these actions by the Forest Service speak to the grander issue--the Angeles is facing tremendous pressures on many fronts.

On a recent Saturday, as he rode his horse along a fire road filled with hikers, joggers, bikers and horseback riders, Phillips, 33, said: “You never saw anyone up here when I first came up here. But now it has become a very popular place.”

Rules of the Trail

Bicyclists:

* Always yield the trail. That means stop completely, if necessary.

* Control your bicycle.

* Use a handlebar chime to alert others.

* Pass slowly and with discretion.

* Control speed.

* Don’t skid.

Equestrians:

* Control your horse.

* Train your horse to be around

hikers, backpackers, joggers