Loving Nature to Death : Crowds Force Road Closures, Prompt Campaign to Educate Visitors About Rules, Litter

Growing crowds of day-trippers are overwhelming Angeles National Forest, using the massive wilderness in ways that stand backcountry tradition on its head and forcing officials to barricade major roadways into the area on many weekends and holidays.

Narrow strips of greenery along the main roadways of the forest have been turned into a new form of urban park, leaving the vast interior virtually untouched.

The sweltering summer heat brings thousands of mostly Latino families to the forest, where their cars line the twisting roadways for miles and disgorge a cargo of barbecues, ice chests, playpens and lawn chairs.

San Gabriel Canyon, once home of a nationally recognized trout fishery, is now known among rangers as “Barbecue Alley,” where the aroma of charcoal smoke and rhythmic salsa music overwhelm the scent of pine and the babble of a cool mountain creek.

This weekend could provide the ultimate test of patience for forest officials and picnickers alike as they face the Labor Day Weekend crush, one of the busiest periods of the year. Forest officials say they expect most of the primary mountain roads to be closed at some point on all three days of the long holiday weekend.

Federal officials routinely barricade key roadways into the forest--including California 39 north of Azusa, Big Tujunga Canyon above Sunland and Lytle Creek Road near Cajon Pass--because there are too many people and not enough room for all their vehicles. On hot Sundays and holidays, the roads can close as early as 11 a.m. and remain closed for hours as officials wait for the throngs to thin out.

The big crowds have created a diverse set of environmental, social and traffic challenges for forestry officials and spawned some innovative responses that may provide a road map for national forests around the country that may soon be wrestling with the problems of creeping urbanization, officials say.

“We don’t see this anywhere else” in a national forest, said Sam Ham, a professor of forestry at the University of Idaho who has studied the Angeles Forest situation. “But this is the near future for a lot of the United States.”

“What we see here, we’ll see in Salt Lake City, Denver and Seattle in four years,” said Ranger Julie Molzahn of the Tujunga District of the U.S. Forest Service.

Forestry experts, sociologists and environmentalists say that overcrowding is caused by a need to escape packed city parks, leave crime behind and find cheap family entertainment.

“It’s close, it’s accessible, it’s inexpensive, it’s a nice time for the family,” said Alex Gonzales of the California Highway Patrol, which monitors the mountain roads.

Jim Park, chief of planning for the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department, said the overcrowding is part of the natural development of Southern California. “It is the constant influx of newcomers . . . looking for places less crowded,” he said.

The families come in large parties, increasingly early in the day and staying till dusk. Sundays and national holidays are the busiest, but Saturdays are increasingly crowded, rangers report.

Forest Service surveys show that the average group visiting the Angeles Forest consists of nine to 10 people, about double the national average of four to five people per party. Groups of 20 and 25 are not unusual in the local forest, according to some surveys.

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Few of these new visitors venture more than a few hundred feet beyond the road, rangers say.

This marks a tremendous difference from what park planners call the “Ozzie and Harriet model” of the small, nuclear family going to the woods to hike and contemplate nature. Most national parks and forests and, for that matter, city and county parks were designed with that traditional model in mind.

The new wave of forest visitors seeks out areas with running streams, making San Gabriel and Big Tujunga canyons with their year-round water resources among the most popular. But the Lytle Creek, Little Rock and San Antonio Canyon areas are also routinely experiencing crushing traffic.

The forest has limited picnic, parking and camping areas, able to handle just a few hundred of the thousands of weekend picnickers. So most just pull over and park where they can along the narrow roadways.

The weekend canyon visitors say the forest is a good place to cool off, get away and enjoy family and friends.

Tomas Velasquez is typical of the new breed of canyon picnickers. He moved to the United States from El Salvador in 1988. His friends brought him to San Gabriel Canyon during his first year in this country and it reminded him of home. And even though nature may appear overrun, it does not bother Velasquez. “There’s nothing wrong with the crowds here. It’s crowded in the city, isn’t it?” he said.

“It’s beautiful here,” agreed Juan Alcarez of Bell Gardens. “It’s worth the pain [of traffic]. . . . This is a nice change of pace from going to the beach.”

Araceli Cardenas, who was visiting the forest for the first time one recent Sunday afternoon, said: “This place is very agreeable. There are nothing but families here. All sane people.”

When crowds began to build in San Gabriel Canyon, the Forest Service found that it was getting more than 10,000 visitors on some days and had virtually no restroom facilities, said Ranger Karen Fortus of the Mt. Baldy District. “It was a real mess.”

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The Latino visitors, many of them recent immigrants, were largely unfamiliar with National Forest etiquette and litter was overwhelming, she and other rangers report.

To Gregory Rodriguez, senior fellow at the Alta California Research Center, that is not surprising.

Recent immigrants have not grown up with the same “civic propaganda” that instills attitudes about littering and other environmental concerns, Rodriguez said.

Even language itself was a problem. “We couldn’t communicate with millions of our visitors,” said Ranger Tom Spencer. The California Department of Transportation, which maintains the mountain roads, was hamstrung by English-only rules and could not post Spanish-language signs.

Traffic got so bad, with double- and triple-parking on roadsides, that emergency vehicles could not get through, rangers and California Highway Patrol officials said.

In response to the crowds and the attendant problems, the Forest Service entered an arrangement with the Los Angeles County parks department to raise money for scores of portable toilets and weekly trash hauling. California 39 in the forest is a county road, so the county parks department charges a $3 parking fee and gives the proceeds to the Forest Service, which cannot impose entrance fees.

Forestry officials hope Congress will approve similar arrangements for other areas of the forest.

To bridge the language gap, the Forest Service established a program that recruits inner-city youths to canvass picnic areas, educate visitors about regulations and pass out literature and trash bags. The Eco Teams are funded by various grants and work cooperatively with the Los Angeles Conservation Corps and the California Environmental Project.

“Rather than clean up after them, it’s better to educate them,” said Nora Riley, an administrator for the Eco Team. By most accounts, the program appears to be a success.

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Still, there are problems. Trash is visible in the roadside areas of heaviest picnic use. Watermelon rinds and old steak bones lie scattered and covered with ants. In streams, children splash amid discarded plastic foam cups and containers. Graffiti routinely cover rocks.

“The first mile is all graffiti and litter,” said Sean Boyd of Burbank, who runs on the backcountry trails.

There are also creeping environmental problems associated with the large crowds.

Spencer said aquatic life in the streams has been seriously disrupted by campers building rock dams to make deeper swimming and wading areas. The ground is becoming densely packed by the constant foot traffic concentrated in small areas and that is choking off plant life. The dumping of charcoal from thousands of barbecues is poisoning the land and lack of toilets is further fouling the ground and water.

“The resource needs a rest,” Fortus said.

Some officials fear that other, more unexpected, problems may develop.

On one recent Sunday afternoon, CHP officials began towing cars in the upper San Gabriel Canyon that were double-parked and blocking the roadway. A crowd grew angry and began pelting the CHP officers and tow truck operators with rocks and bottles, according to the CHP. The CHP officers had to call on Azusa police for backup.

There were no injuries or arrests, and authorities called it an isolated incident. But the confrontation does illustrate a level of stress that is growing in the crowded atmosphere.

Terry Ellis, district ranger for the Arroyo Seco District of the forest, said Angeles Crest Highway, the long, twisting road that traverses most of the forest and is the primary route in and out of the area, is showing signs of overuse. “We haven’t done it yet, but we’ve come close to closing it,” Ellis said.

Federal and local officials are wrestling with how to serve the changing recreational needs of the community while still protecting the wilderness.

“Sure we need recreational outlets in an urban setting,” said Larry Freilich of the Sierra Club. “But is the National Forest the best place for it?”

The Forest Service is now studying that issue in anticipation of preparing a new watershed plan for the Angeles National Forest.

But already, certain things are clear: The number of visitors is expected to continue rising and the Forest Service will have to limit it.

“It will lead to some sort of rationing,” said Ranger Ellis. “You’ll need a reservation to get in or we’ll count [cars entering] and then just cut it off after a certain number and pull down the gate.”

Until then it’s every nature lover for him or herself.

Or as picnicker Alcarez said: “We like to get here early, so we can beat the crowds.”

Times staff writer Tony Olivo contributed to this story.

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Sealing Off the Wilderness

Angeles National Forest officials are routinely barricading key roads on Sundays and holidays because there are too many people and not enough room for all of their vehicles. The roads sometimes remain closed for hours while officials wait for the crowds to thin out.