A Well-Worn Path Through Caspers Park

Devin Kruse cranked his mountain bike up a canyon trail last month at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park and abruptly came to a halt.

Looking at the more than 100 horse riders enjoying the park’s trails and lush wilderness as part of a two-day equestrian endurance run, Kruse said he realized that his next trip to the park would find those same trails badly battered by horses’ hooves.

“Now that it’s over, the trails are in disrepair,” fumed Kruse, 37. “It’s angered many of us mountain bikers because some of these trails are now impassable in spots.”

The aftermath of the event threatens to ignite a classic battle between horse lovers and cyclists who must share many of the 30 miles of riding and walking trails at the park. Mountain bikers gripe about equestrians atop 1,000-pound steeds tearing up the trails, while the equestrians complain about rude mountain bikers zooming by, frightening horses and hikers alike.

In the middle are park volunteers, rangers, officials and other guardians of Caspers and the county’s 20-park, 33,000-acre system. They are hoping to strike a cooperative effort among all park users to stem any territorial disputes such as those at other county parks and other parts of California.

Marin County, Santa Barbara, and the Santa Monica Mountains in Los Angeles, for example, have become home to notorious trail-right-of-way confrontations that have forced disputes into courtrooms.

In an effort to prevent the same problems from cropping up here, the Orange County Board of Supervisors last week approved a $154,000 grant to a private, nonprofit organization called Trails4All.

The group, founded by Jim Meyer, president of SHARE, an Orange County mountain bike club, will provide financial support for park projects and help promote trail cooperation among equestrians, hikers, mountain bikers and others.

“It pains me to hear of trouble at Caspers,” said Meyer, who has worked years to bring peace among all park users.

As a member of the Orange County Trails Advisory Committee since 1990, Meyer helped to rewrite the county’s master plan of trails to include mountain biking and also reaffirmed the policy that the county’s trails are for everyone to enjoy.

Part of the problem is that as the county population grows, more people are using public parklands, creating the need for greater cooperation among user groups, officials said.

“There are a lot of people on both sides who can’t look at the big picture and figure out that the trails are for everyone,” said Donald Carr, president of the 2,800-member Equestrian Coalition of Orange County.

“Yes, horses cause ruts in trails, but they will be maintained by the sponsoring group,” Carr said. “Meanwhile, mountain bikers go zipping around trails and literally run into and hit horses. Some of these mountain bikers don’t have any trail courtesy, even to other mountain bikes.”

At Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, for example, equestrian riders have complained that it’s dangerous to ride there because they are outnumbered by enthusiasts of mountain biking, a popular sport along the county’s hundreds of miles of challenging trails.

Kruse and other mountain bikers said the rains right before and right after the Dec. 7-8 equestrian event, which was billed as the Caspers Park Benefit Challenge and sponsored by the Orange County Distance Riders, worsened the damage to the trails.

“The bad part was that after the run, Santa Ana winds petrified the trail,” Kruse said.

Paul Roach, treasurer of the equestrian organization that sponsored the endurance ride, said it attracted about 100 riders who took their horses on a 50-mile run on the first day, and then a 25-miler the next day. Roach said the benefit raised about $2,500 in permit, parking and camping fees.

Roach conceded that the horses did damage several Caspers trails.

“But most of the damage is not to the really nice hiking trails,” Roach said. “And, we’re committed to repairing any damage.”

The complaint is one of concern for park officials who are trying to keep harmony among hikers, bicyclists and equestrians not only at Caspers but at all county parks.

“We saw nothing wrong with this [equestrian endurance ride] at all,” said Tim Miller, manager of Orange County parks. “This was not a [horse] race but a run and it was done with the provision that any damage to the trails, they had to mitigate by repairing it. Unfortunately, we didn’t know it was going to rain and they didn’t know it was going to rain.”

The recent rains have prevented park ranger John Gannaway from meeting with Roach and walking the trail for trouble spots. Once that is done, it will then be up to the endurance riders to repair the trails, Gannaway said.

In addition, the county Fire Authority will rehabilitate the park’s trail system, as it does every year in the spring.

Miller said he hiked the trails prior to the endurance ride and did notice soft spots but they did not pose enough of a concern to prevent the ride from taking place.

“No doubt with that number of people you are going to have hoof prints and trail damage,” Miller said. “But mountain bikes also cause damage.”

Miller said that at other county parks, such as Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, which is especially popular with mountain bikers, bikers have been allowed to hold special events. He cited a recent expo and fun ride at Whiting that attracted hundreds of bike riders and their families.

It’s the intent of the park system to encourage greater mountain bike use at Caspers to help alleviate trail congestion now being experienced at Whiting Ranch, Miller said. Part of the dilemma has been the explosive popularity of mountain biking, which sometimes puts cyclists on a collision course with hikers and equestrians.

“It’s our hope that more user groups like mountain bikers will use Caspers because we want to spread the recreational use out,” Miller said. “Whiting Ranch and Crystal Cove State Park are heavy mountain bike parks, followed by” Aliso and Wood Canyons Regional Park.

Miller said recent improvements at Caspers, which included building a loop trail, were the result of mountain bike surveys.

“What people need to remember is that when Caspers was first opened in 1974, its purpose was to preserve a vast wilderness in Orange County,” Miller said. “From day one, it was open to all user groups.”

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User Unfriendly

Bikers, equestrians battle over park trails.