Mud makeover

Southern California mountain trails are badly battered and more beautiful than ever. They’re strewn with mud and rocks and exploding with wildflowers. They’re washed out and snow covered and still surprising hikers with rarely seen streams and waterfalls. As officials assess storm damage in the national forests across the region, they scramble to find money for repairs and hope deficit-ridden Washington can help. Yet the trails, fragile though they are, will evolve with washouts and rock slides, delighting and confounding users. Here is a survey of trail conditions:

Los Padres National Forest

Officials estimate $1.75 million in trail and road damage in the forest that spreads over 1.8 million acres from Carmel to Castaic. The Santa Barbara and Ojai areas bore the brunt of the damage.

The Ojai Ranger District has no money for a wilderness ranger or a trail crew, yet must reckon with significant trail damage. A survey of half the region shows that Cozy Dell trail and Santa Paula Canyon to the Punchbowls were devastated, says Heidi Anderson, the district’s wilderness trails manager. Crews are working on the Gridley, Pratt and Horn canyons and White Ledge trails. In the Piedra Blanca trail head area, the Sespe Creek is running at two to three feet, and rockslides impede the trail. The Wheeler Gorge Nature Trail is accessible by foot, with difficult creek crossings, while the first stream crossing on the Lion Canyon trail is under a foot of water.

Rivers border most of the entry points to the San Rafael Wilderness backcountry, so beware of river flows and stream crossings. Trails in the Figueroa Mountain Recreation Area remain excellent despite some downed trees and branches. Although Happy Canyon Road remains closed, popcorn flowers, blue dicks, buttercups, fiddlenecks, shooting stars, Johnny jump-ups and milkmaids are blooming and visible from Figueroa Mountain Road.

For more information go to https://www.fs.fed.us/r5/lospadres/ or call (805) 968-6640.

Santa Monica Mountains

All 109 miles of trails the federal government manages here have sustained damage due to falling debris and altered stream flows.

The Sostomo trail in Malibu’s Solstice Canyon was closed after the creek washed part of it away. Zuma Creek jumped its banks and shifted 500 feet to the west, washing out the Bonsall trail head in Malibu. The National Park Service does not anticipate permanent trail closures.

No trails under state jurisdiction have been officially closed in the mountains , says Frank Padilla Jr., trails coordinator for the California State Parks and Recreation Department.

A trail section from Will Rogers State Historic Park to Rivas Canyon and a trail leading to the waterfall near Temescal Canyon are impassable, says Stan Swartz, founder of the Trail Runners Club.

In Sycamore Canyon, water runs calf-deep at 13 stream crossings and Swartz says “whitewater rafting is more appropriate than hiking” in Sullivan Canyon west of Westridge.

For more information go to https://www.nps.gov/samo/ or call (805) 370-2301.

San Bernardino National Forest

Debris flows cover many trails, and others were washed out by water. Snow covers about two-thirds of the forest’s 670,000 acres, so a complete assessment of trail damage is months away.

Officials are preparing a supplemental budget request of about $200,000 for trail maintenance.

The Vivian Creek, Momyer and Big Falls trails will remain closed through May. Also closed for tree removal is Dogwood Campground, Forest Service Road 2N98 and sectors east of Daley Canyon Road.

With so much damage, officials hope hikers will not blaze new trails when they reach washed-out or debris-strewn junctures; such rerouting causes more damage.

“I would expect there may be portions of trails that will be closed for a number of months — and winter hasn’t ended yet. We could still have a number of additional storms through the end of April,” says forest recreation officer Fran Colwell.

For more information go to https://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sanbernardino/ or call (909) 382-2600.

Angeles National Forest

Some of the worst damage in 20 years plagues the forest. On average, a washout or debris slide affects every quarter mile over 697 miles of trails. Roads and trails suffered an estimated $10 million in damage and counting, says Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea. About a dozen of 53 trail heads in the forest are difficult, if not impossible, to reach because of road closures in the San Gabriel Mountains.

The Chantry Flats trail system is open but hard to access because Chantry Flats Road is closed. The East Fork trail in San Gabriel Canyon is open, although the portion leading to the Bridge to Nowhere washed out. And in Ice House Canyon, in the Mt. Baldy Village area, a portion of the Ice House Trail about 2 1/2 miles in from the trail head was buried in an avalanche; 12 to 15 feet of snow covers the trail.

The upside: It’s a “good time to go waterfall watching, and with the amount of snowpack we have, it will probably be good for a couple of more weeks,” Florea says. “And it will be a big year for wildflowers.” For more information go to https://www.fs.fed.us/r5/angeles/ or call (626) 574-1613.

Pacific Crest Trail

Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail segments in the San Bernardino National Forest and elsewhere in Southern California suffered serious damage. In the Angeles National Forest, the trail remains open from the east in the San Bernardino Mountains to the North Fork picnic area in the San Gabriel Mountains, but ice and snow cover the trail’s upper reaches. The route is open through the Cleveland National Forest, even around the Boulder Oaks campground, which is closed through June 15.

In the San Gorgonio Pass west of Palm Springs, flooding washed out eight to 10 trail markers south of I-10, according to hiker reports on the Pacific Crest Trail Assn. website. Farther north, a hiker described a “huge washout with the trail gone” near Cleghorn Ridge. Another hiker reported the trail “slid out” about 1 1/2 miles from the Silverwood Lake State Recreation Area. n the section of trail between Agua Dulce and Mojave, heavy snow at 5,100 feet blocked hikers. “Roads blocked by mudslides are restricting access to some parts of the Pacific Crest Trail, particularly in [the] western Angeles National Forest,” says Pete Fish, the association’s volunteer regional coordinator.

“Snow still covers much of the San Jacinto, San Bernardino, San Gabriel, Tehachapi and southern Sierra mountains…. We can only guess what is happening there.”

For more information go to https://www.pcta.org/ or call (916) 349-2109.

Cleveland National Forest

The 460,000-acre national forest lists many closed fire roads on its website, 17 in San Diego County and eight in Orange and Riverside counties.

Judy Behrens, a district recreation officer, said the forest has had “a tremendous amount of ground movement,” making wilderness trails tricky to navigate.

“Most of the trails in the forest are in fair condition,” said Joan Wynn, a Forest Service spokeswoman.

In the Descanso Ranger District, the Corral Canyon Off Highway Vehicle Area and all connecting trails are closed.

However, the Long Valley and Bear Valley trail loops reopened Friday.

In the Trabuco Ranger District, the Wildomar Off Highway Vehicle Area, including all trails, reopened Saturday.

None of 120 miles of trails have been officially closed, but all trails in this area were heavily damaged.

The only paved road through the Trabuco district, Highway 74, is open, but a number of dirt roads leading to the highway are closed.

One thing you can count on is flowers; wild peonies and monkey flowers are in bloom.

“With as much rain as we’ve had, unless it gets super hot, we might have wildflowers through June,” Behrens said.

Hikers also report “a tremendous water display,” she said, at Ortega and Tenaja falls as streams run high and swift.

For more information go to https://www.fs.fed.us/r5/cleveland/ or call (858) 673-6180.