Trail Opening In SoCal
For all of you that are knee deep in the land use battle, I thought I would bring a little good news to the table. For the past 3 1/2 years, a group of Adopt-A-Trail volunteers from Southern Cali has been working to reopen one of the premier off road trails (actually designated a road) in the San Bernardino National Forest. 3N93, Holcomb Creek trail was reopened this past weekend. It was in the Butler 2 fire area, and was closed along with a large part of the back country in the forest for environmental, safety and other considerations. We had just adopted the trail when the fire hit and we were back in the burn area shortly after the fire department deemed it safe. Needless to say it was a daunting task. The Forest Service supervisors were certain that the damage was going to keep the road closed for good.
Our AAT group took that to heart and decided that this was not an option. As we began to work on the road we found that not only were we going to be working our butts off clearing the trail and cleaning it, we would find out just how bad the red tape can get when you deal with the feds. It's a long story but the outcome is the improtant part. The trail reopened this past weekend, after 3.5 years and close to 6000 hours of volunteer time from a fairly small group of volunteers. We had help from outside our group, from many clubs and individuals, from the AAT liason for the SBNF (Greg Hoffman, many many thanks to this man) and from freinds and family. Many letters were written to local representatives, meetings were attended and many hours of planning were spent building a plan we knew would work if given a chance.
The moral of this story is, if you want to stop land closure, you HAVE to get involved. Writing letters and making phone calls are important, but getting out and attending meetings, working the trails, meeting the public that uses that land/road/hiking trail are even more important. High profile is where its at. Results count and this trail opening proves that if you are willing to exert the effort required, the return is astounding.
Keep up the good fight everyone. It can be done!
Kurt Kauffman
My Jeep Rocks AAT member
Oh well, so stoked it's open again....
Super stoked that 3N93 is finally open to the GP again. One of my favorite trails in big bear.
Mist be satisfying to see it open again. 