Treehuggers International » San Gabriel Mountains

Wilderness and Wild and Scenic River Opportunities In the Golden State

tommy — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:02:59 +0000

Rocky outcrop near the Mt. Waterman summit, San Gabriel Mountains.

It’s an exciting time for wilderness and outdoor advocates in Southern California, as three different conservation initiatives are underway in the southern half of the Golden State, including wild areas in the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, a pair of remote locales in northern San Diego County, and a vast expanse of currently unprotected land in the Mojave Desert, including multiple wilderness expansion proposals, numerous Wild and Scenic River designations, and two new National Monuments.

On this edition of Treehuggers International, Daniel Rossman from the Wilderness Society’s Los Angeles office, and Steve Evans, the Conservation Director from Sacramento-based Friends of the River, talk about the remarkable amount of conservation opportunities already underway in Southern California, and those under consideration.

San Gabriel Mountains

Pitch leaks from a freshly cut limb.

Led by the Wilderness Society, Friends of the River, the Sierra Club and other organizations in the San Gabriel Mountains Forever coalition, the current San Gabriels plan calls for additions to the range’s three established wilderness areas: the Sheep Mountain, Cucamonga, and San Gabriel Wilderness in the Angeles and San Bernardino National Forests.

Significant Wild and Scenic River designation is also being proposed on the San Gabriel River’s East, North, and West forks, as well as Lytle Creek, Little Rock Creek (on the range’s north side), and San Antonio Creek, including San Antonio Falls, located along one of the proposed additions to the Sheep Mountain Wilderness near Baldy Notch.

Also, with the extraordinary and still-growing recreation use of the area, a plan is being proposed for a new San Gabriel Mountains National Recreation Area in conjunction with the National Park Service.

The park service has already done a feasibility study on the possibility of a National Recreation Area, which would be especially valuable to lower income and ethnically diverse areas at the base of the range. Currently, the Wilderness and Wild and Scenic package needs the support of Congressman David Dreier from California’s 26th district in order to get aboard “the legislative train.”

2010 California Desert Protection Act

Backed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Desert Protection Act is of significant size, and would include the proposed Sand-to-Snow National Monument, rising from the western end of Joshua Tree National Park into the forested high country of the San Bernardino Mountains, and includes one of several proposed Wild and Scenic River designations in the area for the Whitewater River, which flows through the proposed monument’s length into the Coachella Valley basin.

To the north, the proposed Mojave Trails National Monument would protect wild and historic locales along both sides of historic U.S. Rt. 66, along with a sizable chunk of the Mojave Desert west of the Mojave National Preserve, and another sizable area west of the Arizona state line near the Colorado River and Needles. Several proposed wilderness areas are also part of the package, and would provide an opportunity to enhance wildlife corridors between Death Valley National Park, the U.S. Army’s Fort Irwin, and Mojave National Preserve.

An upcoming show featuring David Lamfrom from the National Parks Conservation Association will go into more detail about this proposal, one of the largest land management initiatives ever undertaken in the lower 48 states.

Northern San Diego County

Springtime flowers in oak woodland country.

We at Treehuggers International were pleased to learn Congressman Darrell Issa, who represents California’s 49th District in San Diego’s inland North County, had introduced legislation in December to expand the current Agua Tibia and Beauty Mountain Wilderness areas in Riverside County into adjoining wild areas in his district in San Diego County.

Passage of the bill will add 7,796 acres to the Agua Tibia Wilderness and 13,635 acres to the Beauty Mountain Wilderness, originally established by Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack and Sen. Barbara Boxer in the California Desert and Mountain Heritage Act.

Crisscrossed by canyons with oak woodland and chaparral-covered slopes, the areas are intensely rugged and heavily bouldered, with the Cutca Trail marking the main human passageway through the region. As has become the case with recent wilderness proposals in areas with private property patchworked into public land, the legislation allows for the continued use of a popular campground at the end of a pre-exisiting road “cherry stemmed” into the wilderness, and will also permit a corral along the edge of the Beauty Mountain Wilderness boundary.

Another modern wilderness concession is an allowance for mechanized firefighting efforts in the areas, though the Agua Tibia Wilderness in particular has already burned four times since the late 80s, most recently in the Poomacha Fire in October 2007. Several proposed Wild and Scenic River designations are also being considered as part of the overall legislative package, including the upper Santa Margarita River (before it flows into Camp Pendleton) and the San Diego River Gorge.

For more information on these ongoing initiatives, contact the Wilderness Society’s Los Angeles office at (213) 514-4030, or Friends of the River in Sacramento at (916) 442-3155.

Rugged vistas of the San Gabriel high country abound along the trail to Chilao and Twin Peaks.

David Edelson from the Wilderness Society

tommy — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 02:01:41 +0000

View from Mt. Baden-Powell into the drainage of the East Fork San Gabriel River.

An environmental attorney and public land conservation specialist, David Edelson is the Regional Director for the California and Nevada office of the Wilderness Society.

David previously served as lead attorney for the Sierra Forest Legacy, where he played an important role in blocking the Bush Administration’s 2004 forest management plan, which called for a drastic increase in the commercial logging of large, old-growth, fire-resilient Ponderosa, Jeffrey Pine, and White fir in the Plumas National Forest. A federal court later found the management plan in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act.

Hedgehog Cactus in bloom, Mojave Desert.

David also worked at the Natural Resources Defense Council, where he led the NRDC’s efforts to improve management of national forests in the Sierra Nevada and Pacific Northwest.

The Wilderness Society has long been a champion of conservation and the environment, and specifically, setting aside the last remaining wild places on public lands in the U.S., including lands overseen by the National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the National Wildlife Refuge System.

In addition to wilderness advocacy, the Wilderness Society also works to ensure appropriate, responsible management of the nation’s public lands. Founded in 1935, the Wilderness Society led the way and was instrumental in the creation of the National Wilderness Preservation System and the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act under President Johnson, which elegantly describes wilderness as “an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”

Today, over 100 million acres of federal land have been set aside for all Americans as wilderness, and with the passage of the Omnibus Public Lands Act in March 2009, an additional two million acres in nine states have come under wilderness designation. Along with the economic benefits in the rise of tourism and outdoor recreation as a result of these special places, wilderness provides breathing room for watersheds, climate regulation, and biodiversity, and also provides room for humans to de-pressurize and re-connect with the ebb and flow of the natural cycles of the earth and the wild.

San Antonio Falls, San Gabriel Mountains.

With last year’s legislative successes in mind, wilderness advocates are hoping for success this year with several initiatives, most notably the Sen. Dianne Feinstein-sponsored California Desert Protection Act, which would create or expand five wilderness areas in the Mojave Desert and nearby portions of adjoining mountain ranges, and also create two new National Monuments: the Mojave Trails National Monument between Joshua Tree and the Mojave National Preserve, and the Sand to Snow National Monument, which would preserve adjoining areas of Joshua Tree National Park into high country in the nearby San Bernardino Mountains.

The act would also add expansions to Joshua Tree National Park, Death Valley National Park, and the Mojave National Preserve, with the new wilderness areas and National Monuments acting as buffers around the National Parks, thereby preserving wildlife corridors between the parks and across the Mojave at a variety of elevations.

Proposed additions to the Agua Tibia and Beauty Mountain Wilderness areas in northern San Diego County sponsored by Congressman Darrell Issa have also been a welcome development, and the proposed additions to the Cucamonga and Sheep Mountain Wilderness areas and Wild and Scenic River designation for the east and north forks of San Gabriel River, San Antonio Creek, and Lytle Creek in the San Gabriel Mountains near Los Angeles have also found a favorable response (and will be explored in upcoming shows).

Conservationists are also engaged in ongoing wilderness initiatives in California’s Sierra Nevada, the Carrizo Plain, and the Klamath Mountains in Northern California (which contains the largest network of roadless wilderness remaining in the Pacific Northwest), as well as in Colorado with the Hidden Gems and San Juan Mountains wilderness proposals, in Oregon with the Molalla River Wild and Scenic bill, and in Pennsylvania in the long-running campaign to create new wilderness areas in the Hickory Creek, Allegheny Front, and Tionesta wildlands of the Allegheny National Forest.

Spring wildflowers on the Carrizo Plain, San Luis Obispo County.

Consequences of the Station Fire

daley — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:36:51 +0000

Vetter Mountain Lookout, 1937 - 2009

Wildland firefighter and fire ecologist Rick Halsey returns to Treehuggers International to discuss the impact of the Station Fire. The founder and director of the Escondido-based California Chaparral Institute, Rick is also a member of the San Diego Regional Fire Safety Forum and the author of the book Fire, Chaparral, and Survival In Southern California.

The steep slopes of the San Gabriels make firefighting difficult.

With major wildfires having blackened scores of acres in the Golden State this year in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Gold Country, and the counties of Santa Barbara (four times in the last 12 months), Mendocino, Sonoma, Sacramento, and elsewhere, it seems every season has become fire season in California.

Nevertheless, few in the Southland were ready for the size and duration of the fire which swept down the canyons into Altadena, La Cañada Flintridge, and Tujunga. Ultimately the Station Fire set a notorious record, as the largest wildfire ever in Los Angeles County.

After claiming two lives, destroying over 80 homes, and burning through 154,000 acres of the Angeles National Forest, the Station Fire is at last nearly under control, and conservationists, fire professionals, outdoor recreationsists, and (regrettably) political leaders are beginning to take stock of what was lost and what can be done.

Of concern to Treehuggers International are the dozens of prized outdoor recreation spots in the Angeles National Forest now consigned to memory, obliterated in the furnace of the wildfire. Locales like the famous Vetter Mountain Lookout served as havens for generations of Southern Californians eager to recharge in the “good tidings” of the San Gabriels’ chaparral-covered slopes, meadows, streams, forests, and Mojave Desert and L.A. Basin views.

Lonely watch on the fire line.

While the Station Fire did not make major penetrations into the San Gabriel high country, thousands of acres of old-growth chaparral were lost, and as is the case with the frequent fire pattern currently at work in Southern California, the way has been cleared for aggressive, non-native grasses and other plants to move in, thereby increasing the risk of fire in the near term, and making it more more difficult for the natural ecosystem of the region to re-establish itself. As fires become more frequent in our ongoing drought, it seems California’s chaparral wildlands are burning themselves into oblivion.

Is all of this a calamity? Are even more firebreaks and brush clearing in the backcounty necessary to avoid another disaster? Should these fires simply be allowed to burn themselves out? Rick Halsey again explains why the solutions to avoiding disaster in California’s year-round fire season come first with the understanding large fires are completely normal for our environment. We’re not being “victimized” by fires, we’ve simply built into their path, again and again. And when you try and beat nature long-term, you lose.

While the frequency of fires remains a concern in the ongoing drought, wise management, defensible space, and an appreciation for the Mediterranean climate of Southern California is the cornerstone to respecting the region’s wild side, and understanding fire is a natural, normal part of California’s ecosystems.

A member of the Dalton Hotshots grabs a few minutes of sleep.

Los Angeles County Trails with Jerry Schad

daley — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 22:11:29 +0000

Looking north into the Mojave Desert from the Devil's Punchbowl.

Making a return appearance to Treehuggers International, veteran outdoor writer, Mesa College science professor and astronomy photographer Jerry Schad talks about the revised, third edition of Afoot and Afield In Los Angeles County, due in bookstores later this year from Wilderness Press.

Jerry talks about the trail revisions in the new edition of his Los Angeles County guide, his favorite L.A.-area trails, the geology and topography of the San Gabirel Mountains and Santa Monica Mountains and how they have become a hiker’s delight, and the best places to hike in Southern California’s hot summer months, where even a trip up Zuma or Solstice Canyon in otherwise ocean-cooled Malibu can be a scorching proposition.

Jerry also talks about his current work on new trail systems in San Diego’s Balboa Park, the environmental benefits of living in the city in multi-story dwellings, and some of the best places in Southern California to combine camping and stargazing.

While best known for Afoot and Afield In San Diego County, the definitive guide on San Diego County trails and the outdoors, as well as an Afoot and Afield entry for Orange County, Jerry has written dozens of books on the outdoors in California, including hiking, bicycling, and trail running, plus he’s the author of a collegiate physical sciences textbook and serves as the Chair of Mesa College’s Physical Sciences Department.

A longtime astronomical photographer with dozens of publication credits to his name, Jerry has hosted KPBS-TV documentaries about San Diego’s nighttime sky and a multi-part show based his own Afoot and Afield In San Diego County.

An occasional contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Jerry is approaching his 800th (!) weekly Roam-A-Rama column for the San Diego Reader!

Needless to say, we’re very happy to have Jerry Schad back on Treehuggers International.

Thousand-year old limber pines near the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell.

Spring wildflowers bloom along the San Andreas Fault at Tejon Pass.

Treehuggers International » San Gabriel Mountains

Wilderness and Wild and Scenic River Opportunities In the Golden State

San Gabriel Mountains

2010 California Desert Protection Act

Northern San Diego County

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David Edelson from the Wilderness Society

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Consequences of the Station Fire

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Los Angeles County Trails with Jerry Schad

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