Placer County is out!

Regarding maintenance of the Rubicon Trail, Placer County has taken the position that they are not responsible. They are out.

The first question that comes to mind is, then who is responsible?

Well, it falls to the property owner, who is the US Forest Service.

Thankfully, El Dorado County has stepped up and is working on paperwork that would give them the authority to perform maintenance on the Rubicon through the Tahoe National Forest and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.

This would give one ‘government agency’ control over the entire trail. This was the dream of Del Albright when he first formed FOTR and started the drive to save the Rubicon Trail.

El Dorado County, specifically, Vickie Sanders, has been knocking it out of the park regarding maintenance since before the Clean-Up and Abatement order. Although some my not like what has been done, if it wasn’t done, the trail would have been closed years ago due to water quality issues.

Vickie has brought in millions of dollars in grant funds to harden the Rubicon Trail, prevent erosion and thus keep the trail open. Unfortunately, the way the grant cycle works, she won’t have funding for Tahoe side work until the end of the summer.

RTF has decided to step up and hire a contractor to start in on the rebuilding of the rolling dips within the LTBMU. El Dorado will do the paperwork and engineering, LTBMU will approve all work done and RTF will pay for it.

It is not know what level of volunteer work will be needed during this initial phase. Most of the work will be done with heavy equipment.

Getting back to Placer County, they still recognize the public ‘right to pass’, which I think (hope) will keep the Rubicon Trail open year round. If the FS had taken over control of every aspect of the trail, there would be a seasonal closure probably from Nov 16th through May 31st.

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Rubicon Ronin