Rubicon Trail Collaborative Council (RTCC)
Posted: February 15, 2023 Filed under: Access, Maintenance, Travel | Tags: closure, maintenance, management, users Leave a commentOn Monday, February 13th, a public meeting was held at the Cal4 office in Sacramento. There were probably 20 people in the room and just as many on Zoom. The topic was a new way to get more user input regarding the management and maintenance of the Rubicon Trail.
Amy Granat (CORVA & Tread Lightly) and Roger Salazar (OHMVR Commissioner & CORVA/Cal4 life member) presented a new idea for managing the Rubicon Trail: the Rubicon Trail Collaborative Council.
The idea is to build off the example of the Rubicon Oversight Committee (formerly held by El Dorado County). This new group would bring together the users and get the users a seat at the big table along-side of the governing agencies that currently manage the Rubicon Trail.
The establishment of this new group goes along with the establishment of a new Rubicon Trail management process. The idea is to manage the Rubicon Trail as one trail from Wentworth Springs to Lake Tahoe. This could (and should) include the Ellis Creek Intertie. One of the bigger changes is the Forest Service (FS) will be represented by Region-5; that’s the FS headquarters in Vallejo, CA. The individual forests (El Dorado National Forest ENF, Tahoe National Forest TNF & Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit LTBMU) will not each have a seat at the new table.
The new ‘table’ will have El Dorado County, Placer County, US Forest Service, Ca State Parks OHMVR and the new Rubicon Trail Collaborative Council (RTCC).
The current MOUs between ENF, TNF, LTBMU, ElDo Co, Placer Co, CA St Parks and various law enforcement agencies will be amended to include RTCC and to establish a consistency in management and maintenance across the trail.
The make-up of the Rubicon Trail Coordinating Council will include five types of stakeholders: landowners, businesses, state OHV organizations, trail management ‘non-government organizations’ (NGOs) and OHV clubs. Each category will have two seats. It will be up to each category to determine their representatives. (That will be fun.)
The Rubicon Trail Collaborative Council will be housed as a non-profit under the CA Outdoor Recreation Foundation, which will also act as facilitators and representatives for RTCC. Amy & Roger will be those facilitators and representatives for the RTCC board.
If you are wondering if this will ever actually happen, I believe that it will. Amy stated that the larger agencies have already agreed to the idea, verbally, not yet in writing. The hard part is amending the current MOUs to get everyone to agree to the new wording. Again, those large government agencies have already agreed on the idea.
Similar agreements are already in place for other types of recreation and trails. In our world, The Dusy-Ersham Trail has a multi-MOU agreement and the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) has a very similar agreement with all of the forests and counties that it crosses. Nothing on the PCT gets done without user input and approval.
This new management agreement will lift the decisions above any one agency, group or individual.
Moving forward, there is a plan to hold an organizational meeting of the RTCC this month. This meeting will probably include the first set of discussions about who will represent each of the five groups within RTCC.
Helpful links:
Roger Salazar – https://ohv.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=22606#salazar
Amy Granat – https://corva.org/board_of_directors; https://treadlightly.org/meet-the-team/board-of-directors/
California Outdoor Recreation Foundation – https://outdoorrecreationfoundation.org/
If you didn’t catch it, Amy & Roger will be the two user representatives at the new ‘big table’. The RTCC will provide them with guidance to follow as they talk with the ‘agencies’.
This new management arrangement should prevent illegal or unnecessary closures of the Rubicon Trail due to wildfires 20 miles away, because of possible snow fall heading toward the trail or any other arbitrary situation that may arise.
I’m extremely hopeful.
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Rubicon Ronin
RTF Rubicon Zoom Meeting, from last week
Posted: February 13, 2023 Filed under: Access Leave a commentThe Rubicon Trail Foundation held a Zoom meeting last week to clear-up up what happened regarding the Rubicon closure. Below is the link to the Zoom call. There is some very good information in the presentation. It’s only one hour long.
If it asks for a password/passcode, try: 3X!2xG&A
For me, the bottom line is that El Dorado County illegally closed the trail in December. And El Dorado County passed a resolution to not only cover the illegal closure but to allow them to close the trail in the same way, legally, in the future. Did we really win?
One point in the Zoom recording is, let me say, incomplete. John Arenz claimed that Placer County was not the reason for the snow wall at the Tahoma entrance. There is a single individual who has been identified as dumping snow at the entrance from other locations, for his personal benefit by blocking vehicles from the trail. In addition to that, the way Placer County plows Evergreen Way (the street crossing the entrance) piles excessive snow that blocks vehicle use. Placer County is not innocent.
There are two meetings today about the Rubicon. The first is with El Dorado County. I’m not sure of the agenda. I will not be attending as I’m trying to focus on the Tahoma side. The second is at the Cal4 office tonight and I will be attending that one.
I will get to the Tahoma trailhead this week and will post an update about snow levels, access and if anyone has been out.
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Rubicon Ronin
Rubicon Trail back open
Posted: February 2, 2023 Filed under: Access, Travel | Tags: agreements, closed, snow Leave a commentFrom the El Dorado County website:
“The closure of the Rubicon Trail initiated with Resolution 017-2023 has been lifted effective immediately.
The County waited until the frequent heavy storms that started with the December 30, 2022 atmospheric river event were over before attempting site inspections. During the temporary closure the storms that hit the region consisted of additional atmospheric river events with heavy mixes of rain and snow. Multiple days (1/18, 1/24, and 1/27) were necessary for staff to access and assess the trail. Those assessments show that the trail is currently covered in a substantial amount of snow providing resource protection. After reviewing those assessments, the Director, in consultation with County staff, has determined that no repairs are needed at this time and that the trail is safe for ordinary use.
Be advised that the Rubicon Trail is for year-round public use but users should be prepared for adverse conditions during winter season and during storm conditions. The road may be unpassable during winter/storm conditions and rescue services may be difficult. The County encourages users be mindful of trail conditions and practice appropriate safety measures. The County will continue to monitor trail conditions for the remainder of the 2023 winter season into spring as required per the USFS easement document. If users have any questions on this notice, please feel free to contact the County at 530-621-7538 or 530-621-5554.”
Ok, it’s open but there are many questions…
So, we’re back to water quality as the reason for the closure. But I don’t believe that the County ever visited the proper, if any, sites to determine water flow conditions BEFORE the closure. El Dorado County completely ignored the agreed upon requirements in place in order to close trail. They did it just because they wanted to, and it was not based on any science.
We, the users, need to push back on what happened, how it happened and who made it happen.
Who is “The Director”? Was one single person able to close the Rubicon?
If past signed agreements can be ignored, can we trust any future agreements? If El Dorado County doesn’t play by the rules, the law, should we?
I’m not happy. And I won’t be happy until all of this is settled. I guess I won’t be happy for a long time.
Do you have questions? Call the county at the above-mentioned number. I’m sure they’d love to be swamped by calls.
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Rubicon Ronin
Rubicon Trail Round Table Meeting
Posted: January 31, 2023 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: access, management, meeting Leave a commentA new effort is underway to hopefully find and implement solutions to the many issues facing the Rubicon Trail today.
The following information has just been released:
Come to a vision setting meeting to help craft a future Comprehensive Management Plan for the Rubicon Trail.
We would like to encourage enthusiasts, including nonprofits, landowners, business interests, clubs, local and statewide organizations, to come together and meet in partnership about how we can inject more input and opinions from stakeholders into the Rubicon management process.
The Rubicon Trail cuts across jurisdictional, geographical, and cultural boundaries and is the focus of several groups including dedicated and caring stakeholders. Considering the myriad of organizations and agencies who assist with planning, managing, and maintaining the Rubicon Trail, there is often confusion and lack of communication when it comes to actions taken on the trail.
The Rubicon is among the most famous OHV destination in the world. With opportunity come responsibilities. We must find ways to ensure the future of the trail in perpetuity and in an environmentally sound manner.
The meeting will be held at the Cal4 Wheel office, 8120 36th Ave Sacramento, Ca 95824. 5:00 PM February 13th, 2023. There will be Zoom available as well, but we encourage everyone to attend in person if possible. For Zoom info contact: granat.amy@gmail.com
I have high hopes for this new effort and will be attending.
I hope you can join the meeting
.
Doug
Long Rant About Rubicon Closure
Posted: January 31, 2023 Filed under: Access, Travel | Tags: closure, El dorado, Fees, permits, rescue 1 CommentAs of December 30th, 2022, the Rubicon Trail is closed to any type of use within El Dorado County. The closure is for 60 days. It is not clear if the closure can be lifted before the end of February. It is not clear if the closure can be extended past the end of February. We’ll all have to wait and see.
I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know everything that happened. I’ve tried to piece the events of this story as best I can.
On December 30th, 2022, El Dorado County closed the Rubicon Trail. It’s not clear who initiated this closure. The official closure appeared on the El Dorado County website on the Parks page. It stated:
“As of December 30, 2022, the Rubicon Trail is closed for public safety in accordance with county procedures and a determination was made with the Department of Transportation, the Sheriff’s Office, and the Parks Division.”
https://www.edcgov.us/Rubicon/
There is debate about whether all of the departments listed were actually all in agreement about the closure.
One theory is that the closure stemmed from a group of vehicles getting stuck along Wentworth Springs Road (not yet on the Rubicon Trail), bringing in a front loader for a vehicle recovery (but not using it). For the sake of the county not wanting to rescue unprepared drivers throughout the coming storm, the county closed the trail.
But Parks can’t just close a road for safety, so the story shifted after the initial closure to high water runoff due to the impending storm. The key word being impending. With the storm coming in, expected to drop a lot of rain, not snow, there was concern about water on the trail. In order for Parks to close the Rubicon Trail, due to water, measurements at specific spots along the trail and digital photographs of those spots must be used to document the conditions. Those do not exist.
But the Department of Transportation can close the road for safety. So, the story shifted back to safety and the DOT closing the trail. It helped that El Dorado County had declared a state of emergency, due to the storms. But this is where I have a problem with the reasoning.
As I understand it, Ice House Road to Loon Lake is not and was never closed. So, to protect the people, then and now, you can’t drive on the Rubicon Trail via Wentworth, but you can drive to Loon Lake and drop on to the Ellis Creek Intertie and drive in to the bowl!
Does that make any sense? Close the Rubicon Trail but keep the road to Loon Lake and the Ellis Creek Trail open. This is a government agency, or multiple agencies, at work and demonstrates why most OHV users don’t trust the government. For the record, throughout this ordeal, the Rubicon Trail has always been open within Placer County.
So, El Dorado County closes the Rubicon Trail for the safety of the people. How many people have died on the Rubicon Trail during the months of December, January, February and March? I do not know of any deaths during those months. How many people die at Lake Tahoe every year, about six. How many people die downhill skiing each year, about 40. How many people die hiking in this country every year, 120-150. Has El Dorado County taken the appropriate steps to protect the people from those activities?
El Dorado County overreacted when people got stuck in the snow. They did something they didn’t have the authority to do. Then they changed the story. And then they changed the story again. Then the Board of Supervisors made it official on January 10th (Resolution 017-2023) and back dated the closure to December 30th in order to provide cover for the unauthorized or even illegal early closure. Here’s a link to my original story and a copy of the signed resolution: https://theotherrubicon.com/2023/01/11/rubicon-trail-closed-within-el-dorado-county-until-feb-30th/
OHV advocacy groups were able to change the county meeting about hearing the above resolution in order to allow public comment but it didn’t seem to help as the board voted 4-1 to adopt the closure. It has been reported that the board members didn’t seem to understand the closure but just took the word of the DOT and passed it.
So, the agreement from 2013 (?) that specified scientific measurements and digital photograph documentation were required to close the trail has been thrown out the window and now any one who thinks it’s unsafe can close the trial on a whim.
We do need to address this issue of winter travel. How do we educate people to prevent travelers from getting in over their heads? Can we require trail users to carry recovery equipment? The state requires that all cars carry chains when driving over a pass in winter. Can certain vehicle enhancements be required to travel during snow conditions, like mud and snow rated tires being required on the highway passes during a storm? There could be precedent there.
If this actually started with a need for a vehicle recovery, do we allow the counties to charge for rescues? Should we, as users, develop a winter rescue group? If so, there should be one at each end of the trail. Should there be a fee to use the trail? Should those from out of the county be charged to use the trail and for rescues, but not locals?
After two deaths in recent weeks, Mt Baldy, in San Bernadino County, is considering a permit system to allow people to climb the mountain. Would a Rubicon Trail permit application ask about driving skills, experience, vehicle upgrades, recovery gear and survival gear? Who would set the standards. Could this be a winter requirement moving forward?
The users need to communicate with all of the government agencies involved with managing the Rubicon Trail and our public lands in order to prevent such knee-jerk reactions. In my opinion, the problem is getting the agencies to communicate with and engage with the users before making any decisions regarding the Rubicon Trail.
.
Doug Barr
-just a user
The 'Other' Rubicon 