LEOs on the Rubicon Trail
Posted: January 6, 2014 Filed under: Access | Tags: grant, law enforcement, LTBMU, Placer, Rubicon, TNF Leave a commentLast May, I organized a meeting of different law enforcement agencies that have jurisdiction over the Rubicon Trail: Placer County Sheriff’s Office, Tahoe National Forest, CA State Parks and Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit.
What I wanted to avoid was the lack of communication and the inconsistency of enforcement that plagued the El Dorado side of the trail when law enforcement started patrolling there years ago. The goal of the meeting was to do a face to face meeting of the different agencies and officers who would be patrolling the trail. We weren’t trying to solve issues or plan out the 2013 season but just get everyone in the same room.
The Rubicon Trail runs within Placer County and the county recognizes the trail as a public right of way, therefore, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office has jurisdiction on the trail. The Sheriff has put in for and was awarded OHMVR grant money to buy a side-by-side capable of getting anywhere on the Rubicon. The Rubicon will not be the only place the sheriff will use the side-by-side. Any OHV trail within Placer County can be considered the jurisdiction of the Placer County Sheriff.
The Tahoe National Forest has also received OHMVR grant money. They share law enforcement officers with the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. The TNF also has an awesome ‘OHV Recreation Specialist’ that is a pleasure to work with. She and the TNF understand that motorized recreation is a legitimate use of our public lands. She also has access to the TNF’s newly built up Jeep Rubicon to patrol OHV trails within the forest. The Jeep currently lives in the Auburn area but can be requested for use in the Truckee/Tahoe area when needed.
The CA State Parks LEOs have been on the Rubicon Trail for years, but only on the El Dorado side. For 2013, things changed. The park service decided that El Dorado sheriffs and the ENF could handle the west end of the trail (This was before the county removed the ability of the FS to cite for county laws.) and so they moved their operation to the Tahoe side. The plan is to store a side-by-side at the nearby Sugar Pine State park and trailer it to the trailhead to use. They also have an officer who drives the state’s Jeep Rubicon, that is quite capable, and he loves to get it out on the trail. They are working to store equipment at Rubicon Springs so they can patrol on the way in, spend a night or two and then patrol on the way out. Again, the state parks LEO can patrol any OHV trail, so they are not limited to the Rubicon.
The meeting went well and all who attended were glad for the opportunity to put faces to the names of those officers in their sister agencies.
For 2014, I look forward to working with the different LEO agencies to maintain the safety of the OHV trails and public lands on the Tahoe side of the world famous Rubicon Trail.
14N39 – Meeting with the ENF 12-12-13
Posted: December 13, 2013 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: 14N39, ENF Leave a commentYesterday, I drove over to the Pacific Ranger District headquarters of the ENF. I met with Richard Thornburg, Debbie Gaynor and Charis Parker. We met for about an hour and discussed where we were with 14N39 and what was in front of us in the way of data collection, planning and implementation of the fixes.
The overall plan is that over the next three years, 1/3 of the trails will be reopened each year. The work will be done in two phases. The first phase will be anything and everything that can be done as ‘maintenance’; stuff that does not require extensive paperwork and expensive studies. Phase two will be everything that will require NEPA, EIS and/or EAs. The last issue on 14N39, will require a reroute and thus NEPA and more and is not even scheduled for scoping until 2015.
The ENF has hired a new hydrologist that will start in January. There will also be a FS expert brought in to help determine and approve any fixes to the ‘meadow issues’ throughout the ENF.
The ENF is scheduled to release an update regarding the ‘meadow’ issues across the whole forest in late January.
So, moving forward, the ENF claims that 14N39-1 and maybe -5 and -7 should be simple maintenance issues that once visited (again) will be fast tracked to completion. The ENF claims that not enough data was collected during the Aug 15 trail visit. They say that the new hydrologist and a road engineer need to visit each cite before they can sign off on the ‘fix’.
The ENF claims that this will be a quick process, like visit the trail on Wednesday and 9 or 10 days later, the volunteers will be on the trail working with the FS to fix the issues. The funding is already in place (for maintenance) and any equipment and material needed is easy enough to get in a week. With enough volunteers, I think the first three issues can be fixed in one weekend.
We will keep an eye on the trail this spring and once it is safe to travel, I will schedule a tour of 14N39 in order to get those fixes in place as soon as possible.
14N39
Posted: December 6, 2013 Filed under: Access, Maintenance | Tags: El Dorado County, ENF, Richardson Lake Leave a commentFor some time, there has been a fight going on over 42 trails within the Eldorado National Forest (ENF). Right now, 24 of those trails have been opened. The remaining 18 trails need some kind of fix, from simply putting down gravel to rerouting a ½ mile of trail.
One of these trails is the Richardson Lake Trail, 14N39. The Richardson Lake Trail turns south off the Rubicon Trail just west of Miller Lake. It runs past the Sierra Club’s Ludlow Hut on the way to the summit of Sourdough Peak.
The trail does not offer much challenge to OHV users but provides an awesome view from the top. At the top, looking west, you look down on Desolation Wilderness, Loon Lake and the Rubicon Trail. The summit offers some of the best sunsets I’ve ever seen.
Although the ENF has been slow to work with the users to form and implement a plan to repair the four ‘meadow’ issues on the trail, they have closed the trail. The following signs now grace the Richardson Lake Trail just south of Miller Creek.
I am currently trying to work with the ENF to get a plan developed this winter, so we can hit the trail early next spring to repair and re-open the trail. Getting access to Richardson Lake should be straight forward. Use of the trail for the next mile or so is also doable. But user access to the summit might require a reroute and lots of NEPA, EIS and other studies.
Stay tuned.
The 'Other' Rubicon 