Camping, Hiking in Los Angeles County

Greetings, Los Angeles Indymedia people! It’s been a year or so since I posted an update on the status of the Crystal Lake Recreation Area located within the Angeles National Forest, some 25 miles North of Azusa, California.

An up-to-date status of the condition and restoration effort of the campgrounds can be located at http://www.CrystalLake.name/ along with photographs of the volunteer efforts which take place every week to eventually re-open the grounds.

Video of the restoration efforts can be located at http://www.YouTube.com/user/NotSoOldHippy which contains not only video and photographs of the volunteer efforts but also commentary and video of surveys of the general health and welfare of the environment and ecology of the campgrounds and surrounding areas.

Currently Caltrans is repairing the first bridge that requires repairs about 2 miles North of the current gate closure at around mile marker 29.5, and one mile South the “Valley of the Moon” parking area just above Coldbrook Campgrounds.

That bridge was undermined in the 2005 floods that we had here in Southern California which you might remember. There is actually gaps under the piling supports for that bridge, and Caltrans has brought out their big equipment to repaid the foundations and supports.

The next bridge up is just below Valley of the Moon, and after that the only thing left for Caltrans to finish are the railings along the highway which were destroyed in the 2002 Curve Fire.

The campgrounds themselves are in perfect condition and are ready for people to start utilizing them. A third phase of contracted work is scheduled to begin soon which will complete the repairs on the drinkable water distribution network.

The only thing left within the Crystal Lake Recreation Area that volunteers must do is the removal of dead trees from the various hiking trails. Soldier Creek Trail has been considered far too dangerous for visitors to use so when the campgrounds finally open, that trail will remain closed until trail-builder volunteers can go through that trail and pull down the many hanging deadfalls that constitute a serious heath hazard.

If anyone wants to get automated updates on the condition of the campgrounds and any news about re-opening the grounds, you can go to http://www.crystallake.name/emails.htm and use the form there to send in the subscription to the mailing list.

One thing: Right now the campgrounds are unused and in pure, clean, pristine condition. The first week of the grounds being open will see a lot of visitors – probably 20,000 the first week. (Over 20,000 people were evacuated from the area on the week end of the start of the Curve Fire.)

Such a high number of visitors to the area will doubtless bring a lot of Mexican garbage and spray paint, drugs and domestic violence – all the old issues and problems which started making Crystal Lake unsavory to families and nature lovers to visit.

What is needed to keep Crystal Lake a clean, safe place for families and “normal” campers and hikers is the constant presence of law enforcement. What is needed is a Sheriff who constantly patrols the campgrounds 24 hours a day every day of the year. For that to happen, money is needed from the State or Federal level to hire a highly qualified police officer with special training in domestic abuse situations and gang drug and violence abatement.

It’s not known whether an officer will be assigned to the area for constant patrolling, but there should be a constant level of patrol by volunteers who can radio for police which would be capable of responding within 20 minutes of any problem.

Any way, when the campgrounds re-open, Angelinos and visitors from San Gabriel, Riverside and beyond will once again have excellent camping, hiking, and climbing facilities in the Crystal Lake basin.

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It's really sad that the author of this report goes and spoils it with this comment:

"Such a high number of visitors to the area will doubtless bring a lot of Mexican garbage and spray paint, drugs and domestic violence"

Rice: If there is space in your heart for the love of nature, how about some love for your fellow human beings that you share this planet with.

Please revise and clarify your comment.
Do you mean "Mexican garbage" as in refuse, trash, waste from Mexican landfills?
Or do you really intend to include a racial slur in an otherwise interesting article about forest restoration and the feeble response of federal and state authorities to manage our national forest (Thank you very much, George Bush).

If the first, then you might as well just talk about trash in general; for Americans are very adept at littering and "carry in; carry out" mentality is just not as ingrained in us as it should be.
If the second, shame on you for race-baiting and injecting a prejudicial diatribe; what a pig-headed distraction and what a way to lose sympathy for your cause.

I think he meant people of Mexican descent and their garbage - it's both racist and classist. It's racist to ascribe all the littering to one group. Littering knows all races, all classes, and all genders.

Now, that said, I am going to say something that will piss people off. I've been walking around LA a lot lately, and have seen people littering. I've also seen people - the vast majority of people - being responsible and using trash cans. Unfortunately, most of the littering I've seen has been by immigrants, mostly Latin American but also Asian. I get the impression that they haven't been sufficiently propagandized to use trash cans. We need a multilingual education project to target these communities.

The other big offenders are fools who leave oil in jugs, not even bothering to take them to a store to recycle it. I hate to say this - but I've only seen this in East LA and South Central. Fucking ey people - if you can afford a car and oil, and milk or water bottles, you can go to the autozone to dump the oil.

I've also seen people being "semi-responsible" and tossing trash into the gutter. This isn't good at all. Litter should go into trashcans, or into your pocket until you can dispose of it properly. Tossing it into the gutter is the same as leaving it on the sidewalk. The biggest gutter abusers are young white people with their cigarettes.

Woodsy Owl needs to be revived, with a hipster-targeted message that ciggie butts do not biodegrade, and when they're flicked into the gutter, they get washed into the ocean. Take that butt and shove it back into your cigarette pack.

Another class of big offenders seem to be SUV drivers. I've seen three cases of trash being tossed out of SUVs. Apparently, some people think it's better to litter the world than to keep some litter in their own car until they can toss things out at a gas station.

The last group of assholes deserving of my rage - Starbucks customers. Outside of some of the coffee bars, you see the white cups tossed into bushes, left next to cars, and crushed in the gutter.

We all have to live together. Don't toss your shit into the street and mess up the place even more.

PS - the people who are helping, aside from garbage pickers and street cleaners, are the people who pick stuff up off the street to recycle it. Those poor people with the shopping carts full of bottles and cans are urban nomads saving us from our own destruction.