Santa Monica Mountains Task Force
of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter
The Coastal Commission has been given a new legislative weapon to fight those who would damage coastal environments.
Senate Bill 433 would ensure the Commission’s authority to levy fines for practices destructive to native flora and fauna, such as that of the Great Blue Heron, discussed in this L.A. Times article.
Previously, they could only fine private property owners who restricted access to public coastal areas. Now, those who bulldoze, or tree-trim, better think twice.
On Sunday, June 27th, members and friends of the SMMTF trail crew held a gathering at the home of Mary Ann Webster to mark the end of the crew’s traditional work season.
During the festivities, we honored longtime volunteer Bill Pitts with the Trail Worker of the Year Award, for which he took home a collection of kudos, and a shiny new pick mattock. Bill has been a dedicated crew member for more than 30 years, beginning with helping to build the Hondo Canyon Trail.
The photographs above and below show Bill with Ron Webster during a 1997 trail project, and working with Russ Marshall and Mary Ann Webster in Hondo Canyon not long before the new trail’s completion in 1993. As you can see, Bill has no qualms about the possibility of getting a bit muddy in the process of trail building!
Since its inception in 1978 to help build the Musch Trail at Trippet Ranch, the trail crew has been blessed with decades of dedicated volunteer work. Little slows them down — even, it would seem, a pandemic.
Working directly for California State Parks as an organized collective of independent volunteers, members of our crew still managed to log more than 1,100 hours of trail maintenance between September 2020 and June 2021. This is easily comparable to — and even surpasses — the Sierra Club crew’s previous years. In those months, these volunteers worked heavily on Rivas Canyon Trail and the Beehive Trail, as well as Saddle Peak, Garapito, Viewridge and others.
Recently, we received this heartening note from Jason Finlay, California State Parks Angeles District Trails Coordinator:
“Last Friday I stopped by Rivas Canyon Trail. Two enthusiastic hikers stopped me to let me know how much they appreciated the work that was done and to say how great the trail looks. Evidently they hike there two or three times a week and said it’s the best it has looked in years. They were also very happy that Sierra Club was active in trail maintenance as they were long time donors and supporters! Thank you for the great work!”
Indeed, we want to extend a massive THANK YOU to all the volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to caring for our parks and trails.
The more adventurous aspect of the Sierra Club is dusting itself off and stretching back into action. The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force itself sponsors two Sierra Club hikes every Tuesday: the Tuesday Moderate Hikers (TMH) and the Tuesday Conditioned Hikers (TCH). So if you’re free, join us!
New events are regularly added to our schedule. Bookmark our Activity Calendar to see all upcoming hikes sponsored by the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force.
We typically have 10-20 people on each hike, everyone there to enjoy the outdoors and be with like-minded people. The hikes range all over the Santa Monica Mountains, from Topanga State Park to Point Mugu State Park and everywhere in between. We also hike on adjacent parkland such as Ahmanson Ranch and Cheeseboro Canyon.
The moderate hikes are usually about 8 miles with close to 1,000 ft gain, and the conditioned hikes are usually about 12 miles with about 2,000 ft gain. Of course, that varies from week to week. The moderate hikes usually end in the early afternoon, the conditioned hikes somewhat later. Our hikes are all “O” rated. Most are on very well-established trails; some, not so much!
We’re always on the lookout for new leaders to help lead our Tuesday hikes. Becoming a leader is a great way to support the Sierra Club by showing members of the public the land our efforts have helped preserve. If you would like to know more about becoming a Sierra Club leader, contact our Outings Chairs. Information is also available on the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Leadership Training Program web page.
Real estate mogul Mohammed Hadid is seeking to erect an enormous development in Franklin Canyon, specifically over the Hastain Trail in the park’s southeast section. Our Task Force Chair, Eric Edmunds, has been in correspondence with Nithya Raman, Los Angeles City Councilmember of the 4th District, over this incursion. Visit her official website to read the statement recently published by her office.
The Wall Street Journal published an informative piece on watching for and preventing heatstroke, vital knowledge as we enter an incredibly hot summer, and as the planetary oven dial will continue ratcheting up higher temperatures:
Noteworthy in this article is the focus on humidity, which has been growing in our normally dry Southern Californian midst and which so many of us are not accustomed to. According to the article, even with “unlimited drinking water, full shade and perfect health … when the wet-bulb temperature exceeds 95 degrees Fahrenheit, the body loses its ability to sufficiently cool itself with sweat.”
The article goes on to offer in-the-moment advice on combating heatstroke:
“Someone feeling the effects of heat exhaustion should seek shade or air conditioning, drink cool water, undress and, if needed, take a cool shower. If someone is confused, agitated or having seizures, they should be sprayed or sponged with cool water and fanned until medical help arrives. Over-the-counter drugs meant to control fever, such as aspirin, acetaminophen or ibuprofen, won’t help.”
Please stay safe and cool on the trails.
Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s highest acquisition priority, Triangle Ranch, is now closer than ever to becoming public parkland. With California budgeting $8 million toward the purchase, the area will, according to a recent social media post by the MRCA, “provide habitat connection between the Liberty Canyon wildlife corridor (including the proposed 101 Freeway wildlife bridge) and the Ladyface Mountain core habitat areas. The property contains a number of rare, threatened and endangered species.”
Here’s the official press release.
In addition, Cal Matters published an edifying article this month that breaks down not only the efforts toward the crossing, but the hard statistics — involving financial loss to drivers and taxpayers, animal death, and other numbers — that highlight the urgent necessity of this project. For perspective, in 2018 alone the cost of vehicle-wildlife collisions to society was $232 million. Over the last four years, it’s estimated at over $1 billion.
As part of Sierra Club National’s sweeping 30×30 Campaign (which arose from A Global Deal For Nature), the Sierra Club of California recently called on every task force to submit their top conservation priorities. We’ve partnered with the Mountains Recreation & Conservation Authority in highlighting the Liberty Canyon Wildlife Crossing. Wendy-Sue Rosen, our representative to the Angeles Chapter Conservation Committee, responded with this detailed report.
On February 26th, 2021, a major milestone was passed in the fight for federal protection of the Rim of the Valley, the catch-all name for the various lands, ecosystems and open spaces occupying the hills that surround the San Fernando Valley, and the site of the in-progress, 200-mile Marge Feinberg Rim of the Valley Trail.
Specifically, the House of Representatives passed The Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act, legislation included in the Protecting America’s Wilderness and Public Lands Act.
This is a bill Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) has, in his words, “been championing for nearly 20 years.” Schiff’s website offered the announcement here.
For my four years as a student at Palisades High, I’d look upon the inviting green sprawl of Temescal Gateway Park and wonder, not without some imaginative embellishment, what sorts of wild little treasures might be hidden in its crevices and canyons. Regretfully, it wasn’t until I was out of high school that I decided to see for myself. Two decades later, and with untold miles of mountain trails under my feet, I never really considered the creators and caretakers of these trails beyond the passing assumption of faceless state park folks, or an organic caravan of hikers carving their way past oak and chaparral.
Then, in October 2019, I knock on the door of Ron and Mary Ann Webster, having arrived early for my first meeting with the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force. Ron opens the door, I introduce myself, and he dutifully pops open a beer and hands it to me (his hospitality quite at odds with the self-designation “Rotten Ron”). Sitting with him for the twenty minutes or so before others arrived, I learn, casually and unexpectedly, that I live just a few blocks’ walk from the person responsible for many of the hikes enjoyed by myself and so many others in Los Angeles.
Here we celebrate the life and legacy of our own Ron Webster, who passed away January 7th, 2021 at the age of 86. As a premiere trail-builder and founder of the trail crew, his is a name virtually synonymous with the Task Force.
Since the lockdown, I sometimes think back to Ron’s words on solitude. “I enjoy being alone more than anyone you know,” he said, in describing solo journeys across the mountains, usually to flag (or mark out) a new trail. The potential dangers — mountain lions, rattlesnakes, ticks — never bothered him, just as any potential hardships wouldn’t dissuade any born artist. And certainly trail-building is an art, one in which patrons can fully engage with the canvas. “I love seeing people walk all over my best work,” he often remarked with a smirk.
Bill Vanderberg, our vice chair, trail crew leader, and friend of Ron’s for over twenty years, said, “He was a mentor who taught me the value of public lands comes from building trails that allow people to experience its beauty.” Indeed, Ron’s was a sensitive touch, crafting trails that complemented the natural splendor and didn’t suggest themselves too strongly. “Trails,” he noted, “should lie lightly on the land.”
Before rounding out a legacy that began with Topanga’s Musch Trail and included 31 miles of the Backbone Trail, Ron worked as a machinist and led hikes for the Sierra Club, usually up fire roads. As we all know, though, fire roads are less… immersive. After some thought, Ron wrote a letter to someone in state parks asking about building a proper trail. Star-wipe to an early retirement, and a $25,000 grant from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy that allowed him to become a Los Angeles industry of one — a full-time trail architect.
Of course, it’s not an industry of one. Ron — who, among other accolades, was in 2017 granted a Lifetime Volunteer Achievement Award from the California Trails Conference Foundation — would go on to lead many hardworking volunteers over the years in the building and maintaining of local trails. Most assuredly, he still looks over our shoulders as the McLeods fly, the pickaxes clang, the brush falls and the sweat drips.
It would be a foolish chef that never indulged in the fruits of their own cooking, and Ron created hikes in more ways than one. With a network of trails blazed across the mountains, he continued leading excursions for the Sierra Club, including his own “Tiger Hike”, a tidy, 25+ mile jaunt from Will Rogers to Malibu Creek State Park. Much as when I made the six-block hike to his home for my first Task Force meeting, I’m told he had beer waiting at the end.
We honor him directly here, but we honor him also as caretakers and conservationists, and as sheer nature lovers.
Here’s to you, Ron.
In honor of the late Alex Trebek, we thought we’d acknowledge the Trebek Open Space, 62 acres of parkland in the Hollywood Hills that, in 1988, was donated to the Santa Mountains Conservancy by the iconic Jeopardy! host.
Nestled specifically in Nichols Canyon in the eastern Santa Monica Mountains — and right next to Runyon Canyon — the space offers a network of trails for bikers, hikers and horseback riders.
Just south of the Santa Monica Mountain range lie Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and the Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area, city gems long hidden in plain sight. Beginning in 1998, our trail crew built the first of what became eight miles of hiking trails snaking across this urban park, casually considered a kind of a hiker’s “warm up” to the Santa Monicas. One of Kenneth Hahn’s especially popular trails, “Ron’s Trail,” was dedicated by County Supervisors to honor the trail crew founder, Ron Webster. Today, the crew continues its trail maintenance at the park, and participates there every January in the Martin Luther King Day of Service.
Several of our trails connect with the Park to Playa Trail, a 13-mile route newly-completed now with the bridge over La Cienega Boulevard that links Kenneth Hahn to the Stoneview Nature Center, Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook and the Ballona Creek bike path. One can now strap on their hiking shoes at the corner of South La Brea Avenue and Don Lorenzo Drive and walk in peace all the way to the ocean.
Thus, we’re happy to report that the Baldwin Hills Conservancy recently granted North East Trees — a program dedicated to “greening up” urbanized areas — over a million dollars to implement what’s known as the Five Points Habitat Restoration Project. In a letter of support to the Baldwin Hills Conservancy, our vice-chair Bill Vanderberg cites, the project will “aim to restore native habitat along the Park to Playa Trail, bolster the ecosystem of the Ballona Creek watershed, improve water quality and storage, provide conservation benefits for people and wildlife, increase climate resiliency, and provide jobs skills training for local at-promise youth through the restoration of native ecosystems.”
