Santa Monica Mountains Task Force – Page 2 – of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter

Palisades Fire trails update #4

Trails that have been closed since January 2025 are gradually reopening in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Several parks and trails managed by the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA) have been reopened to public use in the past week, with a few notable exceptions. An amended order of closure was posted on Friday, along with an update on MRCA’s Instagram.

In March, we joined forces with the SMMTC and CORBA trail crews to help CA State Parks with post-fire trail restoration work on the north side of Topanga SP. There was a huge turnout for these events, and our volunteers did great work! Together we made repairs to the fire-damaged Gizmo Trail, with a second team simultaneously working nearby on the Rita Walters Trail, outside the burn perimeter.

State Parks program managers have outlined the next phase of reopening of roads and trails in Topanga State Park, and, if there are no ongoing concerns after a final review, they’re looking to reopen Eagle Rock Fire Road, Eagle Springs Fire Road, and Fire Road #30 to the Hub Junction in the next couple of weeks—once DWP has completed their work on the power lines, and cleared their equipment from the roads.

They wish to reopen Garapito Trail at the same time, which makes a really nice loop hike when combined with those roads. Getting Garapito ready for reopening is currently the #1 priority for the Sierra Club trail crew and our partners!

Subscribe to our mailing list to volunteer with us.

Check the Topanga SP webpage for news, as this will invariably be the first source of official announcements about CA State Parks trails reopening and extended closures.

Trails Council crew members among the greenery on Garapito Trail. *Photo by Steve Messer.*

East Topanga Fire Road to Parker Mesa from Trippet Ranch is also poised to reopen in the coming weeks, but we expect there will be a longer-term closure beyond the Parker Mesa junction to avoid feeding the public into the Palisades closure areas.

Los Liones Trail had only minimal damages. The State Parks crew went in in March and cleared all the burned vegetation, removed landslides, and widened the trail bench. However, with the trail still closed and lack of foot traffic through springtime, it’s probably growing in very quickly and may well need some additional rehab.

Work on Santa Ynez Canyon Trail is tentatively set to begin in late June, depending on access.

Fire followers: large-flowered phacelia (California native) and black mustard (highly invasive). *Photo by Rachel Glegg*

Will Rogers State Historic Park is closed until further notice while the park is supporting the clean-up effort. Staff have been working to get the trails into shape, ready to reopen when the time comes. They’ve finished cleaning up all the day-use trails, as far as removing obstructions. They’re currently doing finish-work, and rebuilding structures like retaining walls and small bridges.

Rogers Road—the Backbone Trail section between Will Rogers and the Hub Junction, which includes the Chicken Ridge—remains closed indefinitely.

Check the Will Rogers SHP webpage for official updates.

-Rachel G.

P.S. On Saturday 6/14, we will be hosting another Intro to Trail Maintenance event for California State Parks Week. Subscribe to our mailing list to receive details.

Get your tickets for SAMO Fund’s “Trails Forever” launch on June 7th

To respond to increasingly severe wildfire seasons, habitat loss, and shrinking federal budgets, Santa Monica Mountains Fund is launching Trails Forever—a bold new campaign to restore and reimagine the trail system that connects us to this extraordinary place, and safeguard our trails for generations to come.

They’re kicking off the campaign on Saturday, June 7th (National Trails Day) with a community celebration at the Anthony C. Beilenson Visitor Center at King Gillette Ranch, from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. We’re looking forward to connecting with fellow Santa Monica Mountains advocates and hearing more from SAMO Fund about the campaign.

Book your ticket on Eventbrite ($50).

Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act

(Opening excerpt from a press release on Senator Adam Schiff’s website. Bold highlights are our own)

Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and U.S. Representative Laura Friedman (D-Calif.-30) introduced the bicameral reintroduction of the Rim of the Valley Corridor Preservation Act, landmark legislation that would protect some of the last wild and open spaces in the Los Angeles area and allow the National Park Service (NPS) to work with local communities to better protect natural resources and improve access to nature. This bill would add over 118,000 acres to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA) and is based on an NPS study that was reported to Congress in 2016.

The Rim of the Valley stretches from the Simi Hills and Santa Susanas to the Verdugos and the San Gabriel Mountains, making a “green belt” that encircles the San Fernando, La Crescenta, Santa Clarita, Simi, and Conejo Valleys.

See the rest of the press release here.

Sierra Club campaign planning workshop

The Sierra Club Grassroots Network will be hosting a 4-part Campaign Planning Workshop on consecutive Mondays in June (9th, 16th, 23rd and 30th).

This training is geared toward volunteers and staff leaders across all Sierra Club entities and programs. To get the most out of the workshop, you should plan to attend all four sessions, which will be held on Zoom.

Through these highly interactive sessions, each one 90 minutes long, participants will gain a better understanding of campaign planning, and how to apply what they learn to their own campaigns.

Register here

The free workshop will cover the essential components of effective campaign planning, including:

Choosing your issue focus
Setting goals
Figuring out the key players
Setting strategy
Messaging and communications
Tactics

Questions? Contact the Grassroots Network Program Director, Gwyn Jones, at gwyn.jones@sierraclub.org, or speak with our own Volunteer Coordinator, Rachel Glegg.

UCLA researchers conducting visitor counts, need volunteers to help

A team of student researchers from the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability (IoES) at UCLA is conducting visitor counts and surveys at trails in the Santa Monica Mountains this spring.

Their work is a collaboration between UCLA IoES, the Anthony Pritzker Family Foundation, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA), and the Grateful Bench Project.

The visitor counts will provide a better understanding of trail use since the last SMMNRA trail survey conducted in 2018. The data collected will help the Grateful Bench Project improve visitor access to trails, inform their efforts to educate visitors about the trails, and deepen visitor appreciation of natural resources in the park.

The UCLA IoES team is recruiting volunteers to help with the visitor counts.

Volunteers will be stationed at one of 20 trailheads (see map below) and will count visitors for four-hour shifts on Saturdays, April 26th or May 3rd.

If you would be interested in volunteering with this team of UCLA researchers to perform visitor counts at certain Santa Monica Mountains trailheads, please RSVP using their Volunteer Registration Form

Trailheads where visitor counts will be conducted on Saturday, April 26th and May 3rd, 2025.

In addition, the team will be installing fliers on newly installed benches with QR codes linking to a short visitor survey. These surveys will gather data on trail usage and visitor experience, helping Grateful Bench design outreach and educational material for park visitors.

The goal is to eventually install permanent QR codes on benches that will bring visitors to location-specific information about park natural history and ecology. While benches throughout the park provide a place for hikers to rest and enjoy the mountain scenery, equipping them with these electronic “plaques” transforms the otherwise simple amenities into educational tools. Their goal is to offer visitors a wealth of information about the habitats and ecosystems in front of them, fostering a deeper appreciation for the nature that surrounds them.

Trail Days 2025: that’s a wrap!

In the post-dawn chill, the caravan grew, car after car, along the unassuming dirt strip leading to a service road. With a beckon, it began to move, this serpentine line of vehicles full of people eager to join those already camped under soft oak shade in the beautiful, rain-greened depths of Point Mugu State Park…

Welcome to Santa Monica Mountains Trail Days 2025! For those who participated in this year’s event, thank you so much! We hope that you had as much fun as we did.

By all accounts it was a huge turnout. Cars packed what spaces tents didn’t. At Danielson Ranch, people caffeinated, breakfasted and mingled across many different groups and organizations, including California State Parks, National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council (SMMTC), Concerned Off Road Bicyclists Association (CORBA) and your trusty Sierra Club Santa Monica Mountains Task Force (SMMTF).

SMMTF crew leader Bill Vanderberg gathers volunteers from the Chinese University Alumni Association Alliance of Southern California (CUAAASC) Hiking Club for a safety talk before work begins. Photo by Sara Hanson Nicholl.

Sierra Club crew leaders oversaw about 60 volunteers in our group alone on Saturday, who, after a brief orientation from our own Bill Vanderberg, trekked a mile further into the brush to work on the Coyote Trail.

Others took their McLeods, loppers and saws to trails such as the Upper Sycamore Canyon, Two Foxes, Blue Canyon and more.

SMMTC crew members demonstrate one of several methods that may be employed to control water drainage and mitigate trail erosion. Photo by Dave Edwards.

After a thoroughly gratifying, sweat-beaded day of trail work, everyone reconvened at camp for some much-deserved refreshments, appetites further whetted by the BBQ smoke twisting through the air.

Sponsors of Trail Days 2025

Now forty-plus years old, Trail Days has been integral in elevating awareness of — and engagement with — the welfare of the Santa Monica Mountains. It happens every April.

Ventura Boy Scout Troop 111 accompanied by scoutmaster Craig Carey made repairs to a retaining wall on the Upper Sycamore Trail. Photo by Dave Edwards.

The work highlighted by Trail Days is what the Trailies of the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force do nearly every Saturday, from September to June. Physically or financially, we could always use a helping hand, so if you appreciate what the mountains have to offer, please consider volunteering and/or donating!

Members of the Mountain Bike Unit volunteer park patrol were among those working with the CORBA crew. Photo by Steve Messer.

If you had your camera out, we’d love it if you could share your favorite photos and videos on our…

Community photo gallery!

(While we know that you may have lots more to share, we ask that you please limit your upload to the shared album to 3-5 files, as we want to give everyone the chance to participate.)

How to upload your pictures to our gallery

1 – Go to the event photo album: Trail Days 2025

2 – Click the “Add Photos” icon in the upper righthand side of the screen.

3 – Log in to your Google account, if prompted.

4 – Select a handful of your favorite images from the weekend.

That’s it!

Also, please feel free to tag us on Instagram @smmtf.trail.crew — or on Facebook @smm.task.force.1972 — on photos or videos you post from Trail Days 2025

Till next year. Happy Trail Days!

State Parks interview on the Palisades Fire, April 8th

Join Parks California for an Instagram Live interview on Tuesday, April 8th, at noon, and an in-depth look at resilience in the aftermath of the Palisades Fire.

The chat will feature colleagues from the Wildfire and Forest Resilience program, and CA State Parks staff members including Senior Environmental Scientists Lisa Andreano and Brooke Sheridan, and Forester I Azalie (Oz) Welsh.

These team members had to tap into their training quickly as they faced the destructive Palisades Fire in January. We’ll hear how they took action to help firefighters minimize the effects of fire on archaeological sites, rare plants, endangered species, tribal assets and wilderness areas.

Santa Monica Mountains Trail Days, April 4-6

Join our annual celebration of local trails and parkland!

There’s an important task for everyone at Santa Monica Mountains Trail Days, from seasoned trail builders to first-time volunteers, as well as age-appropriate activities for children.

Registration is required. Sign up here.

There will be trail projects on Saturday and Sunday, a complimentary BBQ dinner on Saturday evening, a jumbo thank-you gift drawing on both days (generously sponsored by our organizers and community members), and much more.

Come out for a day to help clean up trails — or perhaps stay for the weekend, and enjoy a night or two of free camping at Danielson Group Campground.

Organizing partners are the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, the Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Association, and ourselves, with support from California State Parks and the National Park Service.

We hope to see you there!

Trail work | Saturday, March 22nd, 2025

This Saturday, 3/22/2025, our trail crew will be working on TWO trails on the north side of Topanga SP (via Reseda Blvd). Registration is required.

As well as making repairs to the fire-damaged Gizmo Trail, we’ll carry out routine brush maintenance on the nearby Rita Walters Trail, which is closer to the trailhead and outside the burn perimeter.

We will split into several work parties, jointly-led by Sierra Club and Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council crew leaders. No experience is necessary to participate in trail work with us. Volunteers will receive one-to-one training and support from our seasoned crew leaders. We also provide the tools.

Below, you can read about each project/site: the nature of the work, tools we might be using, what to bring, etc. There will be tasks suited to most levels of physical ability, so whether you’d prefer lighter tasks like clipping overgrown vegetation, or working with picks, shovels and big rocks, there will be plenty for everyone to do!

Spaces are limited. This will be our first trail repair event following the Palisades Fire, and many more opportunities to volunteer will be posted in the coming weeks.

SIGN ME UP!

If you have any questions, please email the Volunteer Coordinator, or reach out to any of the leaders listed below.

Event schedule

We will meet at the Top of Reseda at 8:30 am. The park is currently closed to the public and a security guard will be posted at the entrance gate, but they are expecting us. Watch out for the stop sign camera near the top of the hill to avoid getting a ticket.

On arrival, please visit the sign-in station first!

Participants will sign two liability waivers: one for Sierra Club and the other for CA State Parks. Then we will verify your preferences for tools/tasks, and assign you a work site and crew leader. There will be hot coffee and snacks when you get there, and the bathrooms at our meeting location should be open.

Please stay close by, as there will be some very important announcements made before we move out to the work sites in groups.

By 12:30 pm, all crews will have wrapped up work and returned to the meeting spot, where ice-cold refreshments will be waiting for us.

About the work

Rita Walters Trail:

The better choice if you would prefer lighter tasks, access to the amenities, or want to stay out of the burn area. This trail begins right at our meeting spot, and is just 0.3 miles long with a very gentle climb, making for a pleasant bypass to the steep fire road that leads into the park.

Light to moderate work. The predominant task will be brushing: ie. removal of overgrown vegetation from the travel way. We’ll also clear any accumulated silt and vegetation from drains, and remove plant debris that was pushed onto the trail from the roadway above during the fire response. Some commonly used tools are loppers, shears, small saws, McLeod hoes, and rakes.

Gizmo Trail:

This is specifically post-fire restoration work. Moderate to heavy labor. Our goal is to reestablish the trail’s original construction standards. The absence of vegetation gives us a rare opportunity to fix known problem spots and improve drainage. Tools used might include McLeods, picks, shovels, buckets, rock bars, rock slings.

Directions

Meeting location: Top of Reseda Trailhead

Address for GPS: 3539 Reseda Blvd #3619, Tarzana, CA 91356

From US-101 – Exit at Reseda Blvd, and drive south on Reseda for about 15 min, up the hill and into Marvin Braude Mulholland Gateway Park. Don’t forget about the stop sign camera!

Bring with you…

Robust footwear with a closed toe (hiking shoes are ideal)
Long-sleeve shirt and long pants that you don’t mind getting dirty
Warm top layer
Sun protection: hat, sunglasses, sunscreen
Plenty of water to drink (min. 2 liters recommended)
Snacks / lunch to eat in the field
Day-pack to carry your belongings
Reusable coffee cup (optional)

Bring your own work gloves and eye protection if you have them. We have extras to loan.

Weather

National Weather Service forecast for Reseda

Steady rain cancels.

Event day contacts

Sierra Club Outing Leaders:
Rachel Glegg – (310) 985-2826 – rachel.dorman@gmail.com
Bill Vanderberg – (310) 245-2763 – bill.vanderberg@ca.rr.com
John Skidmore – (310) 490-2304 – skidss1@gmail.com

Trail Crew Leaders:
Bill Pitts
Jeremy Small
Dave Edwards

The EPA’s Toxic Pileup

Many concerns have been voiced about the news of the EPA setting up a three-month “hazardous waste” site to consolidate and manage the materials from the Palisades Fire. In fact, there was a protest about it: yesterday’s March to Save the Sea, which took place on the Santa Monica Pier. The RCDSMM, or, the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, issued a statement which, in part, reads:

As a local agency facilitating resource protection and public connections with the environment in the Santa Monica Mountains, the RCDSMM has concerns regarding the chosen site and would have preferred a different location. Critical habitat for the endangered steelhead trout and tidewater goby is located directly adjacent to the motel site within Topanga Creek and Lagoon and is at risk if contaminated materials are inadvertently spread into these areas. Adjacent beaches and near-shore areas located just downstream could also be harmed, degrading recreation uses and unique fish and wildlife habitats.

Located at the mouth of Topanga Canyon near Topanga Lagoon, the site is one of ecological sensitivity and cultural significance. The lagoon itself is slated to undergo restoration in the near future.

Debate presses on, with organizations such as Heal the Bay decrying the project, arguing they were not consulted, and that such toxic materials, left exposed, could well seep into the soil and the ocean. Others counter that the waste pile had to go somewhere, and any decision would necessarily be controversial. See the bullet points of Heal the Bay’s meeting with the EPA. Somewhat unsettlingly, the EPA’s own FAQ for this issue returns a “Cannot Find The Page You’re Looking For.”

The EPA has also announced it will use the parking lot of Will Rogers State Beach as a staging area for removal of fire debris. Councilwoman Traci Park is against this proposal.

For those wishing to make their voice heard, here are the relevant contacts for EPA representatives and other organizations:

EPA INCIDENT MANAGER:

Steve Calanog, Calanog.steve@epa.gov

EPA Representative:

Rusty Harris-Bishop, harris-bishop.rusty@epa.gov

Los Angeles County Department of Public Works:

Mark Pestrella, mpestrella@dpw.lacounty.gov

California Dept of Parks and Recreation Director

Armando Quintero, Armando.Quintero@parks.ca.gov

Maria Chong Castillo, MCCastillo@bos.lacounty.gov

Dylan Sittig, LA County, Dsittig@bos.lacounty.gov

Ben Allen, Senator.Allen@senate.CA.gov

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath , ThirdDistrict@bos.lacounty.gov

Congressman Brad Sherman, Mail@bradsherman.com