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.”
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.”
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.
In January, the Sierra Club West Los Angeles Group hosted a special presentation from the National Wildlife Federation’s regional executive director, Beth Pratt, titled Mountain Lions As Neighbors: Building the Wildlife Crossing at Liberty Canyon.
Following a brief introduction from the David Haake (West L.A. Group Chair), Beth takes the virtual stage to talk about the Liberty Canyon crossing and the general effort to save the big cats in our midst.
This educational webinar, free to Sierra Club members and non-members alike, is part of a bi-monthly series of guest speaker events sponsored by the West Los Angeles Group, which has shifted to an online format during the past year of social distancing. Keep an eye on their Meetup page for more events coming up in the series.
The National Wildlife Federation’s campaign for a wildlife corridor over the 101 freeway has, with the $1.4 million boost from a private donor, hit the $18 million mark. While still short of the full estimated price tag, this hefty bag of change puts it that much closer to being realized.
It’s early spring. The weather suddenly has turned warm. It was 80 degrees today, and is expected to get warmer in the coming week. (Climate change? Hello?)
The climb in temps has brought a climb in discourtesy. People are emerging from their COVID bubbles intent on catching up on lost time. The day I wrote this, March 28th, 2021, the beaches were packed and Pacific Coast Highway a parking lot northbound. The hiking trails are covered with people, large groups, young and unmasked, no social distancing — even though the epidemic is surging among young unmasked people. Older folks who have received both our shots, like me, are luckier. The young’uns don’t seem to have gotten the memo.
Today, in the space of two minutes, three people cut me off in traffic, including one who blocked the intersection of Ocean and California, when I had the green light. He didn’t budge. If a cop had been around, he would be appearing on my Traffic Court calendar in Santa Monica Superior Court. People are street-racing on surface boulevards as never before, including car-rallies on Sunset and other thoroughfares. The L.A. Times has been reporting on this discourtesy, with its lethal results. Today and yesterday, motorcyclists were killed, one colliding with a tree, speeding, in Pacific Palisades.
This extends to the mountains and the trails. Which are now packed with people (not in itself bad). When people approach, you just raise your mask or bandana, look the other way and move as far to the other side as is convenient.
Mountain bikes are another matter. When you’re on a wide fire road, it’s not a big deal. You just get out of their way, and have a little less time to raise your mask as they whiz by. Most bikers aren’t masked.
But on a single-track trail, it’s a different story. Single-track trails are narrow, obviously. In my humble opinion, bikes don’t belong on single-track trails in the mountains. They belong on fire roads. We lost a skirmish in that battle about 10 years ago when State Parks opened up the Backbone Trail to bikes.
Most mountain bikers are courteous and respectful of other trail users. The problem is the outlaw shredders. Not long ago, I was almost killed on the very steep Meteor Point trail connecting Sullivan Canyon up to the Westridge Fire Road. I was making my way up the twisty, steep trail, when a shredder burst over the top of a hill above me, clearly unable to brake or stop, headed straight at me. I froze, panicked, then leaped into the brush just in time to avoid getting run over. I screamed profanities but he didn’t slow down, just cussed at me for being in his way.
Had he hit and killed me — which he almost did — there was no way he could have slowed down or stopped, or climbed back up the steep hill to where my body was. He didn’t give a shit, he was on a thrill ride. I would have become carrion for the coyotes and hawks before any humans came down this lightly-used trail and found me.
Electric bicycles are another threat. And it’s growing. These machines require little to no physical effort to power on the part of the user. The bike just powers up the trail. Once upon a time, I ran up a hill at about the same speed as a mountain biker. No more. Now I may get run over. And I’m seeing more and more of them on the trails and fire roads, with their wide heavy treads.
That is the discourtesy problem I’m preaching about from this (such as it is) pulpit. And it’s only going to get worse, as temps warm and more people come out of their bubbles and hit the trail.
Speaking of the Backbone Trail, in this issue we have a memorial to the founder and patriarch of our trail crew, Ron Webster. I’ll miss him greatly.
Eric Edmunds, Chair Santa Monica Mountains Task Force
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.
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.
Photo by Jane Simpson
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.”
Photo by Sue Palmer
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.
Photo by Nancy Le
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.
Photo by Sue Palmer
We honor him directly here, but we honor him also as caretakers and conservationists, and as sheer nature lovers.
Imagine a hike through scenic Griffith Park: great California weather, fantastic views of the city, and… a giant metal pillar? Cables, stretching across the sky?
Possible aerial tramway routes are currently being assessed across the park, as well as plans for a visitor’s center, and a viewing platform near the Hollywood sign. Mayor Garcetti has shown public support for the project, despite backlash from various groups such as Friends of Griffith Park and the North Hollywood Zoo Magnet Center, the latter of which was offered as a start site for one of the tram routes despite not being consulted on the project.
Each of the routes would stretch roughly 2.5 miles, requiring 19 to 24 towers placed throughout the park. The construction would mean the protracted closures of the park’s trails and other popular attractions. The tramway itself would threaten the habitats of many plants and animals, alter wildlife behavior and biodiversity, and undermine the founding spirit of the park as a touchpoint of rest and recreation for the community at large.
The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force stands with those opposing this project, including the Sierra Club LA Central group who are calling for concerned Angelenos to voice their opposition to the tramway. One simple action you can take right now to help keep Griffith Park wild is to sign their petition and share it with your friends.
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.
On December 2nd, after many delays, the amendment to add the toyon and Mexican elderberry to the City of Los Angeles’s Protected Tree Ordinance was heard before the City Council’s Public Works and Gang Reduction (PWGR) Committee. The amendment was unanimously passed, with the Committee choosing to support a superior measurement standard that had long been sought by tree advocates.
These two native species, which grow as shrubs or small trees, were used for many and varied purposes by indigenous peoples — the toyon’s pomes used as food or made into a jelly, and the leaves, flowers, and bark used to make different medicinal teas. The two species are also highly important for wildlife as a source of food, and as an integral part of the ecology of our hillsides. As the Center for Biological Diversity wrote in their letter to the Committee:
“Toyon berries provide a source of food for native birds including American robins, western bluebirds, mockingbirds, and California quail. Toyon also is a prominent component of the coastal sage scrub plant community and is evolved to thrive in Southern California’s drought-prone landscapes. Likewise, Mexican elderberry is a key source of food for Southern California’s birds, and acts as a host for many species of butterflies and moths. Both shrubs provide much-needed shade for mammals, birds, and reptiles during hot summer days, and can provide nesting sites for some species.”
The Santa Monica Mountains Task Force was among the many environmental and stakeholder organizations to submit a letter of support for the addition of these species to the Protected Tree Ordinance. The process to add the two species was begun seven years ago by some members of the City’s Community Forest Advisory Committee (CFAC). Much of the delay in its progress was due to repeated efforts by the Urban Forestry Division to reduce the number of trees that would qualify for protection by insisting a different measurement standard be applied to the two new species.
The recently appointed City Forest Officer, Rachel Malarich, in an October staff report, joined UFD and the City Planning Department in supporting the changed measurement standard that would have seen few of these ecologically vital small trees protected. The SMMTF joined other organizations in supporting the call of CFAC to apply the same measurement to the new species that applies to the four species already protected in the Ordinance — that the diameter of the trunks or stems be a minimum of four inches, measured cumulatively, at four and a half feet high.
The SMMTF letter was referenced in the hearing by the Committee Chair, Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, long a champion of our protected native trees. He read aloud the following paragraph as being aligned with his thinking as the City moves forward with a separate comprehensive overhaul of the Protected Tree Ordinance:
“Developers should be advised at the outset of their projects that the City expects — and potentially in the future even rewards — project design that accommodates the retention of the naturally occurring native habitat on their sites so that removals of protected native trees and shrubs are largely avoided up front. They should also be informed early that any absolutely necessary removals will need to be mitigated through the planting of the same species on site at the current Board-mandated 4:1 ratio. This “education” of developers at the front end could serve to make removals and replacements less common generally, and help reduce and avoid an expressed “need” for off-site and out-of-kind replacement plantings.”
The Task Force also supported the Community Forest Advisory Committee’s additional (and, unfortunately, unsuccessful) recommendations in their letter of November 16th to the PWGR Committee, which called for the administration of the Protected Tree Ordinance to be removed from the Urban Forestry Division and housed in an environmentally oriented department such as LASan’s Biodiversity unit, and for the team administering it to include a biologist or ecologist and an architect, rather than only the UFD staff arborists recommended by the Bureau of Street Services, in order to provide an appropriate knowledge base for this work.
After passing through the PWGR Committee, the amendment subsequently went before the full City Council for its final vote on Tuesday, December 15th, where it was again unanimously passed.
