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