ARRA road closures in SBNF area

[sdnative]

Planned road closures from the 15 to Big Bear lake area as part of the AMERICAN RECOVERY AND REINVESTMENT ACT (ARRA). Some of the challenging sections of Cleghorn all the way to east of Big Bear lake.

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity ... 2&_cview=1

Attached is a PDF of the affected areas.

What is the deal here and what are the timelines involved?

[Chazz Layne]

The deal is FEDGOD bailout money is being used to kill 2 birds with one stone. BOHICA and remember, it's for the children.



Actually, the indicated areas in that file don't look like they'll affect much of the legitimate wheeling on the mountain, but as with any other federally sponsored project... we'll see.

[OLLIE]

WOW!!! Cleghorn will just be a dirt road.

[Chazz Layne]

Yeah, Cleghorn seems to be the hardest hit by all this.

[DennisDawg]

They have been building rock and debris barriers for various ‘undocumented’ trail sections for a month or three all over SBNF. This includes the ‘bypasses’ on the Cleghorn. The selected closures as far as I know are derived from the SBNF Route Planning process that has been going on for a few years now on paper, which was largely ignored by some if not many, now becoming action.

You will also see changes in Holcomb Valley where some of the well used open camping areas to the north and east are now similarly blocked.

More to come!

[BorregoWrangler]

More closures? Cleghorn had to have been one of the most used trails in socal. Wasn't there ever a public comment opportunity for the SBNF Route Planning process? Did we loose all the bypaases so we could keep the trail open? I actually thought all the optional routes along Cleghorn were marked FS routes.

I know that the closed sections there already have bypasses burnt in from folks going around or through the rock and debris barriers. If that keeps up we might lose that whole trail altogether.

[OU812]

There was a public comment period for the closures on Cleghorn 2n47. After the public comment period they determined that although none of the bypasses were ever legal trails they would keep some of them and close the sections that are(and always have been) not a part of the SBNF trail system. So really because of this decision we are gaining legal trails which is very rare.

[Chazz Layne]

Yet we are losing the scenic 2N93D, which caused no detectable damage to the surrounding environment, had no bypasses, and did not appear to be eroding in any way whatsoever. Some closures I get, but some leave me baffled (as is the nature of any federal decision I suppose).

[DennisDawg]

More closures? Cleghorn had to have been one of the most used trails in socal. Wasn't there ever a public comment opportunity for the SBNF Route Planning process? Did we loose all the bypaases so we could keep the trail open? I actually thought all the optional routes along Cleghorn were marked FS routes.

I know that the closed sections there already have bypasses burnt in from folks going around or through the rock and debris barriers. If that keeps up we might lose that whole trail altogether.

I the comment period on the Draft Environmental Analysis (DEA) for the Motorized Travel Management project started in fall of 2008 when that document was released. This was announced in many venues, including, and perhaps most importantly, the California Association of Four Wheel Drive Clubs (to which all of us who use the trails should belong).

http://4x4funn.net/forum/viewtopic.php? ... 056&p=2930

The process continued with public comment and meetings . . .

In November of last year the first more or less final official map was released:

http://rimoftheworld.net/4349

The current version for the Big Bear area is here:

http://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMEN ... 156660.pdf

I agree that the folks going around the barricades are going to become a larger problem for us all. There is an ‘old guard’ in wheelin and the folks who follow them, people who are out on the trail, beer cans on the floor boards a full one in hand, gasoline bombs by the fire, shooting up their trash and leaving it there and a trail is wherever they put their rig. You’ll run into them from time to time all over, more so in places, and SBNF is unfortunately one of them.

[DennisDawg]

Yet we are losing the scenic 2N93D, which caused no detectable damage to the surrounding environment, had no bypasses, and did not appear to be eroding in any way whatsoever. Some closures I get, but some leave me baffled (as is the nature of any federal decision I suppose).

I could not find where it stated this was to be closed. The map linked above shows it as still open and in the ARRA map, https://www.fbo.gov/utils/view?id=e7d13 ... 6a7ed40f71 , it is shown as a valid trail. In the Treatment listing https://www.fbo.gov/index?tab=documents ... 8aac3f10d9 there is work on 2N93 to close some side trails and such boulders and more but I did not see where it itself was being closed.

I might have missed something (as I often do).