The Condor Trail

To those who follow this blog, sorry it is late this week.  Life, again, got in the way.  All good things, but time consuming.  Especially last night.  We watched the San Francisco Giants play some team in red with a W on their caps.  You would think, of course, I would notice their name, but not so.  Anyway, it ended up being a continuous double header with no break in between!  18 full innings.  The longest lasting post-season game in the history of baseball.  It would have been OK if I were that crazy about sports, but when one has so much time invested in a game, it seemed sort of wasteful to stop watching.  But, the Giants finally won – 2-1.  Thank St. Francis!  After all, the team is named after him – San Francisco.

The real reason for this blog, however, is the fact that in reading the Letters-to-the-Editor in our local county paper someone mentioned the Central Coast Heritage Protection Act.  When I googled it, most of the Act seemed pretty innocuous, but one item really raised the proverbial red flag for me.  The push for what is called The Condor Trail has started again.  This trail basically is supposed to start in the south somewhere around Ventura County and travel 400 miles north to the southern Monterey county line.  It will traverse the ridgeline of the Santa Lucia Coastal mountain range. 

I’m not sure about who owns what property in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, but starting in mid to southern San Luis Obispo County, and ending at the border of southern Monterey County it traverses private cattle ranches.  So what difference does that make?  Simply that having a trail traverse cattle ranches is probably one of the most insane ideas anyone has come up with.  Most of these properties are pretty extensive, simply because to keep them economically viable requires approximately 7-10 acres for every cow/calf unit.  There is no way to keep track of people hiking on these trails, and no way to insure that they stay on the trail.  Knowing the egocentric tendencies of a portion of the general public, merely telling them to stay on the trail won’t do it.  If they see any flora or fauna that intrigues them, off they go to get a better look.  And, on the way, if they have an accident, who is liable?  The persons themselves or the landowner on whose property they were trespassing?  Further, if the person is alone and unable to walk, cell phone coverage is not available (as it is not in many locations), or the person forgot to charge it before they left, the consequences can be tragic.

Considering the fact that hiking trails through ranch lands is almost universally a really offensive idea to the vast majority of owners, has the cost of fighting for this trail entered into the plan?  Maybe the thought is that when the ranch is sold, it will be required that the new owner agree to the trail.  So, we would either have a hodge-podge of non-contiguous trails strung across the ridge, with no public access available to access them, or buyers who back out when they find out about the requirement.  Having a “paper trail”, which shows up as a dotted line on a map is also not a good idea.  There is a “paper road” linking our rural road over the mountain to a road on the other side.  It appears on the map as a dotted line.  It is truly amazing the number of people who travel up our road looking for that paper road, and who we direct back to the highway.

The environmental organizations that come up with these notions about hiking trails on ranch lands really ought to talk to the people who own the lands first to determine if these trails are acceptable to the land owner.  That is the mature way of dealing with a “bright idea”.  Charging ahead without ever notifying the ranch owners of the intent of putting a trail on their properties is pretty egocentric to start with.

There are so many legal and financial reasons that hiking trails are not a good idea, sometimes we forget about the very real emotional reasons why it isn’t a good idea.  It is sort of like you, who live in town, spending a lot of love, time and money fixing up your back yard to host family parties.  A neighbor down the street hears about how lovely your yard is, and invites strangers to have a picnic in your yard without your permission or knowledge.  How would you feel?  Exactly!!