[pct-l] Swarthout Canyon

[Diane at Santa Barbara Hikes dot com]

On Apr 9, 2010, at 11:46 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> It seems to have become the bureaucratic "easy out" to close off  
> entire areas because it is "too dangerous" for the public, yet not  
> give any alternative that is more safe (in this case, the highway  
> is probably much more dangerous than the fire area itself!) - this  
> "easy out" MO has been readily apparent the last few years  
> regarding many closures along the PCT...

I agree and I find it very irritating. As a resident of a region that  
has been burned several times in the last few years and has seen all  
the local trails closed to use at some point, some for ridiculous  
amounts of time, I say it's gotten to the point of being time to  
protest all these closures. We had a trail here that was burned last  
May 2009 and finally opened this April 2010. Come on, a whole year?  
During the closure lots of people were still hiking and  
mountainbiking the trail. I have a web site listing trails in this  
area and I would have to field all kinds of questions from people who  
were confused about why my site said the trail was closed but  
everybody they knew was hiking on it.

Also, as someone who hiked portions of the PCT both in 2008 and 2009,  
I experienced a lot of closures in 2008 and managed to hike through  
them in 2009 after they were open. In my opinion, the trail in these  
sections had no reason to be closed. A few lightly singed pine trees  
or burned manzanita bushes is not reason enough to force people to  
walk on dangerous highways. We can all hike through any burned trees  
waiting to fall very quickly without stopping to become a target.  
Unless the trail is in more dangerous condition than the overflowing  
rivers you have to cross in Yosemite or the the blowdown-choked  
sections between N. Cal and Canada, I think some of these closures  
are pretty stupid. Rather than try to find a reroute why not just go  
out and determine if the trail itself actually was burned beyond the  
ability to hike on it, and then simply disallow camping if they are  
worried someone's going to have a tree fall on them.