[pct-l] Angeles National Forest Closure Extended

[Diane Soini of Santa Barbara Hikes]

On Oct 7, 2010, at 9:41 AM, pct-l-request at backcountry.net wrote:

> Last night, I woke up in the middle of the night and was sad about  
> this.
> Section D is the best PCT hiking in SoCal IMHO. What is really sad  
> is that
> much of my good memories are now completely history. That PDF is  
> crappy
> quality and it took me a while to fully grasp the extent of the  
> fire. That
> is half of the entire section, completely trashed.
>
> How much is really gone?
If it makes you feel any better, I live in Santa Barbara County where  
in the past 3 years about 50% of the county has burned. After each  
fire they show maps of the perimeter of the fire line. But if you go  
out and hike in the area, it's not all completely charred. It's  
usually a patchwork of burned and unburned areas.

Iin the burned areas, it is quite devastating at times, but sometimes  
it's actually better. There are places I was not able to visit before  
fires that were easy to get to after. The scrub is opened up and you  
can see the views more, too. Sometimes it's really quite improved.

After a burn, many of the rare plants that only grow after fires have  
their chance. There are a lot of amazing wildflowers that come up.  
After the fires we had here, wildflowers have been absolutely  
stunning in the burn areas with hillsides covered in color and many  
unusual flowers growing I've never seen before.

Eventually the chaparral closes back in and in a few years, you can  
hardly tell there ever was a fire. Unfortunately the big trees take  
much longer and that is truly a shame when they go. It was clear  
while hiking in 2008 that I was hiking in some areas that had big  
trees that were NEVER coming back, as there were no new trees coming  
up and the fires had happened many years ago. That is truly the  
saddest loss.

The closure really doesn't indicate that the whole area is burned to  
a crisp. Just that they don't want you hiking there for whatever  
reason. Maybe there's no trail. Hillsides do slide away when the  
vegetation is gone and the PCT was mostly built in that area in a  
manner all but guaranteeing it would slide away after a fire. Maybe  
there still is a trail but there are unstable hillsides where giant  
boulders or dead trees could fall on you. CYA kind of stuff. A giant  
boulder cut loose on the trail while I was hiking through Washington.  
I can't believe how lucky I was to have escaped instant death (sorry  
mom, I don't know if I ever told you this story). The sound was  
incredible. I missed it by only a few seconds and don't know if I  
would have had time to react had I been right under it. So the CYA  
stuff isn't so bad considering the alternative.

Diane