Los Padres National Forest would have to spend $180 million to repair everything that was damaged in this winter’s storms.
“That is an estimate of what it would cost to put everything back the way it was. Truth be told, we’re probably not going to be able to get that funding,” forest spokesperson Andrew Madsen said. “This is probably a good opportunity for the forest service to look at decommissioning some campgrounds and roads that have long been in disrepair.”
After the January storms dropped up to 12 inches of rain in 24 hours in some areas of the Central Coast, Los Padres issued a 60-day shutdown order in four of its five ranger districts. In March, the forest issued an updated closure order, reopening access to trails, campgrounds, and roads where it could while keeping a long list of closures in place for safety reasons, Madsen said. He expects that Los Padres will issue an updated order before the end of April.
“The challenges are mighty,” Madsen said. “It’s all dependent on when areas are getting cleaned up.”
Cerro Alto Campground off Highway 46, for instance, had run-off careen into the campground, carrying picnic tables with it and washing out a footbridge. However, Los Padres was able to re-open some of the campground, which now has sites available for reservation on recreation.gov.
But several developed campgrounds across the forest such as Kirk Creek, Davy Brown, and Hi Mountain remain closed, as do many roads such as Hi Mountain and Nacimiento-Ferguson, off-highway vehicle trails such as La Panza and Rock Front, and trails like the Pine Ridge Trail in Big Sur. A full list is available at fs.usda.gov/lpnf.
Madsen added that the U.S. Forest Service aims to prioritize reopening roads that private property owners rely on to get to their homes, properties, and businesses. Second on the list are roads that have long provided access for fire equipment, and third are roads that provide general recreation access.
Colson Canyon Road outside of Santa Maria has been closed since a “tidal wave” of water wiped it out entirely, after the area received 10 inches of rain in one day during January, Paul Antolini said.
“There’s 30-feet sheer walls where the road used to be,” Antolini said. “It’s going to take quite a bit of time and quite a bit of expenses [to repair it], but for me that represents my access.”
Antolini owns and operates G. Antolini and Son, a stone quarry mining operation that’s been selling wholesale stones to building material dealers since 1953. The Jan. 9 storms shut his business down “right then and there,” he said.
“As a small business person, the thing that keeps me up at night is I hope I can stay solvent. With no income coming in, it’s tough to be honest,” Antolini said.
Although the federal agency has made some progress, with most residents in the lower parts of the canyon able to access their homes, Antolini’s mining operation is farther up the canyon, and he can only access his business by foot.
“Damage is great all over the forest and I know [the Forest Service] has a lot on their plate, but from my personal situation, I’m trying to stay solvent business-wise and my employees would like to have their livelihoods back,” he said. “The sooner that road can get put back for me the better.”
Madsen said that Colson Canyon Road was “completely obliterated” and would take two or more years to repair and cost millions of dollars. But those repairs depend on funding.
President Joe Biden’s federal emergency disaster declaration will help free up some funds, with the bulk of the forest service’s road funding repairs stream coming from the Federal Highways Administration’s Emergency Relief for Federally Owned Roads to repair forest roadways, Madsen said.
Nacimiento-Ferguson Road has been closed since the Dolan Fire started in late 2020 and the winter storms that followed washed away whole sections of the road—damage that was exacerbated this winter. Madsen said the road has been allocated Federal Highways Administration funds and work has started on both the road and the dozens of recreation sites along it.
“It’s going to take a lot of time to get that work done and get that road reopened,” Madsen said.
Trails are a whole different matter, Madsen said. Those are maintained by some forest service staff and many nonprofits like the Los Padres Forest Association (LPFA), which can apply for grant funding and take trail crews out to do maintenance.
LPFA’s Executive Director Bryan Conant said that he and his trail teams got involved with storm recovery shortly after the January flooding and have assessed more than 206 miles of trails in Santa Barbara, Ventura, and parts of San Luis Obispo counties for any obstruction to trails like fallen trees, chaparral overgrowth, or debris. Crews usually take photos of the damage, flag the GPS coordinates to send back to the Forest Service, and mark the trails with little plastic flags or stacks of rocks (cairns) to help future hikers find the adjusted path.
“Normally a downed tree is a big deal, a normal survey of 10 downed trees was a big deal,” he said. “Now, we’re dealing with mudslide sections where there used to be a ramp that led into a creek crossing and now it’s a 6-foot drop.”
Trail maintenance teams and volunteers flagged significant trail damage every 50 yards on average, with one crew in the Santa Ynez Valley area reporting 700 photos of trail damage, Conant said.
The storm’s impact forced the association to revise its whole work program from updating some of the forest’s backcountry trails to try and get the more popular trails back in shape and work out from there, he said.
“We’re having to start over again,” Conant said. “We’ve been working really hard over the last five to 10 years to get these trails in shape, and we have to start over again. We’re kind of going backwards, but it’s OK. It’s what you have to do.”
While some trails have reopened, Madsen said that the Forest Service has been experimenting for a while on how to put up closure signs that can’t be ripped down. People often shoot at the signs, tear them down, and throw them in the bushes. He said that if that’s the case, and a Forest Service ranger runs into trail users who may not know a trail is closed, they’re probably going to be guided out of the area.
“As long as they’re understanding and they don’t put up too much of a fuss,” Madsen said, adding that rangers will cite people who try to challenge the closure or get confrontational.
“We don’t want to be out there citing people,” Madsen said. “We want to get it open as soon as we can. We just want to make sure it’s safe before we do so.” Δ
Reach Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor from New Times sister paper, the Sun, at toconnor@santamariasun.com. Editor Camillia Lanham contributed to the story.
This article appears in Apr 6-16, 2023.
