Forest Road Knotted in Red Tape

Chantry Flats Road hung on through the wildfire, the winter storms and tons of debris washing over its asphalt.

But where fire and flood have failed, government bureaucracy is threatening to deliver a knockout blow to the twisting mountain road, which carries thousands of hikers into the Angeles National Forest every week.

This public gateway to the San Gabriel Mountains, dating from the Depression, has been closed for four months and could remain so indefinitely because government agencies can’t agree on who should pick up the $250,000 tab to fix it.

Representatives of five agencies with jurisdiction over the road met Thursday to negotiate who is responsible and how to get the money, but agreed only to form a task force on the issue.

While they figure it out, the hikers, campers and mountain bikers who rely on the road--3,000 on an average spring weekend--will be denied access to one of the most popular and scenic local wilderness areas. The route leads to the Angeles Forest’s Chantry Flats ranger station, about 20 miles from Los Angeles, and federal officials say the road problems could close the area for the rest of the year--and beyond.

The closure is killing business for the area’s last remaining mule pack, a rickety operation that delivers supplies to 82 cabins and a year-round camp in Big Santa Anita Canyon.

“This pack station has been going for 70 years and needs the public,” said Mike Pauro, a fiddler and Chantry resident. “It’s getting pretty lonesome up there.”

The road woes began in December, when a spectacular fire ran roughshod up the mountainside with no respect for political boundaries--crossing federal and county land and two city boundaries. The jurisdictions involved are the cities of Sierra Madre and Arcadia; the U.S. Forest Service; the state; and Los Angeles County’s Public Works Department.

With all the vegetation burned away, the decomposed granite that makes up the mountains has been free to roll down the slopes with the winter rains, creating a destructive muck that is like fresh concrete.

Much of the damage to the road has been on a 100-yard stretch in an uninhabited part of Sierra Madre, a town of 10,767 people with a small budget to match.

City officials say they do not want to fork over a major portion of their general funds to deal with a regional problem. At a City Council meeting this week, Sierra Madre City Councilman Doug Hayes expressed his preference for letting public pressure mount and forcing one of the other entities to deal with the problem.

“As we approach summer with Memorial Day weekend, we’re going to have a lot of cranky people. If we opt to do nothing, I guarantee that road will be repaired,” he said.

But the U.S. Forest Service says it doesn’t have the money to do the work, even with the proceeds from its controversial Adventure Pass program, which charges people for access to public lands.

District Forest Ranger Terry Ellis said federal regulations dictate that pass money can be used only for projects within forest boundaries; most of the road damage is not.

Yet he concedes that the agency might lose more money than the repairs would cost, if the road remains closed and people with adventure passes can’t get in.

He said the road was seriously undermined by flood water this winter, leaving air pockets under the asphalt, and should not bear heavy traffic. It is safe enough, however, for lighter use by forestry officials and canyon residents, he said.

Steven Johnson, an assistant for Assemblyman Bob Margett (R-Arcadia), told Thursday’s meeting of about 20 residents and government representatives that without the right public pressure, the road could go the way of California 39, part of which has been closed for 22 years. That road, which once connected Azusa to the Angeles Crest Highway, was damaged by floods in 1978 and never reopened, he said.

“You don’t want Chantry to become a victim like that,” Johnson said.

Glen Owens, who owns a cabin in Chantry, agrees. He suspects the forest service is overstepping its bounds in keeping the road closed.

“The forest service says it’s undermined. Show me where it’s undermined,” said Owens. “The bottom line is, the public does not appear to be a priority with the powers that be. . . . Whose forest is this anyway?”

This week, work crews from Arcadia were pushing back the concrete barriers that were used to divert flood waters and had constricted the route to one lane.

At the Sierra Madre stretch, a dried flow of debris had been scraped off the asphalt but was still piled high on the sides of the road. Farther up toward the Chantry Flats parking lot, the fire had burned some wooden road supports, again reducing it to one lane for about 40 yards.

Although authorities also say there is a crack in one section, the road generally appears clean and some residents say it is drivable.

So far, county officials say they have spent $48,000 on parts of the route in Sierra Madre and $284,000 on the county portion that was damaged. It is estimated that the remaining portion of repair work in Sierra Madre will cost about $250,000.

“We see it as a regional project,” said Jennifer Plaisted, a deputy for County Supervisor Mike Antonovich. “But we don’t have a blank check to write.”

Sierra City Councilman Bart Doyle traveled to Washington several weeks ago to look for funds. The problem is, he said, the city is not eligible for Federal Emergency Management Administration money or other relief because the county and state didn’t declare the area a disaster after the floods.

Doyle has suggested that the city offer to spend no more than $100,000 on the repairs.

Meanwhile, the small mountain community around Chantry Flats, is experiencing a solitude rarely seen in this part of the front range. On these dry mountainsides, the canyon is one of the lushest and shadiest around, drawing visitors with its swimming holes, a waterfall, salamanders, fish and leafy vines.

Pauro, the 58-year-old fiddler with a Gen. Custer goatee, said he misses seeing families strolling under the alders by his stream-side cabin.

“I’ll be fiddling on the porch and see people walking through for the first time, and it blows them away,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘I’ve lived here for 10 years and I never knew this place was here.’ ”

Pauro said he is most worried about the mule pack and Sturtevant Camp, a 103-year-old camp run by the Methodist Church where he entertains the weekend crowds with his fiddle.

The camp and the cabins rely on the six-burro team to deliver supplies beyond the road’s end. There’s no other way. But now the packing business is up for sale after 61 years in the same family.

Bill Adams, 80, owned it for about 45 years until he sold it to his nephew, who runs it today. Adams still works there and said the road closure has been terrible for business, though it wasn’t the reason for trying to sell it. Sitting on the front porch of the station this week, under dried rattlesnake skins, he said he is optimistic that “the road will be open before long and we’ll be in good shape.”

He’s sad to say goodbye to the operation, with its burros, a mule, a horse, a snack bar and old stables that resemble a mine shaft. Even in this dot.com age, he said, little has changed up here.

“You can turn the clock back a hundred years,” he said. “We still pack the same exact way.”