Some San Diego Fire Impact Pics

[MTBBill]

Let me start off my by saying thanks who have been helping with feeding me first-hand info of the trail damage for the Wildfire 2007 Impact Page.

Sunday: No pictures for this day, but there will be some minor impact to our non-burned trails. I rode Daley Ranch on Sunday and there were more folks out on the trail than I had ever seen there before. The parking lot was full-full and plenty of cars were out on the road.

Monday: I had the day off, so I took my oldest son off for a cruise through a bit of the San Diego country side to take a look at some of the areas that get a little less press than places like Noble and Lake Hodges.

We drove out on Hwy 78 - Even from a distance, it was easy to see the San Pasquel and Mule Hill trails were toast. Further inland the North and South Clevenger trails were also toast. As we got into Ramona we split off and check out the Pamo Valley and Black Mountain (not Rancho Bernardo)


The valley is pretty much toast and it is easy to see that the whole side of the mountain was burnt.


The sign down in the valley pretty much says it all.

We left from there and continued out east on Hwy 78 into Santa Ysabel. There was fire damage all over on the way our there until just prior to town. From there we went north on to HWY 79 then the 76 to Lake Henshaw. All along through there we enjoyed some non-burned scenery for a change. Past the lake we took the east grade road up onto Palomar Mountain. Things looked okay until around the four mile marker or so (could be as far as mile marker 7) when we came back into more burnage.


Even though MTB trails on Palomar are somewhat limited it still sucks to see this kind of devastation.


Further up the road we made an interesting stop at a memorial for Gregory Pacheco who was a firefighter who lost his life while fighting the La Jolla wildfire in 1999. The fire came within inches of the memorial.

The devastation continued as we went along the road, but the east grade road was pretty much where the line was held, to the north was not burned while pretty much the south side mountain down to the orange groves on the valley was burned.

The plan was to go down Nate Harisson Grade Road which is a great dirt road ride to work on your climbing skills. It is a toss up for me as to which is tougher, Nate or Harding Truck Truck Trail. The road was closed at the State Park boundary so we had to take the South Grade down to HWY 76. We picked up Nate Harrision from the bottom and found that it was not closed off. We went about 4 or 5 miles up the dirt road to get a good feel for the damage. At this point we could see that the burn went all the way up the side of the mountain. Palomar Divide Truck Trail as well as the Gomez trail on the Pauma Indian Reservation could be seen and therefore was burned as before the fires you would not see them as they were all covered with this stuff.


The view from along Nate Harrision, a mountain burned to the orange groves below.



After this we grabbed some grub at a taco shop near by and then headed out to Fallbrook to take a look at the the Rainbow Creek and Santa Margarita River Trails. There were not many pretty sights to be seen.


Rainbow Creek at the crossing at the split of the SMART and Rainbow Creek trails.

The same spot in 2005


A little bit of a hike up the trail and it became obvious that a recovery effort was already underway. Fallen trees have already started to be cleared and there was even a lone set of bike trails on the trail.


The day was getting late at this point so we headed back. There are several splits in the trail where you can take the low route right next to river or the higher route and hopefully avoid some sand. We took a high route on the way back.


The gain in elevation allowed us to see an interesting contrast (poorly captured here) between the burnt areas, the trees at the rivers edge that escaped the fire and the sunset on Galvin Mountain. That scene was pretty much the end of the day and it left me thankful that not everything burned and that even in midst of the ugly devastation I had seen today, there was some beauty left in the place that will grow back.

-Bill
www.MountainBikeBill.com

[nappyt]

I was out checking things a couple weeks ago. I thought it was so crazy to see some areas completly untouched. Everything around them gone but this patch of trees and bushes just fine. Little patches like that all over. Even a long the roads it was like that. Just crazy...

[foofighter]

thanks for the photos and the update bill...the pictures paint a pretty vivid account of what transpired down there.

[Liquid55]

Thanks for the pictures and the updates on your site.