California State Park Closures: How does it affect me?

so how much is a ticket?

will they confiscate your bike?

will you bitch about said confiscation in a thread on a mountain bike forum?

yikes 3 in my area .

sanjuro said:

I don't know the answer to any of those questions, except for the last one.

I have a question for you though: who is going to bust me? County sheriffs? City police? CHP?

Cause park rangers ain't going to exist.

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true.

Same thing going on in Pennsylvania. They are proposing park closures and access road closures. The fear, as I understand it, among the mountain bikers is that the closures move from "temporary" to a more permanent status with the state possibly selling the land to private interests for things like natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale region, etc. At this point they aren't doing anything with state forest land other than proposing to close seldom used, patrolled or maintained roads. As far as I know, no talk of ticketing those that access the land any way. Estimates in PA are a savings of $19 million by closing the parks at a cost of $57 million in tourist dollars coming into the areas where the parks are located.

Tin foil hat time, with so many states hurting financially at the moment, selling off some park land would generate a hell of a lot of money initially, not to mention future taxes. Someone would surely buy up some of that prime real estate for a rainy day if it were available.

From what I've found, legally, the state parks are owned by the citizens of the state, not the state itself. Due to this, they can not sell the parks.

Tha being said, who knows if anyone will actually go to bat for these parks...

I say poach away.
I would.

We were riding at Northern NJ State Park one day a few years ago that was legal for bikes (other than the AT which also runs through the park) but was closed for a short period due to a budget not passing in time and a cop followed us to the regular parking lot and told us we could not park there since it was closed and told us about a secondary parking lot to use instead.

My only gripe is that they're closing down King's beach. I've been known to enjoy dragging my fat there after a hard day at gnarstar to relax and pee in the calming waters of lake Tahoe.

We poach in the wet season at forest park. Local cops are the threat and ipound is the price. But if the park is closed you should be safe. There were a few campgrounds that were closed when i first moved here that we used as fallbacks when others were full.

DirtMcGirk said:

I've been known to enjoy dragging my fat there after a hard day at gnarstar to relax and pee in the calming waters of lake Tahoe.

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I was foolish to think that I was the only one who had discovered such a zen activity. I don't think they can stop us, who is going to kick you out?


Due to a certain set of trails in santa cruz, I was stoked when I first heard this. But I've also recently read (not sure how true it is) that for every dollar invested, state parks generate 2 dollars in revenue. Business-wise closing the parks doesn't seem like a very smart move for a state hurting for money.

merica!...not so much.

6 in my area... but most are beaches. Only gonna affect me on beach weekends.

Short-term, I think you're on the right track. I figure things won't change a whole lot and I also plan to keep riding regardless.

Long-term, I expect we'll see problems. Just because the parks will be closed doesn't mean there won't be any enforcement. Instead of using meager funds to maintain the parks, do public outreach, education, etc., they could simply use whatever money is available for enforcement. Enforcement could be stepped up if all that open space becomes attractive for illegal activity. And who knows? Given the money situation, they might start writing more tickets in a misguided attempt to get some cash flowing.

P.S., I also hit King's Beach after pretty much every day at Northstar.

I still can't believe this...

Mt Tam, China Camp, Mt Diablo, Angel Island, Point Lobos, Salt Point, Andrew Molera... closed?

I wonder if cops will try to enforce this. Can't imagine they have the resources for it. Perhaps Marin cops will try...

laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame

Mike B. said:

Tin foil hat time, with so many states hurting financially at the moment, selling off some park land would generate a hell of a lot of money initially, not to mention future taxes. Someone would surely buy up some of that prime real estate for a rainy day if it were available.

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Oregon just closed the school for the blind because the school sits on some very pricey land....now the land will be sold

This will only make america fatter.

Jesus, What parks aren't they closing. That's a pretty long list.

I can't belive they're closing China Camp. That's one of my favorite riding locations.

When fun is outlawed, outlaws will have fun.

sanjuro said:

I don't know the answer to any of those questions, except for the last one.

I have a question for you though: who is going to bust me? County sheriffs? City police? CHP?

Cause park rangers ain't going to exist.

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what it sounds like(then again I hear so many different versions of the story I got dizzy) is that they will stop employing the non-LEO rangers and staff, but will keep some Rangers with LE power to patrol and cite people who "trespass", but not do any maintainence work.

sanjuro said:

However, horseback riders will certainly no longer roam these parks, which alleviates their environmental damage as well as clears the trails.

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That will be nice...

Yeah... Go state! Bunch of dumb asses.
I'm really tempted to run for office just to boot the bums out.

Ah-nuld has turned out to be dumber than his last few movies.

He is grasping for straws to fix the budget mess

In Washington State we had similar issues. The solutions here were to change the opt-in clause to an opt-out clause on license tab renewal. As well as pulling money from other government recreational monies, which are funded primarily by motorized use recreationalists. So basically we're robbing Peter to pay Paul and there will be many negative impacts on other trails we enjoy, especially on Forest Service Land which benefit from monies used for trail maintenance. And there is still no guarantee for the parks that were on the hit list...

Anyways ideally you would want parks to close under a mothball type of closure. In that the parks are expected to open up again once monies are available. Downright closure is bad for everybody as now the properties can be sold and turned into shopping malls. Maybe that is an unlikely scenario, but still.

The other bad thing is, now those trails are completely gray trails. It's likely that local officials wouldn't discourage continued use so much as worry about new trails building, or other illegal activity.

Anyways, there were a few local riders around here throwing ideas around on what our status as a user-group could be in all situations. Ultimately for each local State Park land around here that is open to bikes each one has is we represented by active trails stewards who are mountain bikers. While relations are sometimes strained ultimately the trail opportunities are the important issue. Aren't we all looking for more access to support our worthwhile growing recreation.

So yah it's anyones perogative if you want to just go in and look to "poach", but i would certainly hope that more mountain bikers would step back, look at the bigger picture and how individual mountain bikers could step up in advocacy, and look for ways to make things better for mt. bkers for the future.

Y'know stewardship, advocacy...

sanjuro said:

I totally agree with you, but don't forget: most of the trail work that I see are from mountain bikers.

Mostly, I see lots of other trail users throwing money at problems. I remember I was on a primarily horse only trail, and I saw a huge mud bog which could have been fixed by 2 people, shovels, and a bag of rocks a half mile from the stables.

On nearby bike only trails, I've seen logs across the trail cut in half. Illegally, since no one else was going to do it.

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You address what i think is THE primary problem of mt. bike advocacy here and i suspect in your area. Land managers DO NOT truly embrace mt. bikers as a user-group for whatever reason. That leads to the user-group working outside of the system to bypass the bureaucracy to get things done.

This is bad because:
Working in anonymity, mt. bikers don't receive credit for good works.
Work parties are not as organized or not funded to maximize efforts into REAL sustainable trail fixes or builds.
Land managers percieve work as a hindrance, as they rightly have no real control over efforts at the park. Remember there are alot of stupid rules they have to have to sign off on, so not having mt. bikers play by the rules, they are forced to look away, or work on stopping people helping, either way it's more of a headache at some point in time for them.

This is the key uphill battle that effects us all. People in advocacy working with land managers are forced to conceed from unreasonable and/or unfair demands many riders would rather not deal with. So the status quo progresses until something get's shut down or closed, then people jump out of the woodwork and complain.

You look at places that enjoy mt. bike success it's in places where good relationships are established. North Shore Vancouver B.C., Bend Oregon, Colorado, Utah etc. Then you look at places where we live near San Fran and Seattle, where other user-groups eliminating access to mt. bikes since the 80's have created such a terrible environment for people who really want to do things the right way, but really aren't afforded real opportunities.