Category: Ridge Route News

December 2019 Update

Greetings all,

Finally, really good news. Last month was just “good news”. Now we’re on to really good news. Our Volunteer Service Agreement with the Angeles National Forest was finalized on December 11 and is now in effect. We will be getting a key to the gates within the next week.

Assuming weather and roadway conditions cooperate, I plan to make my first visit on the road, past the gates, on December 21st. The plan is to come from Sandberg and head to Castaic. It will be a lot of fun and an adventure. Yes, plenty of photos will be taken and posted. I haven’t fully traversed the road since about 2009 or 2010 at the latest.

With this agreement finally in place, we can begin to move forward with our portion of the physical preservation of the roadway. We are looking toward late Spring 2020, likely in early May, for our first volunteer event. Over the next few months, we will be making regular visits to the Ridge Route to assess what section we will work on first. I figure, as the road has been mostly inaccessible for so long, that a location within the closure would be best. As it gets closer, we will finalize a date for the first event on the road. All the information regarding these will be posted here as well as on RidgeRoute.com and SoCalRegion.com. Subscribe to this site, available on the right, to keep up to date with events and information on the Ridge Route.

Beyond getting the agreement and key, the roadway is still closed to motor vehicles between the gates. We are still working with the Angeles National Forest to open the road and get it properly maintained. Our maintenance events are meant to be supplementary, not primary. Our work will at least help keep the roadway in place as much as possible for the time being.

November 2019 Update

Finally, some good news! While it is not finalized at the time of this writing, our Volunteer Service Agreement is nearing completion. We got a copy today to review and so far, things look quite promising. We will also be getting a key to the gate, which means we will have access to the road. My first act, after getting the key, is to do a preliminary survey of the road to assess the general condition of the roadway and determine what needs to be worked on prior to the upcoming rainy season.

What this means is that we are planning to do work on the Ridge Route in late Spring 2020, after the rains have subsided. Details on this event will be posted once we get a bit more information together and work out what the event will entail. The agreement does have a few stipulations, mostly regarding how our events will be held and what we can do during them. One of those is that we need to give a list of all attendees prior to an event, as such we will be expecting all persons attending to let us know before they attend.

So, things are looking up for the Ridge Route. Work is still in progress regarding Forest Service maintenance, right-of-way, and land ownership issues. Those will take a while but I have confidence they will be resolved in due time. In the mean time, plan on going on the road in late Spring 2020 and prepare to work!

How can you help our cause?

The Ridge Route, a roadway that is one of the most important to California in the 20th century, needs your help. How can you help? Write, or otherwise contact, your representative in Congress, California State Legislature, be they in the House, Senate, or Assembly. Contact the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors as well. Tell any and all of them how you feel about the problems the roadway is undergoing. Once we get our volunteer agreement in place, you can also help with the roadway maintenance, which will help keep the road there for the future.

If you have additional questions, please contact us. We can use all the help we can get. The louder the voices, the more we will all be heard.

October 2019 Update

Greetings all. I know it has been a while since there has been an update. Things are progressing, slowly. We are actively working with the Angeles National Forest in obtaining a Volunteer Agreement, which will allow us to get back up there and work on the road. Details of the agreement are still in the works but we should be getting some details in the next couple of weeks. We would have had them last week, but the Tick Fire, Tick Branch 10 Fire, Saddleridge Fire, Val Verde Fire, and a few others have been distracting the forest service as of late.

With these fires in mind, so far the Ridge Route has been unaffected for the most part. Two fires, started along I-5 by cars, did burn toward the Ridge Route a mile or two north of Templin Highway. These were thankfully not during a high wind event, which allowed them to be put out sooner. Please use extra caution in ANY portion of the forest or wild lands during this time of year. We haven’t had any real rains yet, the vegetation is very dry, and the winds can be strong. Gusts today were recorded at over 60 mph at the top of the San Gabriel Mountains above Santa Clarita. Winds in the past have been recorded at near 100 mph at Whitaker Peak, which is just north of Violin Summit where Templin Highway crosses I-5.

Once we get our agreement in place, after this devastating fire season is over, I am hoping to get things going again on the road. Depending on what the agreement allows, I am looking to do a survey of the state of the roadway between the gates. Photos and information will be posted as soon as they can. Ridge Route work parties will also commence, hopefully sometime in 2020.

Opening the roadway is still a work in progress. Many steps need to be taken before it can happen, unfortunately. Funding for maintenance, getting the road back on the maintenance schedule, land ownership issues, and personnel issues all need to be resolved prior to opening the road. All of them are surmountable and many have the support needed. We will keep fighting to achieve our goal of getting the road back open to travel, even if it means the road is open in a limited capacity.

August 2019 Update

Well, its August 2019. The concrete on the Ridge Route is at or over its 100 year anniversary. For its age and all its gone through, it is still in pretty good shape in many places. Others, not so much. Those, at least south of Reservoir Summit, have been mostly corrected. I haven’t had an opportunity to traverse the roadway from there to the Tumble Inn, but reports from others and a review of aerial and satellite photography seems to give good news on that front.

We are still working with the Angeles National Forest to solve any right-of-way issues and to work toward getting the road opened. One of those items is via volunteer work. When we reach that point and start to plan work parties on the road, we will need your help and support. More information on that work, as well as how to join us, will be posted here when the time comes.

In April, we received the information we had requested from the Forest Service regarding the 2010 paving at the southern end of the roadway. What we got was quite helpful and explained a few things. The paving was done, for better or worse, in an attempt to help preserve the original paving. A long section of concrete was also poured, using the original specifications, to replace a section of roadway that had been lost to landslides in the recent past. While we applaud the Forest Service for doing this, we can only do so with apprehension. The Ridge Route paving is a large part of the historic aspect of the road. Rarely is the roadway itself the piece of history. A wholesale repaving of the roadway would destroy what is there and leave little for the public to enjoy in the future. Repairing and repaving small sections, when necessary, is acceptable to a point. We plan to work more closely with the Forest Service to make sure such paving is done with the proper care and understanding this road needs.

Below are some photos of the road work from 2010, taken by the Forest Service and the contractor. A link to the contract itself can be found here – 2010 Forest Service Rehabilitation Contract.

Paving at the northern end of county maintenance where the original Warm Springs Road intersects. Courtesy – USFS
At the southern Forest Service gate. Courtesy – USFS
Repairing the dike and drainage pipe north of the Forest Service gate. Courtesy – USFS
Paving over 1919 concrete. Courtesy – USFS