First: This from San Diego City Parks and Recreation Department.
Please be advised that the trails approved by the City Council on Carmel Mountain and Del Mar Mesa will be open for use tomorrow. Maps will be posted at kiosks.…
On the Del Mar Mesa map, as shown below, trails opened by the Council action are shown in black and white. Trails shown in black and red are NOT open due to private property and/or the need for Coastal Commission approval. Maps will be updated once further clearances are obtained.
For Carmel Mountain, all trails appear the same on the map and all are open.
The Council action also included biological habitat restoration on a number of areas previously used for recreational activities. Ranger staff have installed brush, signs, and fences at the access points to these locations. Please respect these access controls along with the ones installed at the Coastal Zone boundary and report any inappropriate behavior to Park Ranger staff.
Now a bit of opinion from me: While this progress is the culmination of a lot of work by a wide array of folks working quite diligently it also shows off some of the bureaucratic buffoonery that is all to common when multiple agencies have to work together. It better than it was but this trail plan is a setup to foster undesired behaviors. Where are the loops? Tunnel 4 is the only legal ingress/egress into the tunnels and then you can only go out and back on the Deer Canyon Trail. The California Department of Fencing Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is the primary players who would not allow for a trail to create a loop to get back from the eastern end of the Deer Canyon trail back to the Eucalyptus Grove. This failure to manage the flow of trails users will most likely lead to undesired effects such as trail users figuring out their own way to create a loop with those trails which will further challenge the management of this area. You can bet that when a group of folks do this they will be demonized by the very folks who help create the problem in the first place. You know people, particularly trail users, are fairly predictable. In many respects people are much more predictable that the array of critters these intelligent conservationist are trying to protect. You would think they would have figured this stuff out by now.
Now my recommendation: Like the city is asking, PLEASE do not go around any barriers, remove any of the brush, debris or tamper with the “access controls” (What do that have squirrels with lasers attached to their head?) that has been put up to close off the existing trails that are not going to be part of this trails system on the mesa. I believe this would be exactly what some of the ANTI-BIKE ANTI-ACCESS folks/agencies would love to see happen. DON’T TAKE THE BAIT! I’ll be updating my page on this trail system in the coming weeks