Sylmar Hang Gliding Association

Sylmartians - The World, as we knew it, has changed forever. Kagel Road is gated and locked.

We have access, but we must use it conscientiously. Please help us keep our access.
WE CANNOT LEAVE THE GATE UNLOCKED.

People who vandalized public and private property on the Kagel Road, used the National Forest as a junk yard and a dump, as a beer can and broken glass receptacle, a crack house, rave site and a dirt bike track, with all that dust, noise and pollution, have made the Forest Service close the road. Because we have been responsible users of the Forest, have earned the respect of the local Ranger’s office, have done cleanups and repairs on the road and have paid for grading, the Forest Service has given us free access to the road, so long as we act responsibly.

Think about it. The Forest Service is treating us the same as if we OWNED LAND in the forest behind the gate. That's pretty good. We won't have litter, vandalism and traffic on our road and at our launch. The ruts made by off-road vehicles can heal, so the road is not in so much danger of washing out. We can have a wind sock again. We won't have campfire ashes and broken bottles on launch, or the tie-downs uprooted or the ropes cut off.

The down side is the hassle of operating the gate. There are some instructions below. We will have to lock the gate behind us on the way in and on the way out and scramble the combination numbers. This will cause about five minutes’ delay on every trip up or down. It's the price we will have to pay for access to our launch. If our members don't treat the privilege with respect, guess what?

Well, we don’t have to guess. I sent this summary to Michael J. McIntyre, District Ranger of the U>S> Forest Service, who made it clear what will happen- -

Larry - I think that you summarized the issue perfectly. The environmental
damage that was being caused by the unauthorized off-road vehicle use will
be repaired and we need to restrict access to allow the repair to
successful. If the gate at Dillon Divide is found to be open and your lock
is open (or even locked), we will assume that it was one of your members.
If this is found to occur repeatedly then we will remove your lock and
install the FS lock in both slots. Having the gate left open defeats the
whole purpose of having the gates in the first place. I think the
effective use of the gate will benefit both your organization and the
Forest.
Michael J. McIntyre, District Ranger
Los Angeles River Ranger District

I am asking my fellow Sylmar pilots to be responsible with respect to the gate, and to encourage other members to do the same. I can think of at least three ways to "dummy lock" the gate (make it look like it is locked when it is not really locked). The most obvious way is to forget to scramble the combination numbers. All of those methods would leave our lock open, and available to be stolen, along with the locking bar and the Forest Service Lock. THAT WOULD BE BAD. If it happens, I will have to go to Ranger McIntyre and say, “Remember that lock you used to have on your gate?�

Please don't "dummy lock", even if the next truck is only one minute behind you. If you want to be considerate, wait for that truck and let them lock the gate behind them. And please discourage others from dummy locking.

The combination to our lock is available in the “Members Only� sector of the website, from any board member, Windsports, Hungary Joe, or Erwin. Before long we will beef up the security on the “Members Only� sector. We need to change the combo about once a month, so check for current info before you go up the hill.

More to follow.

Okay, here's the gate, unlocked and open. Our lock is on top of the white "tongue" that sticks out beyond the end of the top rail of the gate. The black thing sticking out of the bottom of our lock like a key is a plastic cover to protect the numbers from dirt and moisture.

http://sports.webshots.com/photo/206812 ... 5065osyjJx

Our lock is installed through the top hole of the dark-colored 1" x 1/4" x 4" locking bar. The Forest Service's keyed padlock is hanging from the bottom hole.

When the locking bar is locked inside the post, it prevents the tongue from swiveling out of the slot in the post. Our lock will always be in the top hole of the locking bar. A combo lock can't be used in the bottom hole because you can't see a combination lock that is installed in the bottom hole - - it is too far above the lower access hole, and you'd have to stand on your head to look in that hole.

To unlock the gate, you have to reach in the top access hole and pull our lock out as far as possible, so you can see the numbers. But sometimes it jams. This is because the square hole in the tongue is more than one inch wide, so the locking bar can rotate 90 degrees, allowing the hasp of our lock to drop down into the square hole in the tongue. When that happens, our lock won't just pull up, because the locking bar is now crosswise to the square hole in the tongue, and the top of the locking bar catches on the bottom of the tongue.

When this happens, you have to put one arm in the lower hole, grab the Forest Service Lock, then wiggle and lift the whole locking bar up and twist it 90 degrees, while pulling up on our lock. We may propose modifications to the locking system to cure this problem, but WE WILL MAKE NO MODIFICATIONS WITHOUT THE APPROVAL OF THE FOREST SERVICE.

The combination numbers will be difficult to see in the dark. Can we have a volunteer to stick a little flashlight to the inside of the top of the post with a magnet?

It is tricky to enter the combination and work the hasp of the lock. You actually have to reach in the bottom hole and hold the locking bar up while you work the combination and the hasp. Then you can hold the flashlight with your third hand.

For us, this gate is a blessing and a curse. Please help us make the best of it. Thanks.
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I was very disappointed to find the Kagel trail locked today.

It's the first time I've been up there in awhile, it's a trail I liked going on occasionally ever since giving a few of you guys a ride up there.

It was a nice place to go and take photos, a nice easy offroad trail.

As someone who is an avid offroad enthusiast, seeing trails close is painful. Especially trails so close to home that are short and leisurely rather than trails you must drive far distances to get to, and then they're long and intensive. Kagel was a nice trail you could use spontaneously.

Subscribing to the concepts of Tread Lightly, I can understand the problems that you guys face on trails, as well as the Forest Service during the course of their jobs, thanks to idiots who misuse the trails, but shutting out people who use them responsibly is hardly the best course of action.

It's rather nice of them to allow you access. Access to your sport lives on while access to mine grows smaller and smaller.

I equte this to someone closing one of your LZ's or one of your Launches.

Mitch wrote:I can understand the problems that you guys face on trails, as well as the Forest Service during the course of their jobs, thanks to idiots who misuse the trails, but shutting out people who use them responsibly is hardly the best course of action.

It's rather nice of them to allow you access. Access to your sport lives on while access to mine grows smaller and smaller.

I equte this to someone closing one of your LZ's or one of your Launches.

Unfortunately, most of the off roaders that I know don't try to maintain the trails that they use. They seem to just "make another trail" instead.

The SHGA club helps to maintain the trail up to Kagel.

The Forest Service needs to be able to use the trail on a regular basis and unfortunately, some of the offroaders that were using the trail up decided to make their own 'off trail' dirt bike tracks. These 'extra' dirt bike tracks could definitely be very bad to the main trail to the top. There's even been several times that evidence of campfires could be seen on the way up to Kagel launch; not the proper place for campfires.

I've also know many offroads that like to modify their engines/vehicles to get more performance out of them. I don't know about now, but I know that some offroad vehicles used to have spark arrestors on them so that they wouldn't would 'throw' sparks and possibly cause a fire. With the offroaders that I've know, the spark arrestors are usually the first thing to go.

Also, with the catalytic converters on street legal offroad vehicles, you have a part on the 'underbelly' of a vehicle that's extremely hot and if someone were to go off the main trail and onto the dry brush that's constantly around the trailway, you now have a large potental for starting a fire.

I even know of at least one time where I saw some shell casings of a rifle at launch; another bad thing.

People were even dumping trash part of the way up the trail.

One time within the last year, we even noticed a small white vehicle (pickup?) part of the way down from the top to the left of the main launch.
Broken bottles, cans, and misc trash was also getting out of control at times.

I can feel your pain about losing offroad trails. However, looking from the Forest Services point of view; would you like to have people that help maintain the trail still have access or would you like to also have people that seem to like to 'use and abuse' the trail have access?

Please don't take this an opinion or feeling that "all offroaders" are abusers of the trail. I just takes a few to ruin it for others.

Allen