As the weather warms, camping heats up again. As the state braces for brutal cuts totaling some $21.3 billion dollars of which $5 billion would be cut from education, the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority is embracing its plan to spend millions of dollars constructing camping sites and additional parking facilities in Malibu, including a 28-car parking lot at the end of Winding Way that will require extensive grading through a beautiful meadow.
Those of us who live on Winding Way know exactly what’s going on when we hear helicopters hovering overhead and search and rescue vehicles racing up our streets. Someone has been injured (again) while climbing the treacherous unmarked trial in back of the waterfall, which isn’t even owned by the conservancy! That’s right, the MRCA does not own the entire waterfall at the end of Escondido Canyon, but their trails lead everyone right up there! The public safety issue is of grave concern and the increasing popularity and interest in this private trail in back of the falls will only lead to more problems and continue to tax city resources with increasing rescues.
And that’s not all because overnight camping in this box canyon adjacent to our homes is still a very real possibility. Yes, the MRCA wants to allow “cold camping” which bans bonfires but allows camp stoves which have to be lit by matches! Let’s just hope the wind never suddenly whips up (does that ever happen here?), or that a toss of the Frisbee doesn’t accidentally knock over the cold camping stove’s flame. It is essential that the community review the Public Access Enhancement Plan, http://mrca.ca.gov/pwp.html, which will impact Winding Way, Ramirez, Latigo and Corral Canyon Homeowners, and show up in force to the Coastal Commission meeting next month in Marina Del Rey.
Lori Gray