State Parks officials say lack of staffing prevents adequate patrolling.
By Melonie Magruder / Special to The Malibu Times
Late night revelers and adolescent taggers are trashing the pristine trailheads and prehistoric vistas from the state parklands at the end of Corral Canyon Road, says one concerned citizen.
Scott Palamar has lived in Corral Canyon for eight years. He said the hiking trails in that area of the Santa Monica Mountains are being littered, vandalized and more.
“The trailheads to Backbone and Mesa Peak depart from the parking lot at the end of Corral Canyon Road,” Palamar said on a recent foray into the canyon. “This is state park territory, but it is not being maintained as it should.”
The trails run just below the Kaslow Natural Preserve and are marked by jutting igneous rock formations, pocked with caves and surrounded by manzanita brush.
Over the past few years, Palamar became concerned with the amount of litter he was finding at the trailheads and deep into the scrubby trails. On a recent visit, broken bottles, empty cigarette cartons and greasy remnants of fast-food dinners could be seen scattered throughout the trails and just off the parking lot, which has two public waste receptacles.
“What’s worse is what you find when you start climbing into the rocks,” Palamar said.
The eerie, looming rock clusters stand in vivid contrast to the dark green surrounding brush. A closer look reveals densely tagged graffiti, spray-painted over the rocks.
“It breaks your heart, doesn’t it?” Palamar said.
At one spot, known locally as “The Cave,” ample evidence of longtime use is seen in the rusty beer cans, gum wrappers, plastic bags and crushed Frito packages strewn about. Old fire pits are plentiful. Under a tree, a homemade crucifix is planted on a tiny mound.
“You can’t stop people from having fun and kids going out to celebrate,” Palamar said. “But this is ridiculous!”
Such concern led him to notify the supervising ranger at the State Parks department.
Craig Sap, public safety superintendent for State Parks, said staffing shortages have prevented the local park rangers from keeping as close an eye on all areas of Malibu Creek State Park as they would like.
“That eastern sector goes from south of Point Dume to the Malibu Pier and up all the way to Highway 101. It’s a lot of area to cover,” Sap said. “We are expecting three more graduates from the academy to start their field training this summer and then we’ll have more man power to investigate complaints.”
That will be not a moment too soon for Palamar, who has noted the increasing number of cars passing his home late at night, headed up the mountain.
“There aren’t that many homes past mine in Corral Canyon Road,” he said. “They can only be headed up to the parking lot at the end of the road, which is supposed to be closed at night.”
In fact, a sign designating legal parking hours and prohibiting fire and other activities is posted at the entrance of the parking lot. It has been knocked askew and defaced with spray paint.
After hearing a neighbor complain of loud music coming from the parkland area one night, Palamar decided to investigate himself.
“This was after midnight,” he said. “When I went up to check it out, there were maybe 50 cars parked along the roadway up there.”
Palamar phoned in a complaint to the Sheriff’s Department, which sent a patrol car to disburse the crowd.
“I was told the next day that there were about 200 people partying there,” Palamar said.
With the current dry weather conditions and the abundance of scrub brush in the Corral Canyon area, the threat of conflagration from even the most well tended bonfire is very real.
Fire Captain Dave Reed of Malibu Fire Station No. 71 described a fire started in the parking lot during the early hours of a February morning last year.
“Apparently, it was a stolen van that was torched,” he said. “We found an empty gas can, so we called in the Sheriff’s arson investigation division.”
Reed said the fire spread westward down into Latigo Canyon and it took helicopters, bulldozers, hand-crews cutting a firewall and all of the next day to contain the fire.
“It takes us 25 minutes or so to get up there,” Reed said. “It’s not a great area for a fire to start.”
Palamar said he believes he helped prevent another serious fire from starting at the park entrance just a few weeks ago.
“I found one of those net and hay erosion barriers smoldering just off the roadway,” he said. “It was not that hot a day, so it didn’t look like a case of spontaneous combustion. Somebody just decided to start a fire.”
He called in the Fire Department to contain the problem.
Palamar insists he is not trying to restrict people’s enjoyment of state parklands.
“But maybe some official signage and extra patrolling up here would help preserve the beauty of these public lands for everyone.”
Lindsay Templeton, the supervising ranger for Malibu Creek State Park, said, “We’ve increased patrols at night there and we’re discussing putting in a gate and more signage. But, ultimately, education is our first course before enforcement.”