^^^ Had I tried something like that, I probably would have augered in right on top of him. My old guy run-'em-over technique works pretty well for me . . . .

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The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper names.

whooo...

haven't been there in forever robo.

is it a legal trail now, uh, again, uh, still?

lpq is just so confusing.

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~Milan Kundera

It is currently floating in a confusing, hazy, non-defined status. But I've made the case to the city for its need and also included it and others in a Del Mar Mesa Specific Plan trail map that I was asked to update for the DMM Planning Group. They are sending that to the city and saying they will approve the RMP only with those trails included - oh, and it includes the addition of an east-west connection using Mesa Loop, Tunnel 3 and the top of Tunnel 2.

The argument against Sh*ts was mainly that it was not an official trail within the PQ master plan, so they couldn't show a connection in the DMM plan. Ah, bureaucracy. And then there was the problem of the steep, eroding grade. Fortunately, Rich J's work seems to have solved that issue and may be the saving grace for this route.

way cool my friend. thank you for your tireless efforts.

t-2 up to the fence, ie a dead end? your brilliant idea of a connector off the top of t-2 to loop with t-1 would complete a very nice e-w southern connector and suppress the desire to go on the endangered cdf&g parcel. is that a no-go at this point?



and apparently with a nice little snake hop feature.

that man deserves an honorarium.

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~Milan Kundera

No dead end...Tunnel 2 has always had a faint connector that avoids CDFG property. As you head up, there is the sharp right turn 100 to 200 feet prior to the fence. At that turn there is a sharp left instead that is tough to see, but it follows a nice route all the way to the main wide trail on the eastern perimeter that can lead you to T1. A necessary loop.

wonderful. if i remember correctly there was some discussion about t-2 and having to make a 'new' connector trail, ie, the one you described.

i've scanned through several pages of the 'lpq news' thread to see if i could find the map you presented from your gps exploits of the migrant trails (the famous 'spaghetti' map). is that connector trail on there? just to determine if it would be considered a new or established trail.

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Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. ~Milan Kundera

It's not on there actually! I left it out during mapping as I missed the entrance too. But the city found it and had already ok'd it for a final trail. In fact it was proposed in one of the plans by the city before they swapped out Tunnel 2 for T4.

Hi Robo and JSatch,

Thanks for pointing out that faint connector trail. I went down it today to check it out.

Here's what I found:
--There's a small infestation of Italian thistle in there. I'm trying to weed that out of the Tunnels, and I wouldn't have looked for it in there otherwise. Italian thistle seems to prefer human-disturbed areas, and that site looks like an old encampment. Thanks for clueing me in on that.
--I scared up three female mule deer in there, and I suspect they may be using it as a feeding or resting area.
--Some CDFG list 1B plants grow across the trail, and they would have to be killed to create the trail.

This last one is the big issue for making a connecting trail there. A List 1B species is something that could be listed as threatened or endangered, if the legislature allowed it. By law, CDFG has to treat it as if it were a listed species.

To build the trail, City parks would have to hire someone to survey the trail route and figure out where trail would go. Then someone would have to research and write an Environmental Impact Report, because the trail would cause impacts. Assuming they couldn't route a bike-safe trail around the rare plants, they'd have to figure out how to mitigate taking these plants (which means, at the very least, planting some multiple of the number killed). This would have to be approved by the City Council, and it would cost someone a fair amount of money. The mule deer are covered by the MSCP, but since I'm a botanist and I only spent a few minutes in the area, I can't speak to those.

More importantly, you would need to answer the question of why the new trail needs to be built. Part of writing an EIR is considering the "no-project alternative," and in this case, it's hard to justify building a destructive new trail when the old trail isn't heavily used and leads to people trespassing in areas that are even more sensitive.

My question is: would dead-ending Tunnel 2 against the CDFG fence be an absolute non-starter for the biking community? Tunnel 2 is one of my favorite trails to walk on, and I know at least one biker who turns around at the fence and goes back, rather than riding through to connect up. Is he the only one, or would other bikers be willing to accept partial use of the existing trail?

Best,

Frank