Flightline Progress Blog

RIP stands for rest in peace. The trail takes you into an environment of such contrast; suddenly you are engulfed by darkness and can feel the change in the air temp from the creek’s moisture. The trees cover the trail blocking out the harsh sun and you are immediately aware of the silence. Small twigs crack a bird rustles the leaves occasionally a coyote startles you with its presence and if it is evening you get a sense you all by yourself. As you wind you way down it gets quieter and darker and then you realize the poison oak is threatening you too. If a tombstone were in there the name would be all to obvious.

Skyline was named because the minute you emerged from the chaparral you felt you were in the skyline surveying everything before you. From there you could hear walkers, riders, and runners. Early in the morning the sound of the creek was as clear as day and at night fall the packs of coyote just ignited the air with their greetings. Up there the sense was you were on a mountain slope over looking the valley. People from everywhere had a smile on their face when they came off skyline. I remember how many times groups would go down Skyline and then regroup at the bottom and I could hear them excitedly share with each other the feelings they just had.

The parking lot in the evening was always alive with people sharing how they just rode Skyline and couldn’t believe it was in the middle of Carlsbad. Out of breath they would state how ironic it seemed that just an hour ago they were at work but Skyline made them feel like they were a thousand miles away. The trail immediately took your stress and focused your energies and thoughts onto the next foot of dirt and then the view just sealed it. You were living for this. Don’t worry about tomorrow just ride tomorrow will happen soon enough. Yeah it was very special.

It was described as a gem by those in Orange County but they under estimated its worth. In their reality they are surrounded by opportunities. Here we are running out of them.

RIP = Riparian Oak Trail.  Parallel to the stream.

Riparian areas are the green, vegetated areas on each side of streams and rivers. They serve many important functions, including purifying water by removing sediments and other contaminants; reducing the risk of flooding and associated damage; reducing stream channel and stream bank erosion; increasing available water and stream flow duration by holding water in stream banks and aquifers; supporting a diversity of plant and wildlife species; maintaining a habitat for healthy fish populations; providing water, forage, and shade for wildlife and livestock; and creating opportunities for recreationists to fish, camp, picnic, and enjoy other activities.

Skyline = “North Trail”.

Thanks.  The County told me today that they are going to issue a statement to your group very soon.  It will set the tone for the next steps.

I know this is a special place.  With time, you’ll be back riding again.

What does RIP stand for? and Skyline?

Markus Spiegelberg
Center for Natural Lands Management

Regarding the current message regarding the runners who were running on RIP on the 18th. I was hoping to keep you up on what sort of thinking was taking place. I sent out the plethora of e-mails you sent me on I think it was Friday or Saturday. I emailed as many as I could think of to attempt to bring everyone up to date.

There are hard feelings because what everyone sees is the fence, the demise of the best trail there, the removal of , at least this is what they say I don’t know because I haven’t been down there, all the bridges and then someone says it is extending into RIP.

Once again I wouldn’t know because originally it was supposed to be only Skyline. Those are just hard feelings coming from people who can’t exercise there like they used to. As soon as we can start making the tiniest progress towards gaining access then there will be something concrete for all to see. Right now they aren’t sure of the future.

I am sure if we can successfully get an amendment on the CE and begin the real work of getting the trails that are left open hope will be inspired all around. Meanwhile we the majority of mtn bikers are respecting the wishes of cnlm.

If I get any further messages that you could use to keep up on the dialogue I will forward them.

Also if you are speaking with the airport or the county or the city it would be fantastic to get those communications. Especially if they are similar to the last ones that help us understand the complexity of how these things work and why it takes so long to do something.

So everyone out there we are going to have to bring it down a notch on the rhetoric. If you go to the communiqué sent by Markus you will see he wants a meeting the 2nd week of December. We should come away with a clearer understanding of were we are and were we are going.

Marcus,

One individuals perception of what type of plants and their origin that were used to cover the trail does not represent what we believe as a group or what we are doing as a whole.  Please do not take things out of context or feel you need to resort to threatening trespass violation or reconsidering working with our group.  As you know, there will always be those who have opinions and perceptions that are not based on fact or reality.  We remain very sensitive to the complexity of this issue and will not foster sentiments that will be counterproductive to our mutual goals or that would be antagonistic towards you or any agency represented.  If in the future you have concerns regarding the “chatter” amongst the riders or walkers or hikers of preserve, please do not hesitate to contact one of us to share the information.  This in turn will afford us the opportunity to “police our own” and to keep the rumors to a minimum.  Thank you for your time and consideration and ongoing resolve to help mitigate these issue.

Hi Mike:

Pete requested I contact you regarding the meeting to discuss the mountain bike trails issue at Palomar Airport. As we discussed earlier this week, the County supports the meeting you agreed to coordinate with City staff, including your trails coordinator, CNLM, County staff, other agencies, and interested mountain bike parties. The purpose of the meeting would be to clarify once and for all acceptable levels of use of this property for legitimate bike trails and holding harmless the county for liability by people who would use these trails.  Since all of this property is under the jurisdiction of the City of Carlsbad and is not aviation use property we respectfully request you call the meeting of all the parties so we may work toward a resolution and document the decision process for the record, as it will be asked for at a later date by our Board.  Please let me know one or two dates that would work for the City and CNLM, and  I can coordinate County staff calendars on this end.   We’d really like to see this meeting take place as soon as possible.

County offices are closed tomorrow, so lets talk Monday.

Regards,

Sunny

Sunny Barrett

Program Coordinator

From what I can determine, neither the Airports, CNLM nor the City of Carlsbad have set up a meeting with anyone on the 17^th or any other date. As far I am concerned, there is no meeting.

I recommend that the CNLM complete removing the bike trail and replant the path then CNLM should coordinate a meeting with Airports, DPW Environmental and the City to determine whether we want this kind of activity on this property. We should then discuss a course of action.

Guillermo “Willie” Vasquez
Airport Manager
McClellan-Palomar Airport