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I'm one of the friends Beth wrote. I felt so blessed to live where I do 
and I still feel that way, but it is sad to see the devastation that 
the fire brought and then these rains made good on the promise. With 
nothing to hold the hills together they just came down. From my place I 
used to be able to ride to Lytle creek. Last weekend I headed out that 
way taking a detour around the spot I knew would be gone. What used to 
be a trail was now a 10 foot cliff with a twisted drainpipe in the 
center-about 60 feet wide-and not the same one as Beth described, I'm 
further east a bit.
I made it to my powerline trail and wound up taking 4 hours to go 10 
miles. No soil, all rocks (we call them cucamonga potatoes because they 
are everywhere) and many streams/rivers coming from canyons where no 
water usually flows. I made it across the first four, some on foot, 
some on Mosh. When I got out 5 miles there was a river tumbling right 
out of the mountains at top speed. It raged over the boulders making 
huge rapids, and was about 5 feet deep. I took a look and no way was I 
putting my horse in there. I watched it for a bit-amazing and slogged 
the whole unpleasant way home.
The other way used to lead to Mt. Baldy-I'm a few miles from San 
Antonio dam where 3 people died last week. Can't get over the flood 
plain now. So, I am stuck in the middle.
My ridable trails are town trails (I can still get miles in-about a 16 
mile loop), and the Pacific Electric trail. It's abandoned and the 
footing is awful in places but it's a different loop so I have some 
variation. I'm doing WS on Saturday and am hoping I have gotten enough 
hills and conditioning in. Here is So Cal it has been very challenging 
to log miles lately. If you do, it's a boring ride, but better than not 
riding at all.
I'm hopeful that the bulldozers will start to help us after they finish 
with all the work they are busy with. And I am sure nature will find a 
way to repair and us riders will eventually get our trails back, but 
it's a bummer right now. And it's already poured once tonight and more 
rain expected until Thursday. I'm dreading stalling my mare this week 
with WS coming up. Not only is it not good for her, but it also means I 
will probably have control issues at WS, though she has been doing fine 
in an S-hack while being attacked by dogs and riding on freeway 
overpasses and through construction zones. I'm just hoping for the best 
and expecting to go as slow as need be.
Missing my trails too, Tiffany
On Jan 24, 2005, at 6:13 PM, beth glover wrote:

> Well I have a little psychic ability and I see miles of riding on 
> asphalt in my future.? Today I rode around on streets that are luckily 
> closed, so no racing motorcycles, no trucks, no hot rods, and I was 
> looking for any surviving trails. I found one walking trail about 2 
> miles long that had a deep erosion in the middle of it, but you can 
> kind of pick back and forth across the holes. Unfortunately, more rain 
> comes tonight, so who knows what will happen.
>
>  I keep flashing on Julie Suhr talking about training for her very 
> first Tevis by riding around a golf course. Yesterday, a very good 
> friend told me that all his trails were gone, and they could just ride 
> around the golf course. Uh oh!!!? Well at least my asphalt roads are 
> steep hills, but all we can do is walk. I must take my horse to the 
> trainer to learn how to use?their hot walker and maybe I can borrow 
> the neighbors, to get the horse to stretch her legs.
>
> Sorry to complain, many of you are buried in snow. Its just that since 
> the fires, our great trails that went for a nice 20 mile loop and you 
> could drive trucks on them easily, are deserted cliffside ribbons, and 
> the county has abandoned them, and it is sad.? Sometimes it sucks to 
> live in Southern Calif....where the prevailing sentiment is to go to 
> the mall.?? Even fitness walkers go to the mall. Hell at this rate, 
> I'll have police horses ( so bombproof) and I can go get a second job 
> riding around the parking lot of the mall! ha ha

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