"the most dangerous national forest in America"-Angeles National Forest

[carpanglerdude]

I do not know if this has been posted before, but I recently found this fascinating and saddening article at Outside Online. It's very long, but well worth the read. It was written many years ago (1997), and I was wondering for those who frequent this area-has anything changed, for better or for worse in the Angeles National Forest since the writing of the article?

Outside magazine, July 1997


Dark Behind It Rose the Forest ...

Into the beautiful Angeles we go, into the most dangerous national forest in America
By Randall Sullivan

Arrests are common in
Angeles National Forest

I'm barely half a mile from the Foothill Freeway, looking over my left shoulder at the gorgeous lie that is Los Angeles after a rainfall. I steal a parting glance toward the most magnificent racetrack in America, laid out in geometric verdure, its lush grounds fringed with palm fronds that wear sunlight like a coat of lacquer. I can't see the hyacinths blooming, but I know they are, in a hundred festive colors.

The government-green Ford Bronco in which I am riding (the barrel of a 12-gauge shotgun hard against my thigh) continues its climb up Santa Anita Canyon Road along a center divider growing philodendrons with leaves the size of elephant ears. On each side of the road between cross streets with names like Hacienda and El Vista are low-slung, ranch-style homes. The lawns are so perfect they look as if they should be maintained not with mowers but with vacuum cleaners. In every other yard stands an orange or lemon tree, heavy with fruit. A white picket fence, freshly painted, surrounds the last house.

Just beyond, the road is straddled by a scabrous steel gate that closes each evening at 10 p.m. We pass through and enter a wide curve where I lean into a deadfall drop, looking down on red tile roofs and kidney-shaped swimming pools. The Bronco is still in second gear, but there's an abrupt sense of acceleration — almost of time travel — as the landscape is transformed in an instant....

(Continue reading: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor....html?page=all )

[cutbait]

On top of that your lakes are closed at night because of misfits

[DockRat]

Long read there but worth it.
In a place like LA after reading all that, I'd support gates and a $10 - $20 admission.
Close it off, Fricken Axxholes ruin everything.
DR

[Viejo]

I have lived and worked in SOCAL for a lot of years. My family moved here right after WWII. Like the rest of America, that was a different time and a different place. I've lived in the Angeles National Forest for the past forty years. Each winter, we are inundated with hundreds of thousands who come to the mountains to play in the snow....creating gridlock on our roads whenever the snow is visible from the basin. Because there are only facilities in two places and those were set up for light use, all of those folks just leave their trash where they are parked and don't bother burying their human waste (remember...one adult generates 1.3 pounds of waste in a day...multiply that times several hundred thousand and it makes walking along side the roadways in the summer pretty smelly) In my line of work, I had almost daily contact with the agencies (and people) mentioned and everything that was written in the article is true and in fact, has become worse. Budget cuts to the Forest Service have crippled their ability to deal with the simple things like waste management, let alone the criminal activity. If anything, 1997 was the "good ole days" They were strapped back then to stem the tide and now....all the agencies have pretty much given up. Today, there are even fewer folks available to stem the tide of crime and waste. The new "Forest Users" bring the culture of the street and of their homeland with them. It is difficult, at best, to communicate with many them due to language barriers. I'm not talking Spanish...we always had Spanish speakers available but languages that come from very faraway places. It is their forest too and they appreciate the beauty and "isolation" that is so different from where they make their daily lives but it also changes the experience of those who live in the high country. This didn't just start yesterday....we have pictures of our Forest from the 20's and the gridlock on the single lane dirt road was from Model A's.

With this background, perhaps some could understand why I don't advocate naming the names and pictures of the small and special places. The incredible power of the internet and the ease of finding out information (and a map how to get there) is enormous. No matter what some might say, some of these creeks with wild fish simply can not stand the pressure of continuous pressure with people keeping or killing fish with improper handling and hook removal. The information posted here today is available ten years from now.

Thanks for posting that, carpanglerdude. I remember when the article came out.

[DarkShadow]

...
With this background, perhaps some could understand why I don't advocate naming the names and pictures of the small and special places. The incredible power of the internet and the ease of finding out information (and a map how to get there) is enormous. No matter what some might say, some of these creeks with wild fish simply can not stand the pressure of continuous pressure with people keeping or killing fish with improper handling and hook removal. The information posted here today is available ten years from now.

Wish more people thought like you.

People seem to think we live in the Northern Territories.

[Karyn]

We all should have a strong moral compas to be responsible and respectful of our lands and resources. If I am not fishing, I'm responsibly off roading- staying on the trails, picking up trash, treading lightly. The mountains are one of my favorite places to "play" RESPONSIBLY. Sometimes I'm with a group and other times I'm alone; the only one time I felt threatened was when there was a bear near by. FYI: I have about 70,000 off road miles on my Jk.

Respectfully, the problem is not only in the mountains, it's traveled to the beaches, parks, local lakes, etc. If everyone cleaned up after themselves, packed it in and packed it out, and took some personal responsibility, this wouldn't be an issue.

[tacklejunkie]

Yes our local mountains are very wild.
I feel much safer sleeping with the bears miles back into the high country in the Sierras.
Where I can leave all my stuff for a day, go hiking and fishing and swimming and come back and it will still be there, free of graffiti and shotgun shells.