At just under over a mile in length, the Jesusita Trail easement through the Moreno and Gauss Family Farm is most likely the longest of any on the front country trails. 

The easement is one of a dozen or so others obtained by Santa Barbara County Parks many years ago that have made public access possible to Jesusita Trail as well as about a third of all other trails in the front country.

It is a trail favored by hikers for its quiet beauty, the fact that much of it shaded and, at least in the lower canyon, perfect for a walk with the kids. Mountain bikers love it as well. 

On an average day you can expect a hundred or more people trekking in from the Cater Treatment Plant trailhead in San Roque Canyon or a dozen or more mountain bikers coming in from Mission Canyon.

I’m wondering how many of them realize how lucky they are to have access to trails like this so close to home.

Heart of the Canyon

A mile up the canyon the trail passes through several ranch properties into what I can the heart of the canyon. One of these is the original Moreno homestead owned by the Marion Moreno family.

Thanks to a generous donation of an easement to the County of Santa Barbara in 1962, public access to the upper part of canyon has been guaranteed for more than a half century.

The other is La Cumbre Canyon Ranch originally part of the Moreno property, but sold to Robin Gauss in the 1970s. Today it is known simple as the Gauss Family Farm. After their father’s passing several years ago it is now managed by his sons Valdis and Skylar.

Along with ownership of the farm the Gauss brothers also inherited the public easement through their property. The document calls for it to be 20 feet in width and more or less to follow a water pipeline leading up to a horizontal well and from there uphill to the end of their property.

Finding Nirvana — or Not

From a public perspective one might think things couldn’t be much nicer. The canyon offers miles of trail that seemingly has something for everyone: families and kids, trail runners, bikers and even a few equestrians too.

But all is not well in this bit of Nirvana. The location of the Jesusita Trail through several of the easements is in question, the most critical one relating to the 5,000-foot section located on the Gauss Family Farm.

The issue, according to Skylar and Valdis, is that substantial portions of the existing trail are not where the easement says they ought to be. According to the Gauss brothers in order to resolve this the county assured them the alignment would be surveyed and the trail relocated on the original easement.

Doing so could open up a huge can of worms.

It turns out given the lack of any records of work done on the trail in the past, County Parks may not be able to prove where the trail ought to be located without a survey. 

Given there are dozens of trail easements held by the county throughout the front country, working out the Gauss alignment could lead to a much larger problem if other trails need similar reviews.

Defining the Trail

But while the Gauss brothers consider it the county’s responsibility to determine the exact location of the trail, in practical terms this is not so easily done.

Over time given growth of canyon vegetation, hillside slumps that may have covered portions of the original trail and past storm events may have altered the trail routing.

I’ve been told a survey will be very expensive, possibly as much as $15,000. Parks Director Jeff Lindgren advises me that it could be double that amount. We’re talking millions to survey all of the county-held trail easements.

Trail Closure and Heated Hikers

When it came time to reopen various of the front country trails this summer after a series of winter storms caused them to be closed, Jesusita Trail was one of the last to remain that wasn’t reopened. 

Much of this was due to the amount of work and time needed to repair trail damage. 

A good deal was also due to the desire of the Family Farm owners for work to be done only on sections of the trail on the easement.

As a gesture of good will to County Parks, the Sage Trails Alliance has agreed to fund restoration of the trail and has committed thousands of dollars to restore damaged parts of it and get it back open.

Its Executive Director Dillon Osleger has walked the entire route with Skylar to work out a plan for restoring the trail. But Skylar indicated he was adamant the work be done only on the original easement, the county should fund the survey needed to establish its legal alignment and the trail relocated along it.

Recently Reopened

Only recently has the work been competed to the point where it could be reopened. In the meantime the entry gate where the trail goes onto the ranch property has remained closed.

Hikers who’ve reached the gate only to be barred from going any further have complained about the closure but confronted with the lock and signage, most turn around. But there have been confrontations, at least one serious enough to warrant a call to the Sheriff’s Office. 

While many of them blame the property owners for the closure, a quick check of the County Park website indicated the trail was closed despite those who thought otherwise.

Serving as Good Stewards

“All we’ve asked,” Skylar says to me as we stand at the entrance of their family farm on an early Saturday morning, “is that the county live up to their responsibilities.”

In their minds when the county accepted the trail easement in the 1960s it came with a set of responsibilities. These included both an acknowledgment of its fiduciary responsibility for the trail as well as playing an active stewardship role in maintaining it.

“I want to be clear, absolutely crystal clear, than none of us oppose the county’s right to a good and proper easement through through our property,” Skylar explains to me. “Nor are not we opposed to the public using it.

“What we do expect is that the county live up to its responsibilities.”

Restoration Blues

What I’m also beginning to understand is how these trail alignment issues will affect restoration efforts on the Jesusita Trail.

The bottom line: if you don’t know where the legal trail alignment is but work can be done only on segments aligned on legitimate trail easements, how can any meaningful trail maintenance or restoration work get anything done? 

Does Safety Come First?

One spot in particular a half mile up from the Gauss Family Farm the hillside has completely washed out, leaving an almost vertical rock wall on the inner side and an 18-20 foot vertical into the creekbed.

The 30-40-foot section is in need of serious rock work including construction of crib wall to restore the tread width. But the kicker is this part of the trail likely isn’t on the legal alignment.

Add to the mix that given the vertical nature of the hillside and depth of the creek channel this is realistically the only alternative way the trail can go.

A Night Time Full of Worries

For Skylar dealing with all of this is a huge burden.”I worry about this day and night,” he tells me. “It a huge burden for our family to have the easement running through our property. 

“We just want to have our private land and our private home the way that your family would want to have.” For Skylar that includes his wife and five children.

“And then we have to deal with hostility from people that have no respect at all for private property, and they just look at this as anybody’s land.”

Threat Hanging Over

There’s also the constant worry of a lawsuit. “If we knowingly allow the trail to be maintained off the legal easement are we liable for any injury there?” he asks me.

While state Government Code §831.4 protects the private grantor of the easement and Civil Code §846 states that private landowners owe no duty to those who come upon their property for any recreational purpose, that doesn’t mean someone can’t sue you.

“Just because we own a ranch doesn’t mean we’re rich landowners,” he adds. “Just two brothers who love the idea of raising our families in a place we really care about.” 

So Easy to Think

It is so very easy to think of trails like the Jesusita as if we own them. If you’re like me, and you spend a lot of time exploring them, it comes naturally to think of them as yours.

Hardly anyone ever thinks about who might own the land beneath our feet when we head out for a hike or ride.

Unless you’ve lived here for a really long time it may seem like the trails always been here. But they haven’t. Many like Jesusita Trail were born in the 1960s and 1970s thanks to groups like Montecito Trails Foundation or the generous donations like the Moreno Family.

Most of these are dependent on the easements that created them.

In an article I wrote a month or so ago titled “Who Owns the Trails?” Perhaps it might have been better titled “Who Owns the Rights to Use them” when it comes to the easements on private lands.

Mutual Agreements & Partnerships

We do so through the use of mutual agreements called public easements.  They involve  an agreeable owner and — for the most part — an agency like County or City Parks or some times the Los Padres National Forest. 

There are two parties to the agreement: the landowner owner, who agrees to provide public access to through his or her property, and the agency which agrees to take on the role of trail steward.

At its most basic the easement then confers to the public a simple right to pass over private land within a narrow corridor, usually about 20 feet wide, along a centerline usually described as noted above in what is known by surveyors as “metes and bounds.”

What You Own (or Don’t)

It is worth thinking about this in a crude kind of way. Basically you don’t own anything within the easement. Not the dirt or rock. Not the vegetation, the wildflowers, the mushrooms or the trees. None of it.

You have no right to stray off the easement, head down for a dip in a nearby pool or a scramble to an enticing viewpoint. What you do have simply is the right to pass through it.

When Problems Arise

You probably wouldn’t be surprised if I told you that I think most trail users don’t spend much or any time thinking about the landowners, how they might be impacted by theirs or others actions or why many of the landowners aren’t very friendly to the public.

And you’re probably laughing at me right now at the idea (rightfully) that you need to stay on the trail whenever you’re crossing over private land.

Most landowners are different in that they think in days and months and years while trail users most often think more in terms of individual visits.

Landowners like the Gausses measure impacts and attitudes over time not minutes or hours. The time frame for them is measured in decades.

The Numbers Add Up Fast

Think one mountain biker coming down the trail. That doesn’t mean much. But think 10 riders coming down a day, 10 the next day and the next and the next.

At 10 a day, the number of mountain bikes on the trail adds up fast: about 300 downhill rides a month and 3,650 in a year.

On an average day that also means anywhere from a few dozen to a hundred or more hikers, trail runners, peoples of all ages and abilities and plenty of dogs as well.

In a month’s time we’re talking several thousand mountain bikes coming down the hill a year, hundreds of hikers wandering off trail, perhaps a few side trails created in the process and it is easy to understand why the Gauss brothers feel attacked at times.

Dealing With Future Issues

It’s not surprising that the Jesusita Trail is having easement issues. The biggest of these relates to the fact there is no certainty about where the legal easement is located.

The uncertainty this generates creates difficulties for maintaining the trail or repairing sections where dangerous conditions exist. It also strains user-owner and agency relationships.

My own take is that County Parks needs to take a very pro-active stance in working with the Gausses to resolve the issues no matter how difficult that may be.

Doing so will not be easy.

Winter storms forced the closure of many of the front country trails. Issues that have been ignored for decades are coming back to bite the county.

Santa Barbara County Parks has never had the resources, the trained crews, equipment or commitment to maintaining the trails as it has its urban parks.

What was once a proud and independent department within county government has sadly been relegated to that of a junior partner within the Community Services Department.

As a result, over the years responsibility for the trails and easements owned by private landowners has been delegated to a handful of nonprofits without open or transparent oversight. There simply isn’t the budget to do that.

Interestingly, as drama like this plays out, Parks is spearheading a county-wide effort to develop a trails master plan that could add more easements, more agreements with private landowners and more potential trail to oversee.

Dealing with this will not be easy. Demand for services is rapidly outstripping the funding sources needed to meet them. The county budget is stretched way too thin.

Given other critical needs in the county, the expectation that County Parks will ever receive the level of funding it needs is wishful thinking at best.

Questions Remain 

A few days ago the chain and lock were removed from the gate leading into the Gauss Family Farm. The No Trespassing sign has been removed. The County Parks website now indicates Jesusita Trail is open.

But getting to this point has come at a cost. As noted above, those using the trail blame the Gauss Family for the closure. Distrust has increased in undeserved amounts between landowners, trail users and public agencies. Healing that is not easy, yet it is critical if a trails master plan will ever be successful.

The Gausses worry the county won’t follow through with the obligations they see are still needed.

Will there be funding for a proper survey? Will there be a commitment to regularly scheduled maintenance? Will there be monitoring to determine the impacts of from heavy trail use and sufficient planning for dealing with that?

Stay tuned.