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Off Roading - A bike tour of the newly opened Irvine Ranch Land Reserve. My kids enjoy the Nickelodeon hit, "SpongeBob SquarePants." But as I peddled my mountain bike up an imposing hill I suddenly knew I was suffering a serious case of "sponge quad square dance." My quadriceps muscles felt like they had been battered into the consistency of shriveled sponges. And they danced the cramp mambo, pulsating with shivers of electrolyte imbalance and under-training as I tried to push on. I could have yelped out in a plaintive rhythm. But I didn't. Because I wasn't alone. I was participating in the first public mountain bike ride of the Fremont Canyon area in the Santa Ana Mountains north of Irvine and east of Orange, all part of the newly opened Irvine Ranch Land Reserve. Donated this past fall by The Irvine Co to the Nature Conservancy, 11,500 acres of pristine Orange County wilderness are now open to public use on a limited docent-led basis. The Irvine Co established the gift by donating a permanent irrevocable conservation easement on the property to the Nature Conservancy. The land will be permanently preserved for conservation purposes, mainly habitat protection and appropriate public access. In addition, The Irvine Co has set aside $30 million to support the Nature Conservancy's conservation and public access planning work on this new section of the Land Reserve and other Irvine Ranch open space. On a recent Saturday morning, 20 of us, including six docents, gathered in one of the parking lots at Irvine Regional Park, the Irvine Ranch's first public gift, created on 160 acres in 1897. Most of us had read the glowing reports written about the unspoiled wilderness area and were eager to be among the first to mountain bike its roads and trails. "It's a wonderful gift from The Irvine Co and Donald Bren," says John Ganahl, our lead Nature Conservancy docent. "One of his requests is not that it just be set aside as open area but that it be accessible to the public and that it be used." It will take a year or more to determine how much of the newest gift will be something viewed from afar, off-limits to preserve rare plant life and wildlife terrain and corridors, or open to the public. And most of this job belongs to Trish Smith, senior project ecologist with the Nature Conservancy.  Smith is in charge of developing stewardship plans for Nature Conservancy lands, that is, determining how the lands should be managed during the interim period before being turned over to public agencies. She's been doing this work on Irvine Co open space for 10 years now and counts among her successes the Laguna Coast Wilderness Park. Much of Laguna Coast Wilderness Park was managed by the Nature Conservancy before being recently turned over to the County Harbors, Beaches and Parks. The Nature Conservancy still assists the county with public access programs and habitat management activities. What will we be seeing on our ride? According to Smith, there are five basic habitat types on the Land Reserve. The more dominant plant communities include coastal sage scrub, chaparral, oak woodlands, grasslands and riparian (streamside) woodlands. The lands are home to bobcats, coyotes, mule deer, the cactus wren, several species of hawks, and many rare plants. Mountain lions, badgers and various reptiles live in the foothills. Smith alludes to a few endangered species, most notable being the California gnatcatcher, a federally threatened species. But she is uncomfortable doing so. "I don't really like to focus on endangered species because too often the perception is that if there are rare or endangered species then it's got to be important habitat," says Smith. "The land supports a variety and a diversity of native species and that's what really makes it important." Not only a diversity of native species, but lots of hills. Ridges. Canyons. 3,500 feet of climb on the mountain bike route. "We've done it a number of times," continued lead docent Ganahl. "It's not for the faint-hearted. We're going to ride about 15 miles and essentially loop Fremont Canyon." He says nothing about the "sponge quad" effect as we cycled an easy paved mile out of Irvine Regional Park into the Reserve. Marion Schuller, an exercise physiologist, is a new docent. "It'll be a brand-new experience for all of us because it's a brand-new public access area," she says. Wayne Hermes, 46, of Coto De Caza is riding "to see the first of the first," he says. "I've heard it described as the Yosemite of Orange County. So that intrigued me." |
 As we pedal into the Land Reserve, we pass a huge mound of discarded coal, probably mined in the mid-1800s. Then we climbed up the rim of the canyon - about a four-mile climb up to the weather stations that you can see from the Windy Ridge Toll Road. I chatted with Marilyn Ganahl, who's been a docent for three years. In addition to mountain bike groups, Marilyn leads equestrian and hiking groups. "Being a docent gives you the opportunity to share the beauty of nature with a lot of people," she says. "That's how you get your best supporters for open space preservation." Why is it important to preserve this area? I ask Smith. "For me and for the Nature Conservancy, the most important reason to preserve these open spaces is to protect what is the natural part of Southern California. We protect lands in large enough blocks of habitat so that they can support a diversity of wildlife and thrive." What's great about this most recent donation, according to Smith, is that these are large blocks of continuous habitat that are connected to even larger blocks of continuous habitat, the Cleveland National Forest. The Land Reserve is a crucial habitat link among the Cleveland National Forest, Limestone Canyon and the Chino Hills area. Not only that, but it allows for continuous trails for people to hike and ride without getting on pavement. The land donated creates the possibility for residents to hike from Weir Canyon at the Riverside County line near the 91 Freeway to Crystal Cove State Park on the Pacific Ocean. Smith says that a comprehensive public access and habitat management plan should be completed within the next year or two. Public access must be balanced with habitat conservation, so trails will only be expanded or built where appropriate. And once the plan is in place, according to Smith, The Irvine Co and the Nature Conservancy are committed to identifying the future owner and turning the lands over to a public agency within the next five to 10 years. As we continue our ride on dirt roads, Edison easement roads, I'm told, it becomes very apparent that it's been an extremely dry year. The green grass-covered hills and wild flowers that one would normally expect this time of year are nowhere to be seen. Smith is concerned about the early start of the wildfire season. "I am particularly concerned about areas that have burned within the last 10 years burning again too soon," she says. "Although fire is a natural process, too-frequent fires are hard on the plant and animal communities. If an area burns too frequently, it converts readily to non-native plants and weeds." We pass stands of Tecate Cypress which are found in only a few locations in the world, including San Diego County and Tecate, Mexico. "It's a pretty healthy stand," she says. "Probably one of the largest, healthiest populations left in the world." However, Tecate cypress is one of those natural communities that, if it burns too frequently, converts to another habitat type, she warns. We pass weather-sculpted rock out-croppings that support rare reptiles such as the granite spiny lizard, red diamond- back rattlesnakes and coastal banded gecko. We wonder about the native inhabitants who may have lived here centuries ago, the Juanenos and Gabrielinos. Halfway through the ride we plunge steeply a mile-plus to the head of Fremont Canyon. Then we face some tough climbs up to the ridge that divides Fremont and Blackstar Canyons. It is here that the riders show their true abilities and the group is split into two. I struggle to keep up with the lead group as my legs are in serious pain. Fortunately, this is the last hill, and from here it is all downhill toward Irvine Lake and back to Irvine Regional Park. Smith tells me about the public access planning process. "As you know, that mountain bike ride is pretty long," she says at the end of the ride. I agree with a wince. "That's the nature of most of the trails out there," she continues. "To do a loop you have to go 10 to 15 miles. For most people, that's too much." So Smith is looking at opportunities to create shorter loops with new trails in areas where its appropriate so people can experience an area without having to be out there for 3 to 5 hours. I tell her that I, for one, am grateful. In addition to her habitat restoration, biological monitoring and public access planning projects to get these lands ready for public ownership, Smith also is conducting lot of tours. "It's really fun to interact with the public more and find out their interests in our open spaces," she says. "It's also a great experience to be out there with members of the public and catch a glimpse of a bobcat, a gray fox, to see a hawk soaring over an open canyon. It's a basic need that we have to connect with nature. That's what getting out there and experiencing these lands provides." I finally arrive back at the parking lot with a group of local mountain bikers. "A good climb. Not for the timid," says Mark Uranga, 37. "I would recommend it." Moi Garcia chimed in, "Awesome. It's all I can say, great ride." I ask them if they'd do another docent-led ride of the Nature Reserve. Absolutely, they say. In light of the difficulty of the ride, however, they added, "Just not today!" SpongeBob sings, "Absorbent and yellow and porous are we." Sponge quad has a different refrain. He cries, "Sweat-stained, fatigued and extremely delighted are we." Delighted at having seen up close what Orange County looked like 100 years ago and what this part of the county will look like 100 years from now. OCM Renne Gardner is OC METRO's OC Outside columnist. Letters to the editor go to: Feedback@ocmetro.com. |
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