EISPIRATEN

I just biked another tourist race. Didn't take many photos, and there's a lot less to say about it than the last time. But I did go to some new-to-me places, and have questions. I entered the forest on Kagel Canyon Rd. This is paved quite far up, and feels unlike any other area of the mountains. The canyon is initially narrow, but then opens up to some parks and a large cemetery. It all feels very out of place. Above that the paved road continues, with lots of signage suggesting that everything is private property, but it feels like they just want an excuse to shoot you. I don't want to debate the ownership of this land with the residents, but can somebody here clarify how you would check? Just above the cemetery the road turns to align with due North:
The top two signs are from the govt, the bottom one isn't. If this road WAS private, why would there even be a "no dumping" sign? The hypothetical owners can dump all they like. Above this point we still get the usual blue street signs (suggesting that the main road here isn't actually private). The perpendicular streets have the little blue "PRIVATE" tag on them, but not the "Kagel Canyon road" signs. I checked the assessor page (here's the uppermost property for instance) and that makes me think that ALL the roads here are actually public: the allegedly private roads don't even have parcels associated with them. So does that mean that they're all public?

Above here, accessed via an unfriendly dirt road that crosses a sliver of private land is an interesting-looking off-road-driving area. The actual facility is behind an impressive gate in the middle of nowhere?
What's all that?

You can poke around the tax assessor's site...

LA County: https://maps.assessor.lacounty.gov/m/

double clicking on properties will bring up some info...used to include owner's name but they may have started omitting that info.

Yeah, I did that! One of the links in my post is that. The assessor doesn't have separate parcels for the roads, which makes me conclude that the roads cannot be private. Is that right?

Oh, and the assessor used to have the owner names and tax payment info on the website, but they now omit it. I believe the info is still public, but you must go to the office to access it, or get it in some other way. Caltopo pro accounts get a "parcels" layer that includes the owner names, which is often not as interesting as it sounds: the off-road-looking area is owned by "Kagel Canyon Land LLC"

I've hiked here numerous times, the proper access point is further up the hill after the cemetery. There should be a parkland sign and a fire road on both sides. You do walk by a house but I think it is owned by them and then you hook onto the fire road coming from the paved road.

I've also hiked along Kagel Truck Trail from access points including the Dillon Divide and Lopez Canyon Park and I think I even recall seeing a vehicle (might have been a white truck - I don't quite recall) parked on the side of the road outside of those red/black AP gates. I don't remember seeing any private property signs preventing me from accessing Kagel Truck Trail, but I'm not sure about the area you're interested in (I do remember those gates though - they're hard to forget). You might be able to look around from the road/firebreak near Kagel summit to get a better view. I haven't tried it myself, but I recall passing by that fork in the road when I've gone up that way (34.33261142589641, -118.37680518914493). It's probably been ~3 years since I've gone up there. By the way, the city lights from Kagel Sumit are amazing at night. It feels like just the right elevation.

Yeah, if I'm following correctly "Lopez Canyon Park" is the access point you seek to avoid all the supposedly private road nonsense up there.

I know this area well, lots of adventures started and ended here. Geographically I think closest access point to the San Gabriel Mtns from where I live.