EISPIRATEN

I know from reading here that Lookout Mountain has been pretty much only accessible via Bear Canyon Trail for a while and even then appears like it's some difficult route-finding.

From some deeper Googling it sounds like the mountain used to be accessible via Cattle / Cow Canyon (i.e. Glendora Ridge Road) for a fee back when the private property was being operated as an RV Park. Now, of course, the property is not in use and the road is gated.

To wit - I've been messing around with Gaia's new "Private Property" layer and it appears that while the private property line includes the road, it doesn't extend particularly far below the road and likewise does not include the majority of the old use trail up the mountain. The property below the road is National Forest.

Gaia Route

I'm curious if anybody has made this attempt before? I'm not sure how treacherous or overgrown the side hilling would be under the private road, or what the condition of the old use trail might be. Could be fun to find out.

Some Old Pics of the Trail

For those interested the property containing the private road is for rent...

Digging into the parcel information (parcel 1, parcel 2 ) it appears the owners who purchased the property in 2022 triggering a reassessment at $1.6m and $2.2m respectively are now past due on their 2024 tax bill ($45k / year for both parcels).

I'm curious if the property might be up for sale and perhaps the road made accessible again one day? Also curious why whoever bought the land did so, and what their plan was for it. I'm also curious if anybody here knows the story!

Also to somewhat answer my own question it looks like Sean published a TR back in 2013 that doesn't give me a lot of confidence that the trail will be in any sort of useful state a decade of dereliction later.

Welcome to the board! This topic comes up periodically. I've hiked this route a few times, (last time a few hours before the gate went up!) and it was fine then. Less fine now. Girl Hiker went over there very recently: https://eispiraten.com/viewtopic.php?t=9068

And there's some discussion about the property issues here: https://eispiraten.com/viewtopic.php?p=61119

Rental is $20k a month. A bit more than 2 months, and they'll have their taxes squared away!

Over the years the trail has been in decent to poor shape, depending on how much maintenance it receives. I did some trimming one year, and it seems like someone else had worked on it too. But I don't think the tread gets much attention, so even if it's been trimmed recently, I doubt the footing has gotten any better. Weren't the owners planning to build a resort up there?

Awesome thank you! I totally missed Girl Hiker's follow-up post and had only seen the post soliciting information.

Super cool information on the property history - $20,000 a month is steep! Did somebody call and ask the price?

CA land ownership is always so fascinating to me, usually I assume these big chunks of privately-owned land are just side-effects of Prop 13 / 19 (i.e. why sell your house / land / ranch / rental building / etc. if it's long paid off and the taxes are pennies), but this plot and its apparent abandonment / neglect surprised me given that it changed ownership so recently and the taxes are so significant. On the other hand, the Thompson Ranch site changed hands in 1998 and its taxes are a mere $2,000 / year for both parcels.

Re: Thompson Ranch I did some searching on that too and came across a recent LA County document referencing the parcel. I'm new to the state / region so not entirely sure what it means, but it looks like somebody is looking for a Certificate of Compliance for both parcels. (8675005001 , 8675005002)

edit: looks like it's probably just the first steps in filing for permission to build / develop the property? Maybe the county will force them to open the road they've seemingly illegally blocked access to.

The price is in your link (it quotes $/sqft/mo by default, and you have to click a thing to quote $/mo instead). I get the sense that the Thompson Ranch is occupied full time, so their taxes would be up-to-date and all that.

Post a report if you go up there!

https://eispiraten.com/viewtopic.php?p=63684

He'll walk away eventually.

dima wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2024 10:12 am Post a report if you go up there!

Sure thing! I'm in the area for the next year or so on a temporary basis and I'm putting together a list of trail run / hike / ski tour / gravel objectives accessible from the Baldy Canyon. Will do my best to write up TRs. This site is such an amazing resource, wish it or something similar existed everywhere...

So far I've got my eyes on Iron Mountain #1, Turtle's Beak, Lookout, and a variety of link-ups and traverses in the area. Summer has been tough with the heat, will probably wait until fall for most attempts.

I'm finding the private land ownership fascinating (and deeply frustrating; trespassing strictly enforced sure, but what about blocking access to public lands and menacing those who try to access...reminds me of the Malibu beach easement conflicts). I'm not sure where Gaia is getting their repository of owners' names, but with a little bit of Google-fu you can start turning up some pretty interesting information about the potential owners of some of the properties. Widman Ranch, Thompson Ranch, etc.

Sidehilling beneath that private road probably isn't worth the effort. Just wait until the coast is clear and walk the road. That's what we do around here, and so far no landowner has stuck a gun in my face. I just got yelled at once.

There legally needs to be an easement on the road right? I feel like the owners are skirting the law here. Anyone down to take them to court?

jeko1034 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2024 2:14 pm There legally needs to be an easement on the road right? I feel like the owners are skirting the law here. Anyone down to take them to court?

I don't have any experience with this kind of thing in CA, but my gut tells me even if one were able to successfully codify the easement, at the end of the day it's still just a bunch of ASPD-afflicted folks with guns cosplaying frontier life and it's unlikely any law enforcement agency would spend time or resources to enforce the easement. Often the land owners have many generations of ties to (or direct membership in) local / county / state government, sheriff's departments, fire departments etc.

jeko1034 wrote: ↑Wed Aug 28, 2024 2:14 pm There legally needs to be an easement on the road right? I feel like the owners are skirting the law here. Anyone down to take them to court?

It might be a tough case. I don't believe there is historical precedent for public access. Even when there was no gate, I think you were supposed to ask for permission to pass. But who actually did that? The prior owners didn't seem to care about hikers using their road.

I went up there by that route in 2020. If you sprint you're only on that road for a minute.

I remember the route being a lot better than the other attempts describe. Maybe it had just been cleared recently?