DECISION DELAYED ON FATE OF TRAIL\District ranger calls for more analysis.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

A decision on a controversial proposal to rebuild a trail used by horse enthusiasts and hikers and open it to off-road motorcyclists may not be made until September, an Angeles National Forest official said.

The forest's Tujunga District ranger said she is willing to consider alternatives, such as building a new trail solely for motorcyclists, but will not commit herself without studying them and the original proposal closely, and noted that national Forest Service policy encourages so-called "multiple use."

"All possibilities are still open," Tujunga Ranger Clara Johnson said.

More than 50 people - primarily horse owners from Acton and Agua Dulce - attended a public meeting Wednesday night in the Acton Community Center to question Forest Service officials about the plan to create the first trail in the Angeles National Forest open to motorcycles as well as hikers and horses.

Similar multiple use trails exist in national forests in Utah and Idaho, officials say.

But with one exception, all the speakers were unanimous that motorcyclists and horses cannot coexist - that noisy motorcycles will spook just about any horse they meet on the narrow trail, risking injury to the rider.

"Anybody that rides a horse knows doggone good well that if a bike goes by, or an off-road vehicle, and revs it up, that can scare the horse," said Chuck Edwards, a leader of a youth equestrian group called the Acton Rangers. "Let's keep those bikers out in the desert or somewhere else."

Forest Service officials have proposed rebuilding an overgrown 1.5-mile section of old trail across the head of Arrastre Canyon about five miles south of Soledad Canyon Road.

That would create a seven-mile trail loop around a parcel of private property that sits across a power-line road now used by off-road motorcyclists. The property owner doesn't want motorcycles crossing his land, forest officials say.

Acton horse owners are upset because the rebuilt segment would allow motorcyclists onto the trail forming the loop's eastern leg, which equestrians ride to reach Mount Gleason and the Pacific Crest Trail as it crosses the San Gabriel Mountains on its way from Mexico to Canada.

Acton residents say the trail is the last direct link from their town to the Pacific Crest Trail that is not shared by motorcyclists.

Forest Service officials say the three other routes are dirt roads passable to automobiles, posing little challenge to motorcyclists. Of about 800 miles of trail in the forest, 54 miles are for motorcyclists. Another 11 miles or so of dirt road is also open to motorcycles.

As they have since learned of the trail plan last month, people at the meeting criticized the Forest Service's environmental review as inadequate and inaccurate. They said it overlooks possible harm to archeological sites, inaccurately depicts the existing trail on a map and downplays safety problems they say will occur when horses and motorcycles meet.

They also say the public was not given enough time to review and comment on the proposal, for which the deadline for comment has been extended twice - most recently to April 1.

The critics also suggest the trail plan was combined with an environmental review of a controlled burn in the same area in order to shield it from perusal.

Officials denied the forest service tried to conceal the trail plan, saying it is common practice to study different projects in one geographic area through a single environmental study. That is cheaper than duplicating studies over the same ground, they said.

"It has always been a part of this project," Johnson said. "It wasn't sneaked in yesterday. It wasn't sneaked in a year ago."