FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT FOR END OF BACKBONE.

Byline: Brett Pauly Daily News Outdoors Editor

The Backbone Trail's future appears financially rosy and on track for its anticipated completion in 2004 or 2005.

``We don't foresee any stumbling blocks at this point,'' said Art Eck, superintendent of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the National Park Service unit that oversees the proposed 70-mile trail from Pacific Palisades to Point Mugu.

Of the six miles yet to be finished, two miles will open to hikers next year and another mile should see the bottoms of boots in 2001, Eck said. About a dozen parcels of private property needed to be purchased for the remaining three miles of trail have been identified and are in various stages of assessment, appraisal and other red tape.

The budget set aside to buy the land and build the trail is sound. It's so sound, in fact, Eck and other officials don't anticipate spending any of the $5 million President Clinton recently requested for Santa Monica Mountains land acquisition on Backbone Trail projects. (See related story.)

``I know we have enough money in the pipeline to buy the trail bed for the Backbone Trail. That's in hand,'' said U.S. Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Woodland Hills), a proponent of the Backbone Trail who has successfully lobbied the White House for funds to purchase land for the trail and other recreational opportunities within the Santa Monica Mountains.

Sherman is particularly passionate about completing the Backbone Trail.

``It links together most of the parcels that are publicly owned in the Santa Monica Mountains, and it allows people that are in as good as shape as you, not me, to hike from Will Rogers (State Historic) Park to Point Mugu,'' he said. ``And it also is a wildlife corridor so that our furry friends no longer have to date their cousins. In other words, they get a chance to breed with more distant populations and be a viable breeding stock.''

In the Backbone Trail coffer is a portion of $6 million the federal government allocated in January 1998 for trail acquisition in the mountains. Funding comes in annual installments of about $1 million, Eck explained.

Also likely available is $2 million Congress earmarked specifically for the Backbone Trail for the 1998-99 fiscal year. However, that money is contingent upon a match of $2 million, or the equivalent in property, which Eck anticipates will come from the state government. ``Prospects look good,'' he said.

Having enough funding to buy land for the trail is one thing; making sure all the paperwork is in order and all the other ends meet is quite another.

``It will take a while to spend,'' Sherman said. ``Each real estate acquisition is not easy. Dealing with land acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains has shown me that sometimes preserving the environment means using one entire tree for the documents necessary for one real estate deal.''

Eck maintains the trail will be finished within a five- to six-year time line. ``Frankly, I have no reason to think it wouldn't.''

A two-mile segment of trail in the west-central Santa Monica Mountains has been flagged from Zuma Ridge Motorway to Los Angeles County Fire Camp 13, paralleling Encinal Canyon Road to its south. It should open to hikers in 2000.

From there, plans call for the trail to extend a half-mile north of Encinal Canyon Road on existing Clark Ranch Road to Mulholland Highway, and then to the north for another half-mile on property already owned by the National Park Service. The latter segment should be ready for hikers, bikers and equestrian in 2001.