HORSEMEN, BIKERS FEUD ABOUT TRAIL.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Daily News Staff Writer

A U.S. Forest Service proposal to open a former section of the Pacific Crest Trail to motorcycles has riled horse owners.

Acton residents said the route up Arrastre Canyon between Soledad Canyon and Mount Gleason is the last access from their community to the Angeles National Forest that is reserved for hikers and horseback riders.

"We're not against the motorcycles. There are four ways from Acton to the top of Mount Gleason. They've already got access to three of them," said Acton Town Councilman Jeff Wadsworth. "The one that is just for hikers and horseback riders, we just want to keep that the way it is."

Forest Service officials are expected to attend a Feb. 5 meeting of the Acton Town Council to talk about the trail proposal as well as about a five-year plan that calls for burning and pruning overgrown chaparral, oak and conifer woodlands south of Soledad Canyon.

The deadline to comment on the environmental study was originally Jan. 15, but because of the controversy, it has been extended until March 1.

The meeting will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Acton Community Club, 3748 W. Nickels Ave.

The Forest Service wants to rebuild an overgrown 1.5-mile section of old trail across the head of Arrastre Canyon about five miles south of Soledad Canyon Road, creating a seven-mile trail loop around a parcel of private property that sits across a power-line road now used by off-road motorcyclists.

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.

"This is the only access we have left to the Pacific Crest Trail without sharing it with motorcycles," said Tom Haile, an Acton town councilman and member of the Acton-Agua Dulce Trail Council.

The segment the equestrians use was once the Pacific Crest Trail itself, but the designation was switched to another trail in the mid-1970s, officials said.

With most of the trail only 4 feet wide, cut along a hillside, Haile said there would not be enough room for horses and motorcycles to pass safely. Horses would be startled by motorcycles that approached from around a blind curve or rise, he said.

Acton residents also are suspicious that the environmental assessment for the trail was done as part of the study for the burning and pruning of trees and brush in the area. That looks as if the Forest Service tried to hide it, they said.

California Off-Road Vehicle Association President Ed Waldheim says he believes motorcycles and horses can co-exist.

"The Forest Service belongs to everyone. It doesn't belong to any one exclusive group. It doesn't belong to equestrians, hikers or to us," Waldheim said. "We have shared trails in Oregon, Washington. . . . There's study after study that says we can share."

Forest Service officials agree, and say that the desire to reduce the impact on the environment, along with tight budgets, means there is no sense in making parallel trails - one for hikers and horses, one for motorcycles.

Of some 800 miles of trails in the Angeles National Forest, only 47 miles of trails are for motorcycles - 40 miles in Rowher Flat near Agua Dulce and seven miles near Littlerock Reservoir, forest officials said.

The three routes up to Mount Gleason for motorcycles are all dirt roads passable by automobiles, they said.

"When the non-off-highway-vehicle community says, 'You can use the dirt roads,' that's like saying, 'You and your wife and kids can go for a country drive and you're going to drive down Interstate 5, or up Highway 101 or the 405,' " said Cam Lockwood, forest trails coordinator. "Riding up a dirt road is not a quality experience."

Motorcyclists are looking for routes that take skill to negotiate - narrow, winding, steeper than dirt roads - and without designated routes they are more likely to create their own, he said.

The equestrian and hiking trail up Arrastre Canyon was designated for motorcycles nine years ago, in the 1987 Angeles National Forest master plan, officials said. It would provide a necessary link for off-road motorcycles between the dirt roads and would include wide sections for motorcyclists or riders to pass one another, officials said.

The officials also defended including trail reconstruction in the environmental study on thinning chaparral, saying Forest Service practice is to study several issues in a specific area, rather than to duplicate studies.

Forest Service officials say they plan to keep an eye on the trail for a year after it opens and to create a volunteer patrol to educate trail users about proper behavior.

"We're saying: Let's try it for a year. Let's see how it works," said Julie Molzahn, the Forest Service's Tujunga District resource officer. "The off-highway groups will have people out there on the weekends patrolling. We will have people out there."