Boulders Curb Shelf Road Parking
Boulders set in place by property owners claiming vandalism have forced Shelf Road hikers to park on Gridley Road, or at the other end of the trail on Signal Street.
County investigating legality of blocking access
By Sondra Murphy
When mysterious boulders appeared near the popular Shelf Road hiking trail off Gridley Road last week, many residents were alarmed. According to two county departments, Shelf Road is a fire road and not a hiking trail at all.
Originally blocking the fire lane, the end-table-to-washing-machine-sized rocks have been cleared aside to allow large vehicle access, but continue to prevent the public from parking at the bottom of the trail.
“The Gridley Road end is really the mouth of the trail there,” said Dick Fernow, who voluntarily supplies water to each end of the trail. “You could park about four or five cars there, but you can no longer do that.” Fernow delivered water to the trail on March 22. “Then Wednesday, when I went back, it was all blocked off.” His best guess was the rocks were placed there on March 23.
“I was floored when I went up there,” said Tia Andrews. “They’ve effectively cut off the ability to park along Gridley.” Anyone familiar with that stretch of Gridley Road knows the narrow and curving street provides sparse parking options.
i stopped walking the shelf a long long time ago, because of others off leash dogs, and their crap strewn all across the road… it smells pretty bad up there.
This land owner comes home after a hard days work, to have to put up with dozens of people each evening and hundreds of people on weekends, invading his privacy. This is his home. Have some respect. Quietly appreciate it. Unfortunately it’s the way people are driving on Gridley, and Grand, and the rest of the town that make it dangerous. The rude City driving belongs in LA.
I got a better idea. Instead of putting the boulders and paint out get your property surveyed. Then when you see people on your property call the police and have them cited for trespassing. Sooner or later the word will get out about where the property is and the idiots that have no respect for other peoples property might take the hint and stop. The people that are good will understand as soon as the markers are laid and stay off the property. I bet though the people that are saying he can’t close his property will be the same ones that sue the owner when they get hurt. The owner needs to do something to keep that from happening unfortunatly it was handled bad.
Alex.
Some people don’t care for dogs to walk up to them not under control. Besides a few of the people that made the most noise to have a dog park so their dogs can roam off leash rairly go, they go other places like Sulfur Mnt and set them free their. Yes someone did get attacked, well not a person, my dog and he was and always on a leash. I can have him around anyone, and he has never growled at anyone in his life, but I desire to follow the rules and not impose my desires on someone else. It’s rude to have a wet or muddy dog off leash and decide to say hi to someone else and getting them dirty. It’s not a phobia, it’s having common courtesy and respect for other people.Also I have a cat, and it stays indoors, why? Because I don’t like cat dung in my garden or in my neighbors. Also I don’t need him killing birds for sport, I’m responsible for his actions so that is my way of seeing to it, “Indoors”!I’m sorry for you that you were not ever taught that, maybe by looking at some of the other bloggers oppinions you may learn. Thank you.
Why all of the dog-o-phobia? Aside from owners not picking up after them, which they will fail to do even if they are on leash, what exactly are these dogs doing? We’re on such high alert over unleashed dogs, what’s the big deal? Did someone get attacked? Most off leash dogs are prefectly well behaved, the same can’t be said for their owners or even their owners children for that matter, but don’t get me started on that one.
Trail User,
The same thing happened to me on Sulfur Mnt. This guy had his dog off the leash and attacked mine that was one his. He became irrate when I kicked his dog to get him off mine. This moron, one of our famous film producers thought he had the right to verbally abuse me and threaten to have me arrested for defending my dog. His logic was the dog have to sort things out between themselves and we don’t have the right to interfere. L.A. L.A. Land Logic.
Due to the same type of thoughtless people, Vandenburg Beach was just closed. Many signs state that intrusion of the Snowy Plovers breeding grounds may force the beach to be closed. Thr selfish one’s disreguared, and the beach was closed. There are too many people noadays that have a attitude that rules don’t apply to them and they are entitled to break them. Now no one can use this wonderful beach.
To the person who left the long Comment, “another side of the coin,” at 1 Apr 10 at 9:47 am.
Thanks for putting this all in perspective. I remember most of what you describe.
I wonder if the OVN’s would publish what you wrote above as an editorial or letter in their print edition? You could copy and email it to the editor and request they withhold your name if you want to be anonymous.
ADMIN NOTE: The OVN would welcome the posting as a letter to the editor. However, we require attribution on submitted letters.
The historical perspective you have given on our trails/roads is very important! It may help us to reach a better outcome for the problem at hand.
One simple fix to detere the slobs,weather rich or poor would to install what they have on the OVN front page. A webcam, and post signs. Anyone that wishes to screw arround and ruin it for the majority of good folks will be caught in the act. You don’t tell them where they are, but why take a chanch of getting caught doing something stupid? You can’t have someone at a gate to check people in and out, but knowing a camera or cameras, welll think about it. I’m not for Big Brother, but it is the inconsiderate jerks that have an attitude that they are entitled to something, with their, ” It’s all good bro, why ruin my fun?” Too many jerks like this with this attitude ruin it for the rest of us. Sorry for the vent, but I’m starting to get a bit peeved with these idiots and their ” It’s all good ” attitude comming to our valley and ruining it.
Oh by the way, ” It’s all good” This is what I learned from some aboriginals in Austrailia what the white man whould tell them as they stole and kicked them off their land, ” It’s All good Abo, Too Right!”
So here they are here in Ojai with “It’s all good” So if someone was on my property and taking my fruit and said “It’s all good” you have pleanty so whats the big deal? I would tend to take measures also, but not to ruin it for people that respect my property.
The last time I walked that trail I passed groups of people and around 20 dogs. NOT A SINGLE DOG WAS LEASHED AS REQUIRED. Dog people, if you are going to complain, start with following the rules yourself.
wed otta moov the rocks.
I wrote the comment at 4:13, but here’s another side of the coin:
Once upon a time, there was a way to get through a place called Whale Rock Ranch into Los Padres National Forest. The owners allowed people to park on their property and hike through that property. (Those folks had lived in Ojai a long time, too.) As more and more rude people found their way to the trail-head, however, the property owners became increasingly vexed at the way their hospitality was being repaid. They put out signs asking the public to respect the gift of access. They asked people to pick up their trash, clean up after their dogs, to leave the road unblocked, and to be out of the area in time to leave the property owners with some nighttime privacy. Some people responded positively, but many did not. The ranch owners finally wrote a letter to Fred Volz’s OVN warning folks that the gift of right-of-way would be withdrawn. It was a nice letter, and it was obvious from the way it was written that these folks really didn’t want to ruin anyone’s fun. Still, the situation at the trail-head continued to deteriorate, and the property owners finally disallowed all access. I believe that this was in ’86 or ’87.
Not too long after that, some folks who lived on Foothill closed off a trail on private property that many people used to get onto Foothill and Pratt trails; a trail that allowed people who lived on Foothill (or other nearby streets and roads) to avoid making the drive to the dedicated trail-head near the Stewart Canyon debris basin off of Signal St. The reasons for closure were the same as for the Whale Rock Ranch trail, but included the liability issue as well.
I used to walk on Shelf Road, but finally found myself getting vibed out of the area by people who treated me as if I were crashing their private club even though I was pretty sure that I had been walking that road for many more years than they had. I had become used to people who would say “hi” to you, or who would say “hi” back to you if you said hi to them, but found myself with each passing month encountering more and more people who did not embody the Ojai sense of family and camaraderie that I loved, and who would walk past me as if I were not even there. Nobody owed me a greeting, to be sure, and I certainly survived without those exchanges, but the change made me sad, and it reflected changes that I was seeing all over town — changes brought by people who had no intention of becoming part of Ojai, but who intended to bend the town to their will while looking down on the locals, their manners, and their customs. The locals continued to briefly acknowledge the existence of other humans and then continue on their way without breaking stride, and the others continued to be the way they were, although a few of them actually did soften over time and started to become part of the town.
Everywhere I have visited, trail-heads that once ran across private land have been closed. Entire tracts of private land have been declared off-limits, and many of my favorite places are now but memories. In some cases, development is the cause for the loss, but in many other instances loss of access was due to the behavior of the people who visited these areas. There have been many of us who have tried to protect the privilege of access by carrying out trash, repairing vandalism, removing graffiti, and even planting trees to replace the ones that have been blasted out of existence by people who felt that trees were appropriate targets for their anger. We were outnumbered by the others, however, and our efforts meant little or nothing in the end.
I do not know if the property owner in question has ever tried to reason with people. (Perhaps we will find out in the OVN.) If so, I’m guessing that there wasn’t much cooperation. The boulders are probably illegal and will be moved, and painting the rocks and other turf is pretty ugly, and the owner has no right to remodel and reshape County property in any way, but I can understand that he/she/they may have been motivated by more than a simple case landowner’s possessiveness. I have seen what some people have done all over Ojai, Ventura County, and California in general, and if I thought that I had a way to make it stop, I would.
Isn’t this kinda like the Geffen problem on the beach in
Malibu? He never let me through. No access. The rich and
property elite run the world.
Gridley trail is actually up Gridley road further. Use that. Great hike! Shelf rd was an unpaved county road until they declined the honor/responsibility of maintaining the road. Sulpher MT rd is the same and has had the same property damage issues by unconsiderate people. I used to shoot at upper Signal as a kid, and, as my family owns property abutting shelf rd since the late 20′s, I personally have seen the damage done by a few bad eggs wandering off of the road. Even if no fruit is picked, Avocados are very susseptible to disease that can be brought in on horses hooves or peoples shoes. If people that cannot respect private property laws want to hike, stay in the national forest or on public lands. I don’t hike the road anymore due to dogs and their rude owners who think leash laws aren’t for them, just others.
Ojai natives have always been at odds with people that move to town and want to push their own agenda. I have heard them say that they want Ojai to “stay the same as it was when we moved here”. I wish it was the same as when my great-grandmother moved here.
Unfortuneately, the walk up Gridley is a particularly dangerous one. There is no shoulder and a couple of blind curves. With enough time, walking all the way up is great, but so many people, especially older walkers and folks with young kids, park and take in the evening. After a long day’s work, we love to make it up to Shelf for late light or rising moon…but now that would mean walking down Gridley in the dark. I imagine there may be jerks up there, but I can also attest that 99.9% of the folks who habitually use that road are reveling in the beauty of the evening, taking a traffic-free jog, or are lost in conversation with a friend. Shelf is magic. No one has the right to restrict access.
BTW: a tip of the hat to Dick Fernow. I always wondered who the good Samaritan was.
The guy who owns the property has lived in Ojai all of his life. His family were some of the first people in Ojai way back when. This contradicts what Mr. Fernow assumes, that the owners are newcomers. Bottom line is, a bunch of disrespectful people have (deleted) in the chili bowls of all of the people who used to enjoy the privilege of parking there. Yep, make it a real excursion, and park on Grand and get a warm up walking up Gridley.
“Can’t remember Shelf being paved”
For some reason, I remember it being paved from the top of Signal to at least Mr. K’s place, the avocado orchard. I could be wrong about that. (I remember seeing a nice fat bear trundle down the hillside one evening and scoot under the chain-link fence into the orchard, and in my memory the bear had to run across a road that was dirt and broken blacktop.)
Good. A lot of people who park their are doing drug deals. It’s a good idea to keep the trails for the locals. Stop whining. People should hike closer to home.
Can’t remember Shelf being paved, I remember the shooting range, but no pavement. Leave your car at home. Respect your neighbors.
And it’s real name is Valley View rd. I has never been a paved road except on the ends for the fire trucks and 30 years ago you could drive up and watch the sun set.
I don’t live up there. I use the signal end to park. And the blogs always include OSL, Mexicans, hillbillies or kids as the vandals. It’s not always the case. Vandalism has many forms. Taking oranges, leaving poop. The boy and his dogs were well behaved but the older ladies let their dogs disturb others and did nothing about it. That boy also walked down signal when he left but there were tons of cars still behind, so it wasn’t him. Looking at it from a different angle may actually solve it.
Many thanks to the person who posted the Comment at 4:13 pm.
(The Comment beginning with “About 10 years ago…”)
I hope the Ojai Valley News includes some of this information in their follow-up article.
Maybe one of those gravel trucks took the corner to fast and lost a few…..
About 10 years ago, someone who lived near the top end of Signal St. started dumping roofing nails all over the turnaround in an attempt to stop people from using the area at night. The VCSD put a stop to that. Before that, a property owner with the initials O.K. tried to block access to the trail. He actually put a fence across Shelf Rd. That didn’t work out for him, either. This stuff happens every now and then, but the road remains public property. It was once a paved street owned by the City on the Signal St. end and the County on the Gridley end. It’s still a dedicated street, and could be turned back into a paved and maintained street anytime both the City and County wanted to make that happen, although the likelihood of that happening is nil. Nonetheless, it is a fire road, and no one can legally block either entrance with large immovable objects like boulders. Even if the property owner’s property does extend across the road, there is still an easement and anyone who buys property with an easement knows it and also knows that the easement cannot be abandoned without a lot of expensive and time-consuming wrangling in court.
(BTW, remember that guy who moved up from L.A. and bulldozed 300 oak trees on his Hwy. 150 property without a permit? Remember what happened to him in court?)
Those poor two rocks in the picture, they look so lonely there. They don’t look like bad rocks, so who whould leave them there all alone?
I don’t know about Shelf road, but the Gridley trail is a public and popular trail, so I would think it would be the city’s (or county) responsibility to provide public parking. Or else remove it from the grid
I don’t think that it would ever come to trying to revoke the right of access to the trail, that doesn’t seem like it would ever fly, I was just saying that the property owner doesn’t owe us a parking lot. As many have said before, we’ll probably all just have to take a little longer hike than usual. And we all really need to stay on the trail. I live nearby, and see people up on those gorgeous rocks way up there multiple times daily, and I know that that is private property, and that those people don’t have permission to be up there.
Talk about stacking rocks…
Just read the related Letters in today’s OVN. This is a golden opportunity to air out all sides of the story. Thank God we still have our local paper that gives incidents like this front page coverage! I look forward to the follow-up report which promises to include an interview with the propety owner in the Friday edition.
Hmm, Friday’s edition of the OVN will have an interview with the [person who is probably bombarding this blog with their comments] property owner, should be interesting. As many in Malibu and SB have learned, you can’t mess with established public access to the beach, trails, even if they are on private property. You can post your property with signs indicating the right to revoke access at any time, but in this case, Shelf Rd is a defacto trail, and despite poor behavior by some regardless of their race (why throw in ‘Hispanic’ “whatever”, what are you trying to infer by that?), there is no way that will change. All of this “one bad apple had to ruin it for everyone” stuff is hogwash.
There is a HUGE sign up there that states that ANY loss, damage or injury is each persons own responsibility. It addresses that no one maintains the road.
There are signs that say keep dogs leashed and signs that say do not block the access road.
And some person was complaining that the kids aren’t going to follow the skate park rules!
“County investigating legality of blocking access “.
Is the county also investigating who would be held accountable if one of these so called trash dumping graffiti tagging nature lovers gets injured while hiking this area or falling off a bluff in the middle of the night ? Sounds like there is a fine line between what is public land and private property up there. What is the county doing to help the land owners settle this dispute civilly so everyone can be happy with the outcome ?
Leave your car at home. If you live too far, park on Grand, that goes for the N.Signal end also. Have respect for the privacy of the property owners. I’d much rather look at boulders than a bunch of cars.
whatever, you’re on the right track. It’s always the few rotten apples (oranges?) who spoil it for the rest of us. The landowner doesn’t owe us a parking lot on his private land. I don’t expect to be able to legally park in anyone’s back yard that I please. So I do like Gentleman Redneck’s suggestion of somehow leasing the spot, paving it, and marking the trail clearly. Another problem is that many people wander off the trail, and into the mountains. Much of that land is not public property, it’s private. With liability being what it is today, all someone has to do it twist their ankle and sue, saying that they didn’t know it was private property, so the landowner actually has the responsibility to put up signs notifying the public to stay out. It’s an education campaign, because I truly don’t think that many people even know that they are trespassing. As far as stealing the fruit, that’s just wrong, but again, I don’t think that people are trying to do wrong, they just think, “Oh, one little orange or avocado won’t hurt.” But you’ve got potentially hundreds of people using that trail daily, and that adds up and really hurts the farmer’s bottom line. Farmers have it tough these days. Please buy your fruit at the store, or farmer’s market! And stay on the path! If we all respect each other, this will work itself out.
If this IS on private property, I can see how a few inconsiderate hikers, with off-leash dogs, dirt bikes, etc, making noise and dropping trash and/or vandalizing private property could become annoying. Equestrians lost most of their trail access in the past 20 years. While it is popular to blast the property owners, the reality is that it was the behavior of a few jerks who ruined it for everyone. Some fell off of their horses and sued the property owners, others left gates open after passing through, and some strayed from the trail, causing damage and/or harassing the people and pets who lived there.
If everyone making use of public access is conscious of their behavior when crossing private property, things like this are less likely to occur.
I imagine there are potential environmental impacts resulting from the alleged alterations, and legal repercussions for which this person should be held accountable. I hope County planners are taking a hard look at that, and that any studies required to analyze and mitigate the damage are accomplished on the perpetrators dime.
No it’s the few that are “entitled” to park where ever they feel, never use the leash for the dogs, pick the oranges and avocados that don’t belong to them and leave bags of dog (deleted) hanging on the fences of private property, that spoil it for all. I was up there today and saw a young Hispanic boy with two pits and a brown lab perfectly behaved and some older hoity women with dogs runnin a muck.
I agrre Dennis,
mean and spiteful. So tell me what is the difference between this and spraying OSL on priviate property? Nothing. Same selfish all about me gangbanger mentallity.If it is such a big deal for fire access, upset resedents, ect, them have the conservicy lease the spot, pave it, and then post signs where to park to keep the access open. Said and done! There too much of this sneeky behinde the back late at night shenanigans going on in the Ojai valley.Expose the one’s responsible and charge them and make them do community service, no matter who they are! They caused a safty hazzard that could cause dammage and harm to others. They should be exposed, they tossed the first stone, and in the shadows, sneeky creeps!
This is an absurd and small act by some spiteful person.We should know who made this decision.They deserve all the local indignation due to them. Shelf road is walked by hundreds of people each weekend and dozens each evening. The entry for fire truck is never blocked. While Shelf is not officially a “trail” the lookout benches which grace the road give testimony that it is a prized venue for locals to watch sunsets and talk evening strolls. To many, Shelf is loved more than Libbey park, more than our bike trail. It is a community treasure and it is simply foolish and small minded to block it’s terminus from parking. The upshot will be that people will park dangerously along Gridley or further impact the small parking area at the Signal end.
I plead for someone with the right machine to put it to work for a few minutes on reversing this stupidity and for the OVN to further investigate.