As 30 mph wind gusts howled across a flat spot known as “the notch” halfway up Mount Baldy last weekend, three young men staggered down from the summit looking cold, tired and very excited to have arrived. to the highest point in Los Angeles. County in such harsh conditions.
Not only had they braved the summit's high altitude and strong wind, they had also risked a $5,000 fine for violating a closure order from the U.S. Forest Service.
After a wildfire in September devastated Mt. Baldy Village, destroying 20 homes and burning more than 50,000 acres on the surrounding slopes, the U.S. Forest Service closed all trails leading to the mountain's impressive summit for more than a year, until December 2025, to ensure public safety and promote the “natural recovery” of the fragile plants and soils that had been damaged.
A hiker descends Mount Baldy in a popular ski area.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
But had the three climbers, who ascended a trail called Devil's Backbone along its narrow ridge with chills on either side, seen scorched earth or trees along the way?
“No, nothing at all, the road was fine,” said Isaías Rosas of Moreno Valley. “There were a lot of people going up and down with us.”
That's the trick. While the town 5,000 feet below was devastated by the Bridge Fire in the fall, the summit and the most popular trails leading to it escaped largely unscathed.
And so, like seemingly everything else in our fragile public discourse these days, the government's closure of the mountain has sparked heated debate on social media. On one side are the so-called trail Karens, who monitor online webcams and wonder why the forest service doesn't fine “ignorant and selfish” rule-breakers who hike the mountain anyway. On the other side: offenders who condemn the forest service as just another “useless” government agency that reflexively shuts things down in the name of “security” at the expense of freedom.
Sound familiar?
Adding fuel to the fire online was the agency's decision to allow recreational businesses within the closed area to continue operating, despite alleged threats to plants and soil.
These young people are among dozens of hikers ignoring federal government trail closures on Mt. Baldy despite the risk of a $5,000 fine.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“It just screams that capitalism is fine and has nothing to do with the safety or protection of our public lands,” one Reddit commenter wrote in a particularly lively thread a couple of months ago.
“Deep down, we can see that this isn't about safety or trying to let the land recover, so I think a lot of people don't care about the closure and will keep walking,” wrote another.
Robby Ellingson is the general manager of Mt. Baldy Resort, a small family ski area in the heart of the closed section of the mountain that is beloved by its fans.
In an interview, Ellingson said none of his ski runs or equipment burned, so he actively lobbied the forest service to have “the closure set up differently.” But instead of changing the lines on the closure map, the forest service gave it a variance that allowed it to operate within the closed area. That means their restaurant and bar, located halfway up the mountain and appropriately named “Top of the Notch,” remain open. Their ski slopes will open as soon as there is enough snow.
The trail closures at Mt. Baldy have had a devastating impact on the Mt. Baldy Resort restaurant business. “We lost the whole fall,” says general manager Robby Ellingson.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Sipping a cold beer and admiring the expansive view from the restaurant is a long-awaited reward after a long, hot hike to the top, so closing the popular trails in September was a devastating blow to Ellingson's business.
“We lost our entire fall,” he said. “We have maintained a certain silence about this, about our discontent about this.” But he hopes the forest service will relent and reopen the trails in the spring, as soon as the snow melts.
And while he is eager to maintain a good working relationship with Forest Service officials, he said he is concerned that their radical and rigid closure decision will undermine their credibility.
Public officials tend to err on the side of “you can never be too safe,” Ellingson said. But actually it is possible, he thinks.
“If you try to be too safe, you end up with silly rules that are counterproductive” because many people will simply ignore them.
In an email, U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Dana Dierkes acknowledged that the most popular trails to the summit, Devil's Backbone and Ski Hut Trail, did not burn in the Bridge fire. They are closed because “they provide access to other trails that did burn,” he wrote.
On the slopes surrounding those burned trails, “the vegetation was completely consumed, leaving the land without a natural barrier to erosion,” he wrote.
The forest service predicts “catastrophic landslides and substantial debris flows within the burned area during the winter storm season,” Dierkes said, and those dangers will persist until vegetation grows back.
“Once the seasonal weather has passed, we will reassess the status of potential hazards and see if certain areas could reopen,” Dierkes said.
Outside the combined post office and fire station in Mt. Baldy Village last week, residents were preparing for the possibility of mudslides when the inevitable winter storms began to arrive. Crews were installing concrete barriers in front of homes facing the burned hillsides; others were preparing a sandbag distribution site.
But locals also said the broad scope and inflexibility of the trail closures seem to defy common sense.
“I don't think it's fair at all to businesses and locals,” Mt. Baldy Village resident Cindy Debonis says of the extended trail closures on the mountain.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Even the paved road around the corner, which leads to stunning views of the valley, is closed. So when the air is warm and the sun is shining and there's no obvious threat of a landslide from the scorched hillside above, taking your dog for a morning walk along Glendora Ridge Road could, in theory, get you a fine of $5,000.
“They keep saying it has something to do with the fire, but there's nothing left to burn,” said Cindy Debonis, 63, a longtime resident, shaking her head.
“I think it's not fair, by any means, to the businesses and the locals,” he said. “I want to walk. I would like to go on a hike. “This is where I live.”
