The Moat of Thousand Oaks

THOUSAND OAKS — On a hill above a blue reservoir, the trail dissolves into a field of grass and wild mustard. A line of bent yellow stalks shows where bikers have forged ahead, then given up.

Two miles away, beyond streets and homes and subdivisions, the trail starts again in a condo’s backyard. Climbing a rutted fire road, it leaves behind the scraped and flattened earth that soon will become a new neighborhood.

For decades, city planners have worked on this trail, piecing it together link by link. They have negotiated for the rights to old utility roads, wheedled gifts of land from movie stars and squeezed developers for property they can add to the system. Their handiwork, when complete, will circle Thousand Oaks in a nearly unbroken chain. More than that, the Conejo Valley Ring Trail will enshrine in dirt and gravel one of this community’s most cherished principles: the idea that a ring of undeveloped open space should always surround this growing city.

The planners and local volunteers building and maintaining the trail didn’t set out to create a Central Park, a green heart to a concrete city. Instead, they surrounded themselves with green, gathered it around the town’s outskirts like a moat, a way to keep the San Fernando Valley’s grinding urbanization at bay.

The ring is perhaps 80% complete, a dusty line linking oak groves to grasslands to crumbling volcanic cliffs. Another segment, threading through a proposed housing development, will be designed soon, as the developer fights for city approval of his plans.

The trail is a lesson in both Thousand Oaks history and the slow process of building what amounts to a unique, 45-mile-long park--a park that will last, planners hope, as long as the city.

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Start at Wildwood Park and walk west over the first low hill. A plateau stretches beneath ruddy cliffs. Keep heading west, through what once was the Dodge City set for “Gunsmoke,” until you reach a trail shooting sharply off to the right. This is the Ring Trail. Take it.

Climb through open fields and cactus stands as the path swings east, then follow a series of switchbacks until you’re on top of the cliffs that form Mountclef Ridge. With the Santa Rosa Valley at your back, Wildwood’s fields and wooded canyons sprawl below you.

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Decades ago, the city’s original General Plan called for homes to spread across this grassy plateau. The land, privately owned at the time, was flat and broad and seemed a logical place to build.

But city residents had grown attached to the plateau, known as Wildwood Mesa. When Orange Builders proposed putting about 170 houses on the land, the project touched off one of the battles over development that have shaped Thousand Oaks politics.

This battle climaxed in an unusual land swap brokered by the city, four private firms and three public agencies in 1986. In the end, Orange built about 50 homes on the mesa, and the rest of the land--228 acres--became part of Wildwood Park.

“We were clicking our heels, it was so ingenious,” said Rorie Skei, chairwoman of the city’s Open Space Conservation Agency and a Thousand Oaks resident since 1972. “There were a lot of compromises made, but the outcome was satisfactory to all the parties. No one got screwed, and the public got this jewel: Wildwood Mesa.”

Although the Wildwood land swap was unusually complex, it followed the pattern that has characterized the building of most of this city’s park and open space system. The city pushes for donations of open space from developers, who then tout those donations when trying to win public support.

Although the process yields results, it still troubles some within the city’s slow-growth contingent.

“I think of it as a bribe, in a sense,” said City Councilwoman Linda Parks, an ardent hiker, environmentalist and foe of many recent development projects. “If a developer offered you a million or half a million for building in open space, you’d say no. But if they offer land that’s worth a million, we say yes.”

However residents view it, the tug of war between city officials and developers is again in full swing several miles east of Wildwood.

Plans call for 273 homes on about 90 acres of former range land that straddles the Ring Trail’s planned path. Alternating between the photos and maps, developer Michael Rosenfeld shows where the new streets and blocks will be, if the Woodridge project wins City Council approval.

The proposal is already drawing fire, with critics complaining that its location would bridge the moat of open space around Thousand Oaks and link the city with Simi Valley’s Wood Ranch neighborhood, which lies just over a hill.

Rosenfeld, a principal in Woodridge Associates L.L.C., has heard those complaints. He insists, however, that the project will do just the opposite. If approved, Woodridge will donate 625 acres to the city, adding another link to the ring of open space.

“It’s a real critical piece of the whole mosaic,” he said. “We’re damn proud of it. We’re giving away a lot of land.”

Rosenfeld is also working with COSTAC--a committee of Thousand Oaks residents who help design, maintain and patrol the city’s vast trail system--to decide where to put the Ring Trail and other paths that will cross the property.

He has no illusions about whether the land gift and trail access will win over all opponents.

“There are some elements in the community who wouldn’t be satisfied unless we dedicated 100% of our land,” he said. “I don’t think we’ll satisfy that element.”

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The trail is hidden from Westlake Boulevard, but it’s there. Look behind the Westlake Canyon Apartments, near the intersection with Lang Ranch Parkway, and you will see a narrow path running through bushes and trees, their branches sprouting flowers shaped like orange trumpets. Follow it as it veers suddenly left and uphill.

Forty minutes later--it depends on how often you stop for breath--the trail reaches a high ridge, a jagged spine cresting in the 2,403-foot Simi Peak nearby. Scramble up one last hill, short but steep as stairs, and the whole of Thousand Oaks spreads out before you.

A ring of ridges, green even in summer’s drying heat, cradles the homes of 112,000 in pools of red roofing tile. The Santa Monica Mountains line one horizon, the Topatopas another. Thirty miles off, the Channel Islands hover on a burning gold sea.

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How do you build a trail? More often than not, you don’t. You look for an old ranch road or fire road going in the general direction you want, then negotiate for access rights to it.

Some of the open spaces along the Ring Trail, including the slopes below Simi Peak, are a maze of rutted dirt paths. Utility roads shadow electrical lines. An old dirt drive runs past a toppled, rusted windmill--the remains of an abandoned ranch.

For places where no ready-made trail exists, Mark Towne and COSTAC members must design one.

Towne, a Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency staffer, keeps tabs on the entire Thousand Oaks trail system. When a development project with the potential to affect the trail starts wending its way through the city’s Planning Department, Towne notifies the trail committee’s members.

Together, they visit the project site, meet with the developers and iron out trail routes.

The committee’s nine members are passionate devotees of the trails. Some are equestrians, part of a long-established community that still flavors Newbury Park and several Thousand Oaks neighborhoods. Others are hikers or mountain bike aficionados.

Oriented to the outdoors, they sometimes feel ambivalent about the development projects they review. Some members dislike the Woodridge project, for example, siding with those who consider it urban sprawl and a link to Simi Valley. But member Gina Smurthwaite said the group tries to stay focused on the trails.

“We’ve never stood in the way of developing,” she said, “because we recognize the right to develop private property, but we work with developers to make sure access [to trails] stays open when the neighborhoods go up.”

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East of the windmill, the trail slowly descends a dry ridge, high above the sprawling homes and swimming pools of North Ranch. Twin tiers of orange stone along the ridge top shelter birds of prey when they tire of circling for food. Rabbits and lizards outnumber hikers.

Follow the trail downhill and into a neighborhood, where the path runs through a block-wide swath of grass between homes. Turn right, back to the city streets.

On the southern curve of Pathfinder Avenue, a trail head leads to a stream shaded by sprawling oaks. After miles of arid chaparral and scrub, where purple sage pushes up through parched soil, the trail now wends through a lush, damp and narrow forest tucked behind homes. For the next mile, the Ring Trail runs along the water, south to the North Ranch Playfield. The hum of insects fills the cool, humid air.

East of the play field, the path angles uphill from Bowfield Street, climbing a series of bare brown slopes. The steepest is a tough climb, and for good reason. At 1,821 feet, 700 feet above the floor of Lindero Canyon to the east, the hill’s crest is as high as the Ring Trail gets.

Scramble downhill to Thousand Oaks Boulevard and into another of the trail’s remaining gaps. The trail reappears miles away on Potrero Road.

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If rabbits outnumber people on much of the trail’s eastern swing, humans take over south of the Ventura Freeway. Humans on foot, bikes and horseback.

The Ring Trail’s southern stretch, better-known as Los Robles Trail, has almost everything a mountain biker could want: smooth straightaways, rocky patches, good hills.

“It’s perfect, because there’s a little bit of everything,” said landscape architect Tyler Gold, who rides the trail about twice a week. “You can tailor your ride.”

Uphill from Gold, Greg Estel of Pomona was taking a nostalgic hike with his sister, Monica Dietrich of Los Feliz. The two grew up in Thousand Oaks and miss having the wilderness at their backdoor.

“If you’re in Los Angeles, you drive up to Baldy or up to Big Bear,” Estel said. “Here, it’s just down the street.”

The mix of hikers and bikers on the trail is, itself, unusual.

Jeff Alexander, COSTAC’s chairman, notes that many cities, many parks, limit trail access to certain kinds of users. Hikers, yes. Speed-happy mountain bikers, no.

Years ago, Thousand Oaks grappled with the issue. When the trails committee formed in 1989, one of its chief tasks was to make sure the hiking, biking and equestrian communities could live with each other.

“That’s how we started--literally fighting amongst ourselves about who could and could not use the trails,” Alexander said.

The system they worked out ensures that all three groups are welcome, so long as they respect each other and yield the right of way to each other when necessary. Signs posted at trail heads drive that point home.

There are occasional conflicts. Los Robles Trail is loved by mountain bikers, who swarm the path on weekends and weekday evenings. But for those on foot or horseback, bikers screaming around hairpin turns high above Ventu Park can pose a problem.

Sipping from a water bottle during a brief break, mountain biker Kent Gleason said people quickly learn to watch out for each other, especially on weekends when the trail fills up.

“You’ve got to be careful,” he said. “I have come close to spooking horses. You don’t want to do that. You don’t want a rider to get dumped out here. I mean, think about it--the rider’s head is like 10 feet off the ground.”

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Los Robles Trail dips dramatically near the southern tip of Moorpark Road, tumbling down a steep, rock-strewn descent that mountain bikers see as just another challenge. It soon turns back uphill, climbing the ridge that runs south of the Ventura Freeway, but the landscape has changed. The charred skeletons of trees and bushes darken the hillsides. Between them, thick glowing green leaves and yellow flowers of new plants reach for light.

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For a few horrible days in October 1993, the hillsides were engulfed in flame, ash and wind-driven sparks. The Green Meadow fire, started by an arsonist near Los Robles Golf Course, marched up the ridge and charred 38,200 acres before it was finally subdued.

But the land has recovered. Its proper name is the Hope Nature Preserve, a 350-acre gift Bob Hope gave the city in 1976, and on summer evenings, the air is alive with birds knifing through the sky.

Harman Rasnow is still recovering from the fire. His ridge-top home next to the nature preserve burned to the ground, and he is still working on a replacement.

Rasnow’s property is one of the trail’s landmarks, and one of its anomalies. The 200-acre plot is packed with antennas, 70 in all, routing cell phone calls and fire department calls throughout the area. And the land, Rasnow’s since 1963, is still private property.

Rather than sell his land, Rasnow agreed to let the city blaze a trail through it. He wonders now if he made the right choice. Hikers and bikers often leave the trail and nose around his property. Or they use his private road, a gated extension of Ventu Park Road, to reach the Ring Trail.

“You should hear how abusive they get,” Rasnow said.

What’s more, companies leasing space for their antennas want security and don’t want unauthorized people around their equipment. So trespassers, Rasnow said, are a threat to his income.

Towne and the trail committee are well aware of Rasnow’s complaints. Last year, they even finished an access trail west of Ventu Park Road that will give bikers a legal way to climb the ridge.

Living with his family on the ridge, Rasnow understands the trail’s beauty and worth. He walks a two-mile loop on his property most mornings, and loves being able to see the ocean from so far away. When he let the trail go through, he thought the people using it would also be nature-lovers who wouldn’t pose a problem.

“Every time we have a confrontation with them, I remind them, ‘If you keep this up, you’ll lose the trail,’ ” he said.

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The trail tumbles into Newbury Park, returning to grasslands near Potrero Road. South of the road, it veers into the parklands around Sycamore Canyon, former ranches now returning to the wild beneath the towering blue mass of Boney Mountain. For a few minutes, all traces of the city and its people vanish into fields of wild oats.

Past a reed-rimmed pond, a small hut appears. It is a reconstruction of the shelters the Chumash once built throughout the valley. In the visitors center nearby, a retired dentist shows resting hikers how to re-create Chumash crafts.

Another half a mile to the west, you crest a hill and see across Potrero a massive construction site, with new streets waiting for homes. One day the trail will run through the area. But for now, the scattered horse paths on the property end in a sea of leveled land.

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The development, called Dos Vientos Ranch, could one day fill the vacant fields with 2,350 homes. Some Newbury Park residents have been up in arms about the project for years. Too big, too much potential for traffic, too much. The fight has wound through city government and courts but has not stopped the project.

The immense property is already laced with dirt roads and equestrian trails. As planned, the Ring Trail will follow one such road.

For now, all those paths are off-limits, patrolled by the companies building new neighborhoods on the land. Anyone venturing onto the property is escorted off.

Eric Taylor, a consultant on the project, said the patrols are a necessary protection. If hikers or equestrians get hurt, they could sue the landowners.

“We have to have patrols because of liability,” he said. “Everything revolves around liability.”

Taylor didn’t know when the trails would be open, but noted that many of those now clamoring for trails opposed the project and wanted it slowed or stopped.

“Everyone’s antsy to get on the trails,” he said. “If you would have given us approval five years ago, the trails would be open by now.”

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Eventually, the Ring Trail will climb the Conejo Grade on a fire and utility road that lies north of the freeway and crests in a saddle of earth.

The saddle rests on the lip of the Western Plateau--a vast, still-undeveloped expanse of high fields, bony ridges and scrub-covered slopes. On a clear day, it looks like the mountain foothills of Wyoming. On dark, marine-layer days, it looks like Scotland. Shreds of clouds drape across the hills.

After a long and slow descent into a sage-filled canyon, the trail reaches a battered chain-link fence. Skirt around the left edge of the fence, and the path, much narrower now, runs through a thicket of sycamore trees toward a stream.

Few people venture into this stretch of the Ring Trail, and the stands of poison oak reaching into the path are a menace. But with a stream rippling left of the trail, the willow-sheltered spot is one of the most unusual in the city.

A fork in the path lets you cross the stream and leave the trees behind. A flat valley floor, studded with oak groves, stretches toward Hill Canyon.

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This, too, will be developed, although not with homes. City officials are planning a golf course for the spot, using the groves and stream as architectural features. The trail will probably run around the course perimeter, and a nature center will sit atop the valley’s southern slope. For now, though, the valley is quiet and empty, save for some rusted cars riddled with shotgun holes.

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Cross the stream one last time, as you enter Hill Canyon, and climb onto paved Hill Canyon Road. Go right, south, toward the city’s waste-water treatment plant, the subject of one of the city’s longest-running political battles.

Take the road through gates until you see a sign labeled “Trail Access.” Follow the arrow to your left, skirting the edge of the plant. Clumps of flowering cactus sit yards away from the plant’s vast tanks.

The trail now scales a murderous hill, switching back and forth as it leaves the canyon behind. You may stop every few minutes for breath, but don’t worry. This is the last bit of punishment the Ring Trail will deliver.

You hit another path just below Lizard Rock, a volcanic knot usually topped by sightseers. Stop. Turn around.

To the west, the Western Plateau saddle lies miles distant. To the south, the antennas on Rasnow’s property jut above the horizon.

To the east, the broad grassy mesa of Wildwood Park leads to a cluster of houses, the result of the Wildwood land swap. Follow the trail east, toward home.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Conejo Valley Ring Trail The piecing together of a multiuse trail three decades in the making is about 85% done. Hiking the Conejo Valley Ring Trail takes good boots, maps, food, several gallons of water and time. Lots of time.

Reporter David Baker spent 11 days walking the trail’s existing segments. Granted, most of those hikes lasted just three or four hours, and included some fumbling around when the trail passed through areas criss-crossed with many paths. Leaving yourself a little time to get lost, even on a single day-hike, isn’t a bad idea.

As for maps, the Conejo Recreation and Park District prints the best. Copies can be had, for free, at City Hall and show the city’s vast trail network, of which the ring trail is just one part. A word of caution: the maps were last printed in 1993, so some trail segments marked on the city map as incomplete are already in use.

Some stretches of the ring trail are remote, far from medical help if you need it, so hike with a partner. Also, stay on the trail. You’ll minimize your chances of stepping too close to a hidden rattle snake and will avoid trespassing on land that may, in some areas, belong to private property owners.

No trespassing: With construction underway at the vast Dos Vientos housing project, which will eventually add as many as 2,350 homes to Newbury Park, the project site is now off limits. Plans call for the ring trail to follow an existing utility road along the area’s western border, but that section too is currently closed.

Who can use the trail: The ring trail is open to hikers, bikers and equestians. Motorized vehicles--including dirt bikes and all-terrain-vehicles--are prohibited. Relatively flat trail sections that could make good hikes for children are marked on the map below.

Sources: Conejo Recreation and Park District; Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency; Researched by DAVID BAKER / Los Angeles Times