The trails on Mt Baldy have reopened following the deaths of three hikers who fell from a snow-covered ridge last month in what investigators believe were two unrelated incidents.
This does not mean that conditions are safe, warned the agency responsible for managing rescues there: Snow, ice, limited visibility and the potential for sudden storms persist.
Twenty-three people have died on the mountain outside Los Angeles over the past decade, and crews have responded to 345 search-and-rescue calls on its slopes, the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said in a news release that criticized the US Forest Service, which manages the area, for not doing more to prevent injuries and deaths.
“The frequency of rescues our department is involved in the year, and the lack of concern for what is happening on Mt. Baldy by those who are responsible for maintaining the safety of visitors needs to be addressed,” San Bernardino County Sheriff Shannon Dicus said in a statement. “For the past several years, our department has been trying to have the US Forest Service more involved in keeping people safe while they are recreating on Mt Baldy.”
Dicus said he continued to meet with representatives from the agency and Congress to express his concerns. In the past, he has asked the Forest Service to temporarily close the mountain during unsafe weather conditions, and to establish a permitting process to track the number of hikers and educate them about the risks they face. San Bernardino County supervisors still support those measures, Supervisor Dawn Rowe said recently.
The Forest Service did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment on the sheriff’s statement. The agency recently said it was evaluating a range of options to improve visitor safety as part of an effort to manage visitor use, and that it already closes trails when conditions warrant. “When considering closure, we must balance public safety with continued public access,” a Forest Service Region 5 spokesperson wrote in a Jan. 6 email.
The Forest Service also said signs warning of extreme weather conditions and recommending winter mountaineering gear and training are posted at several high-use recreation spots, including the trailheads for Icehouse Canyon, Bear Canyon and Devil’s Backbone, the steep ridgeline route where hikers collapsed and died last month.
Read more: When Devil’s Backbone Trail claimed another young Mt Baldy adventurer, this is what the world lost
Instantly recognizable as the backdrop to the LA skyline, Mt. Baldy attracts both experienced and novice hikers to its picturesque alpine trails. However some of those trails, most notably the Devil’s Backbone, can become deceptively difficult in the winter, transforming from moderate hikes into dangerous mountain routes that require specialized equipment and training.
Marcus Muench Casanova, a 19-year-old college student home on winter break, slipped and fell on the afternoon of Dec. 29 as he walked near the south slope of Mt. Harwood days after winter storms dumped snow and rain that hardened into ice, his family said. While trying to find him, search helicopters happened upon the bodies of two other men, 37-year-old Juan Sarat Lopez and 36-year-old Bayron Pedro Ramos Garcia, who had previously been seen walking together.
High winds initially prevented crews from elevating the men, but later that evening, investigators confirmed that all three had died. They were believed to have fallen on the same day, along the same section of the trail.
After the tragedy, Casanova’s parents spoke out to remember their son as an exceptionally kind and adventurous young man and to warn others about the dangers of hiking the trail in winter without a helmet, ax and crampons.
The Sheriff’s Department encouraged anyone considering a hike on Mt. Baldy to “carefully assess conditions, carry appropriate equipment, and understand one’s personal limits.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.