by guest » Thu May 30, 2013 8:43 am
Hi,
For what it's worth, 3 of us, (1 from Trails Council, 1 from BLM, 1 from PS Mounted Police) put the old warning sign up at 1,750 ft. way back, can't remember when. I was a VP on the Trails Council, now defunct & replaced by other groups like Coachella Valley Trails Coalition.
Mounted Police wanted to minimize the amount of rescues that were happening, (even back then), so we consulted with other agencies & groups & came up with the sign. After some reluctance, (I'd imagine liability had something to do with it),even the State park decided it was a good idea to place the 12 essentials & the fact that people have died on the sign.
I chose to put it in an area not visible from the bottom, to not attract attention (by those finding out the route went all the way to tram, and hiking it without adequate preparation, etc.).
Not hear to argue about the best way to deal with the increased rescues & death's. Posts all over the web, including GPS coordinates, Perry's C2C site & all the other info, and we're at the place we are now. Of course there's a ton more people hiking the route today, but I'm also seeing a lot more ill-prepared hikers, and ego-peak-baggers on it then I did 10-20 yrs ago. Everyone's going to make their own assessment of what's best, and I realize almost all the folks on the board are well intentioned & want to make it safer.
The sign was placed in several ft. with cement & post-driver, so someone had to really work to remove it, (so my guess is BLM may have had something to do with it).
The new sign at the bottom was placed there to honor John Hollinger, founding member of PS Mounted police, and a few arrows to keep folks off the private property.
Strongly worded info at the bottom may help, but also can have the potential of alerting Museum trail hikers that Skyline even exists, they-by increasing the #'s on the trail, and possible rescue's.
One thing for sure, things would be a lot different if cell coverage wasn't as good as it is on this route.
Happy & safe hiking,
ss