Urgent Spider Lake Closure

It appears that the camping area by Spider is closed for 120 days (or recommended to be closed). This just happened today and nothing is sure but you guys might want to keep in mind when planning the event. Unfortunately Del seems to be out of contact at this point but this has been confirmed with the forest service people.

Re: Urgent

Old news to me.
Really unfortunate that there's some irresponsabe mother$%&*@#! out there.

Re: Urgent

Jes said:

Old news to me.
Really unfortunate that there's some irresponsabe mother$%&*@#! out there.

Click to expand...

I figured quite a few know already about it (and I think I saw you on the FOTR list at one point or another) but I didn't see any info here and well... the event is in just over a month so it might be worth to take that into account.

So what's the deal?

Goatman said:

So what's the deal?

Click to expand...

Memorandum
To: Mike Gray, El Dorado County Division of Airports Parks & Grounds
cc: Supervisor Jack Sweeney, Rich Platt, U.S. Forest Service, Mark
Smith & the Rubicon Oversight
Committee
From: Steve Peterson and Eve Kliszewski
Date: Thursday, July 8, 2004
Re: Rubicon Trail Project - Recommendation to Close Public Access to
Spider Lake
As you know, the ESP project team is currently completing resource
evaluations of the Rubicon Trail and adjacent, related recreational use areas. Our observations of resource abuse and environmental impacts at the Spider Lake area over the past five weeks prompt us to provide you with interim information and management recommendations.
Damage to Habitat Our surveys of 2004 use of the Rubicon Trail in the vicinity of Spider Lake indicate that vehicles are continually straying from the designated Trail and its variant, the Little Sluice Bypass, in the vicinity
of Spider Lake.
Specific impacts include sawing and burning of healthy, mature trees,
construction of numerous rock fire rings, numerous oil spills, and vehicle track damage to a variety of habitats, including stream, wet meadow and seasonal wetland areas adjacent to the Spider Lake outflow. Feces and Garbage
We continue to observe increasing amounts of human feces, toilet paper
and sanitary napkins at the northern and northeastern shore of the Lake. This problem has gotten significantly worse since it was first observed in May of this year, and has been exacerbated by the periodic use of a metal
outhouse that has been tipped over and righted in the past week.
The concentration of untreated, uncontrolled human waste generates a
disgusting stench and poses a significant health hazard.
ESP collected water quality samples in and adjacent to Spider Lake on
July 1, 2004 (before the 4th of the July weekend) and on July 6th to determine if these human waste impacts are evident in local waters. We are awaiting the laboratory results of these investigations will transmit the conclusions of this set of samples in the coming week.

There is a lot more available on the FOTR mailing list (Friends of the Rubicon)

So how will this closer effect the run? Are there other destinations that we can camp? Just need to make sure we will still be able to continue pretty much acording to planned. I am really looking forward to seeing northen Cali. It's just to bad there are arssholes out there who don't have any respect for anything or anyone.
Mike

Big Bear said:

So how will this closer effect the run? Are there other destinations that we can camp? Just need to make sure we will still be able to continue pretty much acording to planned. I am really looking forward to seeing northen Cali. It's just to bad there are arssholes out there who don't have any respect for anything or anyone.
Mike

Click to expand...

It will effect the run in that we won't be ablt to camp at Spyder lake. I guess the first day will just have to be a long one and we'll continue on down to Buck Island Lake, which happens to be my favorite place to camp.

Jes

Agreed, we'll go all the way to Buck on Monday.

CRASH

If it's worth anything to you guys, I just did the con last week, and we camped at spider lake, but one of the caretakers, Merlin, told us that we would be the last group to stay there, and they were closing it right after we left. I didn't think it looked too bad, there was only few spots that were frequently used as toilets that were pretty nasty. But we should of course respect the land owner's wishes. AFAIK, Buck Island lake is still open to camping and it's only a little more than an hour further if you take the slab, probably 2 hours if you take the sluice.

just so you guys know, the Little Sluice is open, but pretty damn hard right now (I made it but with some carnage). There are closure signs starting just a stones throw from Little Sluice. There's lots of talk and information here: http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&daysprune=10&f=29