Hiking and biking can’t always safely coexist. Look at Montana de Oro

I’ve hiked the mountainous back-country trails of Montana de Oro State Park since the 1970s. What a glorious place it was, the crown jewel of Central Coast hiking, offering in return for bodily effort and slowing one’s mind-chatter a wondrous visit with God’s creatures and natural gardens, the scents of mountain, riparian forest and meadow airs, and sights made vivid by pellucid coastal light.

It was magical and transformative.

But that was then. Today hiking Montana de Oro sucks. Park bureaucrats have turned over nearly all trails to mountain bikers, and the very reasons those trails had special value for hikers have been destroyed.

Today’s hiker must “share” back-country trails with bikes, but it’s a strange and unequal notion of “sharing” when human flesh on foot must compete with fast-moving machines on trails that are narrow, blind and confined. The machine wins.

Hiking in a state park should never be inherently life-threatening, but at Montana de Oro it is. On a recent hike I was nearly propelled off a precipice by a self-obsessed biker, an event that could have been fatal. This guy was coming uphill at us, shouting to get out of his way. The trail was less than 2 feet wide, with an uphill slope on one side and a steep drop-off on the other. There was no place to step off the trail. Yet he kept coming and shouting, striking me from behind with his bike, then riding off.

He knocked me off balance, thrust me forward toward the drop-off. Had I not had two hiking poles and the quick reaction to plant them firmly in the ground in front of me, I’d have gone over the edge, been seriously injured or killed.

Hiking in a state park shouldn’t be like that.

In five hours of hiking that mid-week day, we encountered about 50 bikes. All encounters were uncomfortable at best, and having constantly to be on high alert for one distracted from hiking’s serenity.

Signs tell bikers to yield to hikers, but “yield” in practice means a biker comes up behind a hiker and shouts to clear the trail. Only three bikers yielded; they dismounted so we could safely pass. Most others forced us into trailside poison oak and rode on by.

Bikes have also made a physical mess of trail surfaces, complicating hikers’ ability to find safe footing.

But beyond safety, they’ve altered the wilderness itself. In pre-bike visits to the back-country, I’d share the trail ahead with bunnies, bobcats, foxes, coyotes, quail, rattlesnakes and other wild creatures. I never saw a cougar, but often saw evidence they were present.

Today, I see none of that. Even the characteristic marking of trails with coyote scat is absent.

What has happened at Montana de Oro represents mismanagement by park bureaucrats. The back-country trails were always hiking trails until bureaucrats allowed bikers to take them over.

So I have an equitable proposal to fix this: Allow bikes on one portion of the park, and keep the other portion for hiking only.

Until several years ago, that’s exactly how the park functioned. North of Islay Creek (where the campground is located) there were miles of trails open to bikes. South of Islay Creek there were no bikes, except on the coastal bluff trail, which being roadway-width can accommodate shared use.

Park officials need to return to this equitable split of the park. This means returning the Oats Peak trail complex to hiking only. That would not only provide equity and respect for hikers, it would also be good resource management and allow wilderness restoration through less intensive human intrusions.

It’s time to make hiking Montana de Oro great again.

Writer Richard Schmidt, 78, is a longtime resident of San Luis Obispo and an avid hiker.

This story was originally published May 17, 2022 at 6:00 AM.