19
Jul
Trail gets final county push for completion; path between Nisene Marks, Cabrillo more than a decade in making
APTOS - Some trails are measured by distances. A planned connector between Cabrillo College and the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park is measured by years.
More than a decade in the making, the county last month approved $40,000 to finally finish a path through a 140-acre property behind Cabrillo College that advocates see as part of a link between Nisene Marks and New Brighton State Beach.
“It will be a very cool thing when it’s done. It’s taken ridiculously long, but it’s getting close to the end,” said Supervisor Ellen Pirie, who asked that the funding be included in the county’s recently completed budget.
The trail’s story stretches back more than half a century, and it predates Cabrillo College’s arrival, according to Vienna Woods neighbors. But for several years access officially has been cut off - an era that appears to be nearing an end.
Kathryn Britton, a neighbor who has advocated for the trail for years, said it’s more than a locals-only path to Soquel Drive.
“It’s much more than that. It was used by everybody up here, but it also was used by the whole community to get to the western side of Nisene Marks,” Britton said, adding that during winter months the trail acts a bypass into the park’s inner reaches.
The trail runs across property owned by developer Steve Carmichael, who in 2008 was seeking approval to build a now-completed home on the property when he granted a 16-foot-wide easement though the property.
That ended years of struggle over the trail, stretching back into the late 1990s when Carmichael jointly purchased the property with another buyer. Over the years, talks between conservation and open space groups and the owners to purchase the land never came to fruition.
Pirie said the county wants to use the California Conservation Corps to cut the trail, with volunteers doing finishing work. She hopes the work could be completed soon.
The course of the trial already is surveyed and recorded, and some see it connected to a future Highway 1 bike and pedestrian overpass in Aptos delivering trekkers to New Brighton State Beach.
But after years of waiting, Britton still sounds impatient.
“It’s just going slow. Even now it’s been a couple years after the house was built,” Britton said. “There’s no access through there. You’d like it to move faster.”
Follow Sentinel reporter Jason Hoppin on Twitter: @scnewsdude