Forest Service funds Arrowhead Ridge conserving forest ecosystem, public access

Stepping out of a vehicle, the trailhead is right there. The hike is a two-mile loop. The environment and landscape is filled with tall trees. The feeling is that of being in the backcountry.

Amber and Elliot Baker, visiting from Irvine, Calif., walk their pup Herbert on a paved area of the Arrowhead Ridge conservation site. The 175 acres were slated to be developed and signs of some construction remain. A hiking trail leads to higher ground where visitors get immersed in large forest trees.

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This unique woodland location is the Arrowhead Ridge site of the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust and is southwest of Lake 

Arrowhead on Grass Valley Road within the San Bernardino National Forest (SBNF) boundaries. The current 80-acre protected site is slated to receive expanded protection for an adjacent 94 acres after $1.5 million funding from the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Legacy Program. The funds will be used to acquire a conservation easement that will protect the land, Arrowhead Ridge II, from being developed; the easement will be administered by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE). The money comes to California from the Inflation Reduction Act and is administered by the Forest Service program that has existed for nearly 35 years.

One of the objectives of the Inflation Reduction Act is to expand access to conservation areas and open space to underserved communities. Arrowhead Ridge is located about 30 minutes from the Inland Empire, which is a highly urbanized area of Southern California. It is also .25 miles from the forest’s Dogwood Campground.

The Forest Legacy Program has led to the conservation of ecologically and economically significant forestlands across the nation. This year, funding has been distributed to 21 projects in 17 states, according to a news release from the USDA Forest Pacific Southwest Region. In California, three projects were selected, including the Arrowhead Ridge site.

The funding from the USDA Forest Service helps maintain public access to Arrowhead Ridge, where visitors can hike under a canopy of white fir, sugar pines, Ponderosa pines, Coulter pines and black oaks.

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Dana Walsh, Program Manager of Forest Stewardship and Forest Conservation in California State and Private Forestry, explained that a national panel evaluated submissions from organizations requesting funding for their projects.

For the Arrowhead Ridge site, the San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust applied to the program for the purpose of acquiring the conservation easement for land it had already purchased. The organization holds 175 acres total in the Arrowhead Ridge I and II sites.

Peter Jorris, Executive Director of San Bernardino Mountains Land Trust, described the landscape at Arrowhead Ridge as the finest example of southern Sierran montane forest in the San Bernardino Mountains. He gave credit to Jim Asher, a forester who has passed away, for analyzing and classifying the forest ecosystem on Arrowhead Ridge. Asher conducted a timber evaluation for the first conservation easement of the 80 acres. Jorris explained that there is a mix of trees, such as white fir, sugar pines, Ponderosa pines, Coulter pines and black oaks.

Jorris has become an expert in the area, which he has known since his youth in the 1950s when his schoolteacher father would bring the family in the summers. His father purchased a cottage in 1952 at Arrowbear (a community between Lake Arrowhead and Big Bear, Calif.) and Jorris still occupies the property. He has a lengthy and unique insight into the community and forest, which he cherishes.

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“It’s the tress, it’s the forest, it’s the whole ecosystem of these mountains that I’ve been attached to ever since my youth,” Jorris said.

 “I think it kind of gives you a sort of spiritual uplift, a kind of reconnection with nature with something that’s a little bit more cosmic than our daily lives.”

Jorris was born in Los Angeles and grew up in that metropolis, but was captivated by the San Bernardino National Forest.

“I didn’t feel fully at home with an urban environment,” Jorris said. “There was something lacking in my life and when I was able to come up to the mountains in the summertime, I felt like I was a little bit more alive. It gave me a sense of that there’s more to life than just living in a concrete jungle and going to school and sitting in classrooms, running around on playgrounds. I could enjoy that better for having had my little relief in the forest, in the summertime.”

Jorris’s devotion and work with the land trust is not only focused on conservation, but on sharing with the public the same experience he had with the forest.

“[Arrowhead Ridge] is a large enough segment to really give the public and the visitors a sense of what Lake Arrowhead really was at one time, before they overdeveloped it,” Jorris stated. “I appreciate the ability of Southern California residents to escape … and to come up here, experience a little bit of wild nature.”

Elliot and Amber Baker visited Arrowhead Ridge from Irvine, Calif., Nov. 23. They brought along their pup, Herbert, because the site allows dogs on its trails. They enjoy getting away from the city and have been traveling to Big Bear the past six years, but it was their first time at Arrowhead Ridge. The married couple, who are originally from England, appreciated that the site was being conserved.

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“It’s nice to know that this won’t be turned into houses,” Amber said about the land. “It’s so nice that you can keep this open, because it’s an escape for people, isn’t it?”

Another couple, retirees Blake Mora and Barbara MacDonald, made the trek from Hickory, N.C. They visited California to purchase a recreational vehicle and drove up the forest for a test drive and to lodge at a nearby RV park. They found Arrowhead Ridge on a hiking app and, based on many positive reviews, decided to walk the trail.

“It was beautiful with different types of trees,” Barbara said.

Blake described the trail as great, with easy and moderate sections for them. He mentioned that there weren’t many options for hiking in the Lake Arrowhead area and were interested in the site for that reason as well. He was impressed by the mass of the trees, saying that they don’t have trees of that size in North Carolina.

Blake Mora and Barbara MacDonald were visiting from Hickory, N.C. when they found Arrowhead Ridge on a hiking app and, based on many positive reviews, decided to walk the trail.

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According to a project report, because 150 wildlife species inhabit the Arrowhead Ridge II site, it is strategically positioned in that 

part of the forest watershed to preserve wildlife connectivity with the larger ecosystem, which has been partially fragmented by irregular housing patterns in the Lake Arrowhead area.

The land conservation protects key wildlife habitat for seven federal and five state species of concern, including the southern rubber boa, and lies in the Pacific Flyway for 100 bird species, according to the project report. Black bear, mule deer, mountain lion, bobcats, coyote and foxes regularly traverse the area. The California spotted owl, a Forest Service sensitive species, forages onsite. The local population cannot fly beyond the perimeter of the SBNF; protecting all existing habitat for the owl population is a key goal of the forest.

As a unique segment of a significant area of the forest, Arrowhead Ridge II provides unparalleled benefits to popular attributes of a national forest: outdoor recreation, hiking, wildlife habitat, watershed protection and inspirational open space.

Arrowhead Ridge is free and open to the public between dawn and sunset. For more information about the site visit https://sbmlt.net/the-story-of-the-ridge-2-2/. 

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