Tour of the Thun Trail

Along the Thun Trail. From gil.cva34's Berks County page.
Hey Berks County runners, et al: Thun Trail has been the site of a few highly publicized crimes and this has unfortunately made it underutilized. There's a security effort being put in place, reported here.

This is one good way to encourage people to use the trail. A year and a half ago when I was home I ran from Victor Emmaneul's down to Gibraltar and didn't see a single other soul. Truth be told, I was more worried about hunters thinking I was a deer than some bad actor thinking I was a target. Just now I went to crimemapping.com (a great tool when you base your safety on data rather than rumors) and in the last 6 months, found only one possible violent crime along the trail rather than in a nearby town. Being in the tiny hamlet of Gibraltar was far more dangerous. And Gibraltar's pretty quiet.

Here's another thought to popularize the trail: a volksmarch. One version of this tradition is basically groups of families setting out for a long walk and stopping at small villages along the war for a nice bier. It could start at Trooper Thorn, stop at the Naomi Hotel, and end up at Player's in Birdsboro (for example). Positives:

1) it's not about drinking, it's about having a nice time, and the kids would have a blast (but the adults could relax and the bar/restaurants would benefit from the business;
2) safety in numbers;
3) would require very little organization; Just a few families to agree on a date, with one or two people leaving cars at the end to deliver everyone back.
4) in keeping with Berks County's German heritage!
5) people will think of the Thun Trail in a different light. Guaranteed it will be a lot of wholesome fun and grow next year if people want it to.

Seems like an idea that fits summer or late spring...

From the Schuylkill River Trail's website.


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There Is an Army of Searchers: A Small, Very Well-Trained Army.

As with many things in life, more does not equal better. I had been wondering about whether us distance runners could put our proclivities to productive uses by offering ourselves as a standing army of searchers when there's a missing person case. The person I just spoke to at the Sheriff's office explained that while it's nice that the public wants to get involved (as in the Chelsea King and Amber Dubois searches), just having a lot of untrained people stamping around a potential emergency or crime scene isn't beneficial.

That means it's not a question of just signing up for an email alert and being part of "real" search operations. But, if you do want that training and you're willing to put in the time, you can certainly join the real SAR team. The Sheriff's Department does have training programs (call (619) 956-4990 to get the application) but you have to show serious commitment: starting in January, they have a boot camp requiring 200 hours of training, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings. There's another group, San Diego Mountain Rescue, that (apparently) has a less intensive training schedule and that's having their annual recruitment meeting on 8 September, 7-9pm at the Mission Trails visitor center.

Search Organizations

Motivated by the missing person case that's going on right now (see article before this one), I called up the SD County Sheriff's office, and yes there is already a program for people who want to volunteer with their Search and Rescue group at various levels (varying from administrative to rescuer to almost-deputized.)

They certainly seem to have an outstanding record to be proud of, but there is still the slight problem that whoever wrote the text on their main page doesn't seem to understand separation of church and state (at the bottom of this page). Kind of a bummer to think they would want to exclude non-religious San Diegans from helping their neighbors.

Missing Person Right Now, and No "Searcher Army"

This situation is ready-made for the army of runners pre-trained in organized search methods that I mentioned just a couple days ago. A mentally disabled woman has been missing in unincorporated El Cajon since last night.

A Standing Army of Lost-Person Searchers?

It seems that once or twice a year, there's someone lost or missing in a park or wilderness or canyon, and there's a general call for people to help with the search.

It seems that the runners and riders of the world could really help out here, and many have already. The issue is that a) there is no central place for such announcements to be made, i.e. there's no Bat Signal for long-distance search teams; and b) search-and-rescue does require specific knowledge and training.

If it doesn't already exist in the area (I'm relatively new to San Diego) it seems that there's an opportunity here for us to make our fitness and love of the outdoors more useful. Imagine if many or most of the runners and riders in the area had already volunteered for a few hours of basic search-and-rescue training on some Saturday in the past. The next time the Bat Signal goes up (text messages, RSS feeds, cascaded on Meetups and at athletic stores) then bang, the search authority has a few hundred new pairs of hands (and legs) that actually know what they're doing. Granted, emergencies don't always happen on the weekend and not everyone can drop what they're doing at 2pm on a Tuesday when there's a lost hiker or missing person - but some could, and that's better than nothing.

Does this already exist and I'm re-inventing the wheel? (If so, how do I get the training?) Or if not, does this sound like a useful idea?

Rides to Trailheads for One-Way Runs/Hikes/Rides

Oftentimes I'll find myself thinking "I'd really like to do a one-way run on Trail XYZ, but I can't find anyone to drop me off and wait for a few hours to pick me up." Then I'll see someone on trail and wonder if they were doing it the other direction or the same direction. All that kept our respective one-way runs or hikes from happening was that we didn't know each other. I assume this happens a lot to people that do trails on their own.

But that's why we have Intarweb! There are various carshares and rideboards online along the spectrum of commercialness and formality. Why not for this? (Or does it already exist? If so, enlighten me.) I'm a web idiot and I'm in medical school, so if anyone does set this up, it won't be me. But it would be WAY cool because it would solve this problem and you'd meet people, and here's what it might look like:

1) Prescreening of participants. You want to have some accountability so it's not just hitchhiking and the only difference between the creepy guy picking you up on I-5 and the creepy guy picking you up at the trailhead is that the latter was able to sign up for an anonymous email. Maybe make it reference-based at the beginning like Gmail. Maybe use a phone call-back feature like some web services do. Large group meetings in advance work well but they also take time that people don't have.

2) Track features offered by ridesharers. Imagine a checklist on the sign-up. Some people will want a child seat in the car, or a bike rack, or a driver who doesn't mind dogs. For safety, some people might like to have someone else with them while they do the trail.

3) Enforce karma. For those people with cars, it won't do to have one core of nice people constantly offering rides, and other folks never returning the favor. The system could track who gives and who receives. Another possibility is that people could trade on their own - "Sure, I'll do it for $10." "Sure, I'll do it for five power bars. "Since I'm a landscaper, I'll trim your rosebushes for three rides."

Just a thought. It would also be great for people traveling, who could learn about the cool trails before they even show up.

Trail Adoption Programs in San Diego?

Riverside County now has an Adopt-a-Trail program; apparently works the same as the Adopt-a-Highway programs we're already familiar with.

This is awesome. One of the most frustrating things about trails in San Diego County, especially the canyons, is that a lot of people seem to disrespect them and litter a lot. I think we could use this program here. (Again, if there's some form of it in action, let me know so I can volunteer!) I volunteer in advance for Rose Canyon. Except I bet Debbie at Friends of Rose Canyon is in line in front of me. Plus, you don't want those hippie socialist jerks up in Northern California to be better than you at policing their parks? Cause guess what. Right now they are. Come on!

A Rose Canyon crossing. Image credit to Shirla P.

Ideas for Trailhead Car Break-in Map?

For all my belly-aching about mountain lions, the thing that I legitimately worry most about while I'm out running trails is some *sshole breaking into my car at the trailhead while it's sitting there for a few hours in a remote rural area. You frequently see signs at trailheads warning you not to leave valuable in your cars, but it still ends up being an anxiety I'd rather not carry with me on trail, and I'm sure others out there feel the same.

So - is there such a thing as an online trailhead break-in map? Most of us have looked at city crime maps to see the distribution of violent and property crime and which street corners to stay away from, but what I'd really like to see is a trailhead break-in map with content input by users. Because the Oakland Police Department never put up such a system like Berkeley and other cities have, private citizens have created exactly this for Oakland. This would be great for trailheads - you would know which ones are really the most likely to be hit, you could tell when there's an uptick in a certain area, and it would be easy to see if there are certain areas generating a lot of car burglars, if the parks proximate to them are often hit. It would also be a good resource for EBRPD and EBMUD as well as the local police. Does anything like this exist already? Not just a Yahoo group, but an actual map. How hard would it be to set up?

One other possible use - I can't tell you how many times I've seen someone hanging around a parking area in the middle of the day behaving suspiciously, and a few times I've gone so far as to write the license plate down (I just did this tonight at Valle Vista staging area) - but of course I'm hesitant about making such information public because it could turn into a guilty-until-proven-innocent witch hunt. Any thoughts?