Important Issues

Newsletter

Join Us

Map & Locations

Gallery

Hikes

Links

Home

The following is a collection of articles which appeared in the Friends of Hope Valley Newsletters over the past years. This history will provide the background concerning the Friends efforts to keep a public trail open to the public.

Fall 2004 Newsletter

Assemblyman Laird Investigates The Trail
We haven’t forgotten you. The Washoe Indians used you to access the high country. You were a route taken by Fremont and Walker in their 1840’s explorations of the Sierra. You have enabled hikers to access the Mokelumne Wilderness and Pacific Crest Trail for decades. And you have allowed families of Alpine County’s eastern Sierra slope to share beautiful Pleasant Valley with their neighbors and friends. Now a private landowner has closed access to you. Our attempts to communicate with him concerning the rights held by the public to walk along his land have been unsuccessful.
We have asked Assemblyman John Laird whether this could be an Attorney General issue. We will keep you advised.

Fall 2007 Newsletter

Pleasant Valley is a beautiful meadow in southern Alpine County, located just south of Markleeville. Pleasant Valley Trail courses along the perimeter of this meadow. This trail has enjoyed a long history of use beginning with the Washoe Indians. It was first used as a trade route between the Washoe and the Yosemite Miwok. During the silver rush in Nevada, the trail served as a way to Nevada cities from Raymond and Silver Cities. With the creation of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) in 1945, many individuals have hiked Pleasant
Valley Trail to access the PCT. Throughout their history the trail and Pleasant Valley Road have functioned as a route into the Mokelumne Wilderness. The Department of Fish and Game used the trail and road for approximately twenty years to establish and maintain a fish hatchery used to stock nearby lakes and rivers, including Pleasant Valley Creek. The trail was featured in a 1963 Sunset magazine as a trail the public could use to access Raymond Lake and fish for golden trout.
Portions of the road and trail are on land owned by ranchers who allowed the public use of the trail for many years. In August of 1999 the owner placed a gate across Pleasant Valley road, one mile from the trailhead. He was frustrated with the amount of trash people were leaving on his property and concerned that some users were abusing the meadow.
The Friends of Hope Valley has long been interested in reopening public access to Pleasant Valley Trail. The Friends has attempted to engage the owner in a discussion as to how to open the trail to the public while ensuring that his property is fully protected, but so far those efforts have been unsuccessful.

Nevertheless, the Friends believes that there is a strong legal argument that the trail is subject to a public right of way and has retained a law firm to provide it with legal counsel in support of the effort to open the trail to public access.
The owner has shown good stewardship toward the land with his grazing practices, and we look forward to working with him to resolve this issue in a way that protects both his interests and the public's right to wilderness access.

Fall 2008 Newsletter

Pleasant Valley Trail: Its Saga Continues

Readers of this newsletter are vaguely familiar with the background of the Friends of Hope Valley’s attempts to reopen Pleasant Valley Trail to the public, a trail we believe was closed illegally by a rancher whose property a portion of the trail crosses. Below is a brief summary of the events leading to the present.
The Friends has been struggling with the unlawful closure to the public of Pleasant Valley Trail, a trail in a central Alpine County valley with its trailhead southwest of Markleeville, since 1999 when a well-respected rancher, Fredrick Dressler, placed a gate across the county road leading to Pleasant Valley. Portions of its road and trail cross Dressler family property. He was frustrated with individuals abusing his valley’s meadow and trail.
Throughout its history the trail has functioned as an access point into the Mokelumne Wilderness, and since 1945, to the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT). There is long history of public trail use - a trail that was a Washoe trading route. Historians believe that John Fremont may have used a portion of this trail to cross the Sierra; during the Nevada Silver Rush, the trail served as a route to Nevada cities. The Department of Fish and Game used the trail for approximately twenty years to establish and maintain a fish hatchery and to stock nearby Pleasant Valley Creek. There has also been a many-decades-long history of recreational use of the trail. The trail was featured in a 1963 Sunset Magazine as a trail the public could use to access Raymond Lake and fish for golden trout. This is reflected on numerous recreational trail maps of the region. The history of extended and continuous public use is more than sufficient, we believe, to show an implied public dedication of the trail for public use under longstanding California law. Our greatest concern is the impact the closure has had on PCT hikers seeking assistance.
Shortly after the trail’s closure the Friends met with members of the Dressler family and discussed options to keep the trail open, alternatives they rejected. They had not responded to our letters … until this year.

Spring 2009

The Case to Reopen Pleasant Valley Trail
Despite FHV’s extensive efforts over several years, it has been unable to reach a compromise with the Dresslers that would allow a limited public trail easement in Pleasant Valley. As a result, FHV is poised to file a lawsuit against the Dresslers to ensure that the public’s right of access to the trail is recognized and the public is again allowed to use the trail. The lawsuit would ask a judge to recognize that the public’s extensive and diverse use of the trail over the past century has given rise to a public easement over the trail that the Dresslers cannot legally interfere with. It would seek an injunction to prevent the Dresslers from blocking access to the trail in the future.

Trail runs in front of the sign then off to the right hugging the slope of the mountains and the floor of the valley.
We are eager to record the memories of anyone who has used the scenic trails that pass along side of and through Pleasant Valley, leading into the Mokulomne Wilderness and up to the Pacific Crest Trail.

Spring 2010

THE LITTLE MOUSE THAT ROARED

FOHV’s US District Court Trial Date Set
More than ten years after the Dressler family closed trails through Pleasant Valley – trails used by the public for hundreds years to access the Alpine County high country, including the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) and the Mokelumne Wilderness Area – the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California has set a jury trial date of January 11, 2011 for FOHV v. Frederick Company, et al.
Currently FOHV is engaged in a time- and resource-intensive process of pre-trial discovery, which must be completed by August 6, 2010. As the trial date approaches, FOHV is in need of both additional witnesses for the case who used the trails before and during the 1970s and financial support for its legal efforts.
The trails were closed in 1999. During the years following the trails’ closure, FOHV tried to persuade the landowner to voluntarily reopen these trails for public use. For eight years all efforts to come to an amicable resolution were rebuffed. With no other recourse, FOHV filed a lawsuit in an effort to reopen the trails.
FOHV has engaged the eminent San Francisco environmental law firm Shute, Mihaly & Weinberger LLP (SMW) in pursuing the goal of reopening the closed trails to the public. Attorneys Matthew Zinn of SMW and Rod Kerr of Kerr & Wagstaffe LLP filed the lawsuit on FOHV’s behalf.
FOHV’s position is that the long history of continuous public use of the trails in Pleasant Valley has created by implied dedication public easements where the trails cross private land. There is ample evidence demonstrating lengthy historical use. Washoe tribes used the trails to access the high country. A map drawn by a state judge in 1864 depicts a trail running through Pleasant Valley, as do USGS topographic maps of the region.
If you or someone you know enjoyed visiting Pleasant Valley during or before the 1970s, please send this information to info@hopevalleyca.com or to the address below. It is crucial that we identify as many witnesses as possible to demonstrate that Pleasant Valley was widely used by the public during these years.
FOHV is also reaching out to organizations and individuals who are like-minded for donations to fund the continuing pursuit of victory in this lawsuit.

to top