Nightmare canyon and soon to be last chance GONE!

[Loki XJ]

Me and a couple of guys from Bakersfield trailblazers went to go run nightmare canyon Sunday and we were informed that it had been closed permanently as of October 10th 2013. from what I understand the floods destroyed the trail and made it not passable but the ranger station wouldn't give us any real answers with what's going on. They also included that last chance canyon was next on the list of closures due to the floods but when we ran it, the trail was perfectly fine... Even did a little trail cleanup during our trip.

[Desert Dog]

Heard about Nightmare gulch last week from another forum and called the park office to confirm if it was a temporary or permanent closure. I could not get a definite answer from the lady on the phone and she took down my number for her supervisor to call, which has not happened. I got the impression the park staff took it upon themselves to close the trail rather than any type of legal action forcing them to do so, but it may not be permanent. I had no idea that they plan to close Last Chance Canyon too?

I call Bullshit on their "flooding" excuse. Both of these trails are washes that flood every time it rains. We have seen years of record rainfall where both of those trails were easily navigated by mildly built Jeeps. There is no trail maintenance involved with these trails, as mother nature takes care of that with every rain. In fact, the trail is usually easier to run after a few good floods.

Has anyone verified what the Park plans to do? Since they were not directed by the courts to permanently close public land, wouldn't it be easy to get it opened up?

What really scares me is all of the "yahoos" from groups like CORVA who want to turn over open BLM wheeling areas to State Parks. This shows you how the state really feels about off-road access.

[robnoxious1]

Man this sucks, my favorite trail in the area.

[a dogs day]

4 of us ran it on OCT. 16 . Gates were open and the trail was not bad. My buddy ran it in a stock TJ on 31s.