Photograph by Paul Myers
Teri Baron stands on the Parker Ranch Tank Trail, where she coordinated the repair of a landslide that washed out the pathway.
Trailblazer Baron is stepping aside
After half a decade, it's time for someone new
By Oakley Brooks
Winding down Chiquita Way, in the city's western foothills, Teri Baron points out the latest victory in her campaign for trails in the area.
Local landowner David House has agreed to allow a trail spur to run through a large canyon on his property and connect with the Parker Ranch trail system.
Baron's successful negotiations with House will mean more hikers and horseback riders in the Pierce Road area can access Fremont Older Open Space Preserve higher in the Saratoga-area foothills.
Just below the House property, Baron drives past a home where some oleanders along a front curb sit in a trail right-of-way.
"I don't know what I'll do here," says Baron. "I'll probably just have people walk out in the road.
"If something's blocked a trail for a significant amount of time, I don't push it. I try for another alternative."
For the last six years, Baron, 45, has gently but firmly been prodding the city and landowners to protect and expand neighborhood trails in the western foothills. A former escrow office manager and an active equestrian, she has vigilantly watched development and property turnover in the area to make sure paths are not lost. She's rallied local Girl and Boy Scout troops to maintain trails. And she's even convinced the city to set aside $50,000 annually over the next four years for repairs and upgrades.
"She has been a real tiger," says Bill Brooks, a local trail user. "We would be looking at a real mess had she not been as involved as she was."
Brooks was the previous incarnation of the master of Saratoga's trails, beginning in the late 1980s. He and his family worked to hold onto and improve routes in the Mount Eden Valley, as development filled in that area.
But just as Brooks passed the mantle to Baron in the mid-1990s, Baron is now looking to hand off her leadership role, to spend some more time with her family.
Between heading up the 200-member Saratoga Trail Enthusiasts, working as trail patrol and crew leader with the Midpeninsula Open Space District and acting as the city's citizen liaison for trails, Baron has turned advocacy into a full-time job.
"I could work on trails 24/7," she says. "Now it's time for somebody to take over this. I've gotten this ball rolling now."
When Baron first took on trail advocacy in Saratoga, she says trails had fallen off city leadership's priority list.
Photograph by Paul Myers
Trail advocate Teri Baron says that 'it's time for someone else to take over.'
Although a master plan laying out the trail designations in the city, active or unmarked, had been updated in 1991, funding shortages in the city around 1993 limited support for recreation, Baron says.
"I wanted to bring trails back to their attention, because it's a great asset," she says.
One of Baron's first, and longest, projects involved repairing the Parker Ranch Tank Trail, which was washed out in a rainstorm in 1996 and was impassable to horses and treacherous for hikers.
Original bids from local contractors ran more than $100,000 for the repair, and for several years the trail sat uncleared. But Baron found a trail specialist in Tahoe City who finally fixed the section in November 2001, for around $16,000.
Baron has engineered other improvements. She struck a deal with a Mount Eden Road property owner to have a trail re-established across the front of his land, in exchange for a new culvert to contain Calabazas Creek, which had washed out his property. And she has worked with owners to shift trails around on different lots to accommodate new landscaping, pools and the like.
"She has pretty good relations with landowners so she's able to get that private sèance with them," says Parks Commissioner Nick Seroff, who has worked with Baron on trails issues.
Negotiating works with about 95 percent of residents, Baron says, but she has to work on the remaining few worried about yard traffic and liability. Baron counters that landowners are not liable for users of public trails on their land, and she stresses again and again that the paths are for neighbors only, with little signage or parking to entice non-Saratogans.
Keeping on top of trail designations as property turns over is an equally tough task. "Hard" designations, or easements, run with the land title and are legally protected, but those aren't necessarily looked after by developers or remodeling homeowners.
"Soft" easements, used but not officially designated, present another challenge for trail enthusiasts, who must convince landowners to keep the path or figure out how to relocate a segment.
"Often you're beating your head against the wall," says Brooks. "You're saying the same thing over and over again. It's not rocket science, but [advocating] has to be done every time another easement comes up."
To make Saratogans aware of easements on their property, the city's parks and recreation commission is currently working on updating its master plan map. The new map will show existing trails as well as undeveloped easements.
Parks Commissioner Logan Deimler is also trying to expand trail opportunities for mountain bikers. All of the current neighborhood trails in the western foothills are designed for hikers and horseback riders. Deimler says he's looking at the possibility of improving routes along Prospect Road to allow bikers to get safely to Fremont Older Preserve.
Baron will be handing over her extensive file on easements for the mapping exercise, and she'll be lending a hand when needed. But she'll be phasing out of the liaison role, and leaving a big hole behind.
"Being enthusiastic, having time and the expertise--you don't get this combination very often," says Deimler. "She'll be sorely missed."
Saratoga, California Since 1955
