Rubicon Trail advocate, John Arenz on Episode 300

This week, Rich sits down with Rubicon Trail Foundation board member and Rubicon property owner, John Arenz. From high-adventure Scouting and early days as an EMT/paramedic in Oakland to a 30-year fire service career in Emeryville, John shares how the Rubicon became his lifelong anchor—every summer since 1983.

Along with his personal history, John Arenz shares the Rubicon Trail Foundations stance on the re-route – why it’s necessary and who’s in charge. With John’s history, he goes in-depth into the politics surrounding the Rubicon Trail.

Transcript

[00:00:05.100] 

Welcome to Conversations with Big Rich. This is an interview-style podcast. Those interviewed are all involved in the off-road industry. Being involved, like all of my guests are, is a lifestyle, not just a job. I talk to past, present, and future legends, as well as business owners, employees, media, and land use warriors, men and women who have found their way into this exciting and addictive lifestyle we call off-road. We discuss their personal history, struggles, successes, and reboots. We dive into what drives them to stay active and off-road. We all hope to shed some light on how to find a path into this world that we live and love and call off-road.

[00:00:46.400] 

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[00:01:12.520] - Big Rich Klein

From high adventure scouting to becoming a Paramedic. My guest this week found a love for the Rubicon at a young age. My guest is an RTF board member and property owner on the Rubicon, John Arenz. John Arenz, so good to have you on the podcast. Lots to talk about, not only your history, but also some of the programs that you are working with and things that are coming up in the future. So how are you doing today?

[00:01:41.940] - John Arenz

I'm doing great, Rich. It's good to talk to you. Yeah. Thanks for having me on.

[00:01:45.100] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, no problem. I remember when I met you face to face, that I remember, was during the winter closure, and we went into the board of supervisors meeting, and you said you were glad to see me there, but that we didn't always see eye to eye on things. And I looked at you and I thought, who is this guy? And I went, and you are? And you said, John Arenz. And I said, you're right, we haven't.

[00:02:24.160] - John Arenz

And that's historical. I mean, we both go back a bit. Back in the pirate four by four days when people were arguing about Rubicon and outcomes and how things should look there, we didn't see eye to eye. Sometimes we did, Sometimes we didn't, but we were both very adamant.

[00:02:47.840] - Big Rich Klein

Yes. Yes. And just to set the record straight, I was one of those that felt that we should sue, sue, sue, sue, and not give up an inch.

[00:02:58.500] - John Arenz

And And for the record, I was a director of RTF, and RTF's stance and mine at the time was that we should... That suing always had an outcome, but you never knew what it was going to be, and that a more sure outcome was to work with the agencies and try and get the most we could and keep Rubicon open.

[00:03:22.060] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Differences of opinion, but it's okay. Now we see eye to eye on a lot more things.

[00:03:30.000] - John Arenz

I think that's true. And I think that the more passionate people are about something, the more vehement their disagreements are. And I think that's okay, too.

[00:03:43.760] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, absolutely God knows that there's a lot of people that, that, ultimately, disagree with me all the time. So let's start at the beginning. Where were you born and raised?

[00:03:58.900] - John Arenz

I was born and raised in San Diego, California, and lived there through my high school years and late teen years, and was pursuing a career in At that time, trying to be a paramedic, and I moved to LA for a year. By that time, when I graduated from paramedic school, I was 20 years old and changed. I knew about Rubicon. When they recruited me... At that time, it was hard to find paramedics, so anybody who graduated from paramedic school was recruited. I was recruited by, just like everybody else in my class, was recruited by a number of ambulance companies all over the state of California, because at that time, that certification was a statewide certification. I I literally picked the ambulance company that was closest to the Rubicon and took the job there.

[00:05:05.800] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, perfect. Where was that located at?

[00:05:08.980] - John Arenz

That was Santa Rosa. I lived in Santa Rosa for a couple of years and then realized that I was spending my time off from being a paramedic in the winter in the Sierra skiing, and in the summer in the Sierra's in Rubicon. The smart move was to move somewhere that was halfway in between my job in the Bay Area and the Lake Tahoe area, so I moved to Placerville.

[00:05:43.540] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And that was about when?

[00:05:48.240] - John Arenz

Let me think about this. '83.

[00:05:54.800] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And let's talk about some of those early years, while you're going to school and stuff in San Diego. Were you a good student, or were you one of those that looked out the window waiting to get out of class?

[00:06:13.800] - John Arenz

Well, I don't want to say I was a high school dropout, because that implies that I filled out a piece of paper that said I wasn't going to come back anymore, and I got offered to take a GED, and that they closed out the books. I just stopped going to school.

[00:06:31.720] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, really?

[00:06:33.400] - John Arenz

Yeah. Never finished, just didn't finish high school. So no, I was not a good student.

[00:06:41.920] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, that's where I was going with the next question. And what did you do instead of going to school? What drove that?

[00:06:54.340] - John Arenz

What did I do? I probably mostly got high and went to the beach.

[00:06:57.730] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:07:01.100] - John Arenz

I wasn't a particularly good student of life either at that point. I went to work, did different jobs, worked as a mechanic I worked as... Started driving trucks. About the time that I got interested in being an EMT and being a paramedic, I was the guy who could do well in school, but I had to be interested in it. At that time, I couldn't just slog through it. I was not built for that. I was driving an 18-wheeler at age 18 and just locked my way into that job and decided I wanted to be an EMT, went to EMT school and started working on... Quit the trucking job and went to work on the ambulance.

[00:08:00.160] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And what work did your parents do?

[00:08:06.860] - John Arenz

My dad was in the Navy, and my mom was a stay-at-home mom, although before she had kids, she was a middle school teacher.

[00:08:18.620] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:08:21.720] - John Arenz

And- Taught English and art.

[00:08:24.640] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And what things as a family did you guys do outside of your normal life? I mean, vacations or were there guys go camping or anything like that?

[00:08:40.920] - John Arenz

My parents were big travelers, but not big campers. So I traveled a lot with them, went to Alaska, and I went to Europe with them when I was an early teenager. I went to a lot. They took me all over the place, and They drove. My mom, my dad worked full-time and had a limited amount of time off. But in the summer, my mom would pack us in the car, and we'd drive. I rode all over the United States before I was 15 and had been to probably maybe half of the States or more by that time because my mom liked to do that. And it was my brother and my sister and I in the station wagon with curdled milk in a crappy thermos, and drove around and stayed in cheap hotels and looked at stuff.

[00:09:38.180] - Big Rich Klein

Cool. That should have been pretty interesting.

[00:09:44.520] - John Arenz

It was. And we didn't have a ton of money. I don't know if we had money or not. We didn't spend a ton of money. And we had clothes to wear and food to eat, but there was nothing fancy going on. And so that's just what we did in the summer. My grandparents lived in Georgia, and we would make our way to Georgia slowly and make our way back from Georgia slowly, just about every summer. Okay.

[00:10:16.360] - Big Rich Klein

And while you were in San Diego, what did you do personally besides hanging out at the beach and getting stoned? Was there anything else that you were interested in?

[00:10:30.200] - John Arenz

Well, I was a Boy Scout. And the reason I got interested in that, really, was because the Boy Scout troop that I was connected with was heavily... Boy Scout troops back then were labeled. They were Sea Scouts, or they were agriculture, or whatever. I was attracted to what was called a high adventure troop. We did a lot of backpacking and canoed down the Colorado River and backpack in the Sierras. That's when and where I really learned about the high Sierra and pine forests and high altitude living. I think that laid the groundwork for me being attracted to Rubicon.

[00:11:24.420] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Very similar to me. Scouting really opened up my eyes to the outdoors, and especially backpacking all over, well, the Point Rays area, the Sierras. We used to do 10 to 15 day backpacking trips, 100 miles, 150 miles trips.

[00:11:52.030] - John Arenz

By the time I was 15, I had backpacked the entire John Muret trail.

[00:11:58.640] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, wow. Okay.

[00:12:00.000] - John Arenz

Great. So spent a lot of time on the east side of the Sierras, and the Muret is on the west side of the Sears a little bit, too.

[00:12:06.240] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So then did the Boy Scouts lead you astray with the the wacky tobacco there?

[00:12:19.620] - John Arenz

Well, you know what happened with that? Boy Scouts, we were a high adventure. We were a high adventure troupe. Obviously, they discourage I would encourage that and drinking and all that stuff. But the friends I made there were people I hung out with at school and that stuff. They were like most teenagers in the '70s, and we drink some beer and we go high. I quit doing that when I decided I was going to be an EMT, and they said, So you don't do drugs, do you? I'm like, Why And that was the minute that I quit, because I knew that I was going to get random drug tested, and going to get caught, and going to lose my job, and that was important to me. I had found a vocation that was important to me. Cool.

[00:13:14.260] - Big Rich Klein

And how did you find that? Was it a TV show?

[00:13:19.520] - John Arenz

Well, maybe I think back in those days, Emergency was on TV. I don't know if you remember that. Yes. But that was in 1975. The business of being a paramedic, the physical learning, invention of that job was 1972. That show was 1975. I became an EMT in 1978. I became a paramedic in 1980. I was a pretty early paramedic. I was influenced by that show, by John Gage and Roy DeSotto. I I've always been the person who's been attracted to stuff that's exciting. I didn't want to be an accountant. I want to sit behind a desk. To me, that was a job that required some skill and some smarts, but was different all the time, and sometimes it was exciting. So that appealed to me.

[00:14:20.520] - Big Rich Klein

Okay, cool. And when you were working in the Santa Rosa area, or living in, I guess you're working in the Santa Rosa area, how long did you have that job for?

[00:14:35.180] - John Arenz

Oh, I don't know, about a year, a year and a half or something like that. And without going into it too much, I mean, I'll go into it as much as you want. I just don't want to take a lot of time to do that here. Without going into it too much, I had a disagreement with my boss about how to safely maintain in an ambulance. We had a difference of opinion about that that got fairly adamant. My boss told me, You haven't done anything wrong. I'm not going to fire you, but you should be looking for another job. I don't think you're a great fit here. I went to work in Alameda County. At that time, Alameda County had no paramedic program. I was one of the first. They started their paramedic program by hiring six paramedics and having them certify each other. That was Alameda County's paramedic program. We went to work in the city of Oakland, and the program expanded from there. I was one of the first medics in Alameda County. At that time, because there were only six medics that meant there was only two on duty for the entire city of Oakland.

[00:16:03.660] - John Arenz

For a few months there, until they hired more, there were two on duty for the entire city of Oakland. You just ran. You ran with EMPs and ran from call to call to call until one was a paramedic level call, and then you would ride in with that and then run more calls until you found it until another one came along. And that only lasted for a few months, but for a few months there, I was running 30, 40 calls a day.

[00:16:27.920] - Big Rich Klein

Wow.

[00:16:28.880] - John Arenz

I mean, it was And a lot of conflict injuries? They had a very active knife and gun club. Yeah. Yes.

[00:16:43.760] - Big Rich Klein

That's a good way of putting it. You know what I meant.

[00:16:46.720] - John Arenz

Yeah. It was the 1980s. And at that... Oakland's been through multiple drug scenes, if you will. In the '70s, it was hallucinogenics, and it was a flopover from Berkeley and hallucinogenics and pot. In the '80s, it was mostly heroin. In the '90s, it was crack. All of that came with internal strife. So the gangs in the city of Oakland were trying to take over business and turf. So in the '80s, when I worked on the ambulance in Oakland, it was heroine wars, and they were literally fighting each other, shooting each other, and stabbing each other over heroine.

[00:17:35.860] - Big Rich Klein

And it wasn't safe to roll out on some of those calls, I would imagine as well.

[00:17:39.980] - John Arenz

It was not. Most of us, or many of us, I should say, I don't know about most. Many of us wore body armor, and many of us carried it. We weren't supposed to.

[00:17:53.060] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Okay. So you're in Alameda County for You said just about a year?

[00:18:02.960] - John Arenz

Well, I was an Alameda County paramedic working for a private ambulance service in West Oakland. Okay. Yeah.

[00:18:09.820] - Big Rich Klein

All right. And what came after that?

[00:18:13.960] - John Arenz

Well, While I was working there, a buddy of mine said, Hey, the city of Piedmont has paramedics that work for the fire department, and they need vacation relief guys, so I can get you a job really quick. I didn't really understand what that meant so much, but what I figured out was that the city of Piedmont had limited staffing, and they had the right number of paramedics to cover their shifts, and that's all. But they needed off-site paramedics that weren't full-time hires. We were part-time to work as to work as paramedics and firefighters, and they taught us on the job. It was a different time back then, right? They taught us on the job. It essentially turned into full-time firefighter paramedic work because every time one got sick, every time one got injured, every time one of the full-time guys got sick, injured, on vacation, whatever leave, they would have to backfill. They had a couple of us that worked full-time for them. I got a taste of working for the fire department, and I realized that it was a really good fit for my personality and that that's what I wanted to do. I wasn't working there full-time, and I wasn't hired full-time, so I started looking around for firefighting jobs and ended up going to work for the city of Emreville.

[00:20:00.000] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:20:02.720] - John Arenz

And worked there for not quite... Like 28 years, 29, 28 and change, and then picked up my time from Piedmont to make my 30.

[00:20:12.640] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. And During that time, when were you introduced to off-road, or how were you introduced to off-road?

[00:20:22.460] - John Arenz

So my dad was not much of an off-roader, but he was just enough for me to get introduced to it. He He was a member of Tierra Del Sol for a couple of years, the Jeep Club in San Diego. And he had a flat fender, and he would take me jeeping. That's how I started. I went in the Rubicon the first time when I was 18 as a passenger and owned a Jeep at point, but it wasn't capable of... Actually, it probably would have been. I just didn't think it was. I went with other people. That's when I decided... I came to Rubicon when I was 18 as a passenger, and I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen. I thought it was, I mean, this is it. That's why I moved to Santa Rosa. That's why I took the ambulance job in Santa Rosa, because I wanted to get back to this area. The rest of history, I moved back. I moved up to El Dorado County, and I've lived here ever since.

[00:21:36.700] - Big Rich Klein

When you moved to El Dorado County, you were still working in Emreville?

[00:21:41.480] - John Arenz

I commuted to the city of Emreville. My my entire career from El Dorado County. Not all of it, but most of it. A short time in Santa Rosa.

[00:21:54.840] - Big Rich Klein

Interesting.

[00:21:56.200] - John Arenz

I moved here about the time I got hired It didn't reveal.

[00:22:00.820] - Big Rich Klein

But when you would... In that time frame, you would be four day on, four day off type thing, or was it you commute every day?

[00:22:12.800] - John Arenz

I was on what was called a Kelly schedule. So you'd work a day, off a day, work a day, off a day, work a day, and then four days off.

[00:22:22.460] - Big Rich Klein

Okay.

[00:22:23.560] - John Arenz

So I would come home in between my shifts. I'd be on the road by 8: 00 and home at 10: 00, 10: 30, and back to El Dorado County by 10: 00 or 10: 30. And then I'd leave early in the morning and be down there by 7: 00 for my eight o'clock shift the following day.

[00:22:38.280] - Big Rich Klein

Wow. Okay. And you said You said you had a Jeep, but you didn't take it on the Rubicon at the beginning. What Jeep did you have?

[00:22:51.820] - John Arenz

My first Jeep was a '72 Commando, which is the... If you think about that, that's the round nose-looking one. And I wasn't confident of its abilities because I didn't really know what I was doing. And at that time, you were wheeling at that time, so you know him There were lots and lots of vehicles on 30, 31-inch tires that did the Rubicon all the time, right?

[00:23:19.940] - Big Rich Klein

Oh, yeah.

[00:23:21.280] - John Arenz

Absolutely. And that's what mine was. And if I thought about it, I would have said... And it was also pretty long. Everyone had short Jeeps back then. So if they looked at the Commando, they would be like, Oh, that thing's long. That's not going to work. And of course, now we know that that's 100 % not true, right? Right. Yeah.

[00:23:39.710] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah. My first trip was Barrett. Okay. And then the next weekend, we went on, and this was in '81, we went on the next... Or excuse me, '82. We went on Barrett, and that was before they had seasonal closures and all that stuff up there, gates or anything. We did that, and I met the wardens and the guys from Toys on the Rocks on that run, which was very memorable for a lot of them and myself because I was my typical smart ass self back then. And then the next weekend, we did the Rubicon, and it was a... We were in a 53 M38 A1 military CJ5. Sure. On TruTracks, 10: 50 or 11. Yeah, they're like the 31s, I think. 30, 31s TruTracks, basically. I forget what they call it. What they called them then. 31, 10, 50s or something like that.

[00:24:49.060] - John Arenz

Yeah, they were Armstrong true tracks. Yes. They made the Norsemen, and they made the true track. And those were their two, they were both by us flying. We used to call them square tracks, because if you let them sit for overnight, they would Oh, they'd square up. Yes. They'd square up, and you have to drive them for a mile or two before they get round again.

[00:25:06.200] - Big Rich Klein

So true. But, man, I had... That's when I came home after the trip on the Rubicon, and was like, Okay, I'm going to throw away my backpack. I've got to get a four-wheel drive now. And, yeah, that's what I did.

[00:25:24.300] - John Arenz

Yeah, and I didn't throw away my backpack, but I certainly My focus changed more and more and more over time, and now I haven't been backpacking in years. So there you go. Right. Yeah.

[00:25:37.060] - Big Rich Klein

I mean, there's something about carrying steaks and beer, as opposed to freeze-dried food and water.

[00:25:48.120] - John Arenz

Yeah.

[00:25:50.660] - Big Rich Klein

So then you're wheeling the con a lot, working in Emreville, And what other interests did you have on those four days off, or did you just spend all your time on the Rubicon when you could?

[00:26:10.200] - John Arenz

Mostly on the Rubicon. I spent a lot of time on the Rubicon in the summer, and I would put my Jeep away in the winter and spent a lot of time skiing, and did that for probably the better part of seven or eight years. And and met my ex-wife, and we had kids, and all of a sudden, skiing was too expensive, and I could only get to the Rubicon a few times a year until the kids got a little older. So that changed for me. I think that's pretty common for a lot of people.

[00:26:47.980] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So true. And when did you pick it back up?

[00:26:52.380] - John Arenz

Well, I have never missed a summer in the Rubicon since 1983. I've been there every single summer, at least Wow. And back then, it was sometimes once or twice. And my daughters were born in... Twin daughters were born in 1989. And the year they were born, I sold my CJ7 and bought a scrambler and put back seats in it. When I say back seats, I bought car seats and racked them up like little racing seats and with little harnesses, and they sat back there and we went wheeling with little kids. We didn't wheel a lot. We wheeled in a short time in camp and spent time taking care of kids. But at least I was in the Rubicon. That was okay with me.

[00:27:57.700] - Big Rich Klein

When did When did the Rubicon become even more important?

[00:28:05.420] - John Arenz

There was an evolution there. In the early '90s, I started volunteering for Jeepers Jambourie. My kids were probably three or four years old. That brought me to a different the Rubicon community. People who aren't up there a lot tend to stay within their own community. There are a lot of people that go to Jamboree and they, Oh, I go to the Rubicon. I know all about that. Then there are other people that go with their friends, and they know all about that. There's other people that go with their club, and they know all about that. There aren't that many people that go often enough with a diverse enough group of people that are out on the trail enough to really You get a feel for a lot of aspects of Rubicon. If you work for Jeepers Ambouree, and you're up there six or eight weekends a year, and you also do volunteer work for FOTR, and you also have a club that you go with, and you also have a group of friends that you go with, you get a pretty diverse view of Rubicon. I think my My early view of Rubicon was with a very small group of friends, fairly infrequently.

[00:29:38.780] - John Arenz

My view expanded to a whole... It was a whole different group of people when I started volunteering for a Jeepers' Jambourie. Then another whole different group of people when I started working with FOTR and then again with RTF. There's so many micro bosms of Rubicon. And I would encourage anybody to try and see them all, because there's so many points of view and different ways of thinking about it.

[00:30:14.620] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Very true. I wish I had had that opportunity to get on the trail that often. I did in the early days, in the '80s and early '90s. And then when I moved to Utah, for four years, or about four years, that changed everything. And then when I came back, once I got started doing the events- You were too busy. My summers were busy, yeah. Just doing, just trying to get those things done. So I became a snow wheeler. I mean, I would go up with Rogi and Howdy Shell every time a blizzard would come in in the winter, and I'd get off work, and it was like, okay, or get out of the office or whatever. And then it was like, okay, we're hitting the... It'd go as far as we could.

[00:31:15.000] - John Arenz

Yeah, same, same. But I was usually with Scott Johnson and Desmond Caravella and maybe Jim Job.

[00:31:22.220] - Big Rich Klein

Okay. We came with John Johnson a couple of times, although we never went in as deep as that group did. Because we were in our Cherokees, and we always went up for a night, and then turned around and came out.

[00:31:35.160] - John Arenz

Yeah, we got pretty stupid sometimes. It got a little foolish. Yeah, so my big expansion points for Rubicon were working for FOTR in the early 2000s. I got more involved and then started working. First Jambury, then FOTR, then I started working for RTF. I became a director for RTF. In 2008. In 2009, I bought a share Rubicon Trail partnership and started hanging out at Spider Lake more. By 2009, now my kids are quite a bit older. They're almost 20, so they're off doing their own thing, right? And we don't have kids at home. So now, by 2009, I had two things to do: go to work and go to Rubicon. That's what I did.

[00:32:57.680] - Big Rich Klein

And which did you enjoy most?

[00:33:01.580] - John Arenz

A hundred % honest. It's a toss-up.

[00:33:04.420] - Big Rich Klein

Really?

[00:33:05.460] - John Arenz

Yeah. I really enjoyed my job. Really liked it. I work with a great group of people. They were smart, and they were diverse, and they were fun to hang out with. Rubicon, Rubicon is the same thing. You go through Rubicon, and you might run across a beer drinking red neck, or you might run across a lawyer, and either one of them might be a better wheeler than you.

[00:33:48.060] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:33:49.320] - John Arenz

I mean, you just don't know. You don't know what you're going to get, but it's going to be interesting.

[00:33:53.920] - Big Rich Klein

I got an interesting story. A couple of years ago, I took my grandkids up to... We went into Ellis Creek. We're going to have a picnic and then come back out and let my grandson drive, who you met. Sure. And then on the way in, We're going up the far side of the bowl, and it's just us in the Jeep, me and Shelle and the two grandkids in the XJ. And there's all these JKs down there, and they're going around, and there's that face. I don't know. I'm sure it has some name to it, that bump. And I go, Well, we can sit here in line and try to go their line. But I said, I always go up this way. And the kids looked at it and were like, oh, okay, you drive up that? And I said, yes, see all the tire marks? So I just drove over, bumped up it, went around and then watched them, all these JKs go up. And then one of the JKs split off and it was really well built. And he came around the side and went up the line that I took. And then he parked next to us and he goes, Hey, I see Idaho plates.

[00:35:13.300] - Big Rich Klein

And I said, Yeah. And he goes, So we started talking. He was the President of Basic American. Well, Basic American is a big potato producer, and they package and process potatoes for all sorts of companies, like McDonald's and Waffle House, and they do Chilies and other things as well, besides just potato products. But huge, huge company. And he was the President of that. And it was interesting because Shelle's middle child, Kayla, she works for Basic American. And we said, oh, yeah, we got a daughter that works for Basic. And we got to talk and he goes, I think I've heard about her because she moved up really fast in the company. And so she gets... So we continue wheeling, they continue wheeling, we get done. And we tell Kayla that. And then a couple of weeks later, the boss, Kayla's boss there in Pocotillo, goes, Oh, so by the way, there's some people in corporate that are talking about you. And she's like, what do you mean? Oh, good things. They were asking all sorts of questions and stuff.

[00:36:42.840] - John Arenz

Is that good or bad?

[00:36:43.960] - Big Rich Klein

It was all good.

[00:36:44.880] - John Arenz

That's the first question I'm thinking about.

[00:36:46.700] - Big Rich Klein

But now she's a scheduler. She's on the corporate side now instead of the paycheck, our hourly wage. And so I don't know if we contributed to that or not. She did all the work herself, but it never hurts to have your name mentioned to the President of the company.

[00:37:09.700] - John Arenz

No, it doesn't. And it's good to be proud of your kids.

[00:37:12.240] - Big Rich Klein

Yes, absolutely. So let's talk about those early years with FOTR, Friends of the Rubicon. I got working with them really early as part of the pirate cleanups.

[00:37:32.630] - John Arenz

Yeah.

[00:37:33.600] - Big Rich Klein

And then when things started to go south on the trail and too much notoriety was coming along, and I could see the writing on the wall, I told all my friends that we're in the pirates, and I said, The shenanigans need to be less obvious. And And I said, We need to contain because eventually this shit might go away. They might shut it down on us. And so there was a lot of back and forth on that. Everybody thought I was crazy. And I started what they call the Trail Patrol, what I called the Trail Patrol.

[00:38:24.400] - John Arenz

I remember it.

[00:38:25.230] - Big Rich Klein

And basically what it was, is it was just totally just me to begin with. And then a couple of guys joined me. But it was just an educational process to convince people to try to behave more on the trail. And the pirates always did a good job of picking up after themselves. They were not that part of the problem. And I don't want to say they were part of the problem, but everybody was part of the problem back then because there was a lot of activity that wasn't necessarily socially acceptable, you might say. I remember some of that. Yeah. Yeah. And I partook in it. I mean, it was fun stuff. It was great. But I realized that for the trail to survive and to keep it open, things were going to have to change. And so I took a step forward to do that. And then Del came to me finally and said, after I'd put together a meeting because there was so much interest in what I was doing, put together a meeting at a pizza parlor down in Orangevale. And we had 43 people show up that were interested in being on the trail patrol.

[00:40:00.600] - Big Rich Klein

But also the El Dorado County Under Sheriff and represented for the Highway Patrol and the Forest Service. All these other people showed up as well. And I'm like, Oh, this is different. I didn't think this was going to happen. And the Under Sheriff at that time told me, We know what you're doing. We appreciate you. And that, just be careful out there. We know that if anything happens, you are trying to defend yourself, meaning that they knew that I would talk to people very sternly, and I was pretty confrontational at times. And they were basically giving me the... I felt they were giving me permission to keep doing what I was doing. And then Del comes along and says, Hey, we ought to be part of this. He came up one weekend and helped me, hung out. And he goes, we got to make part of this, we got to make this part of FOTR. And I was like, Del, do you I realized that I'm not just talking to people and saying, hey, guys, you shouldn't drive in the bushes. And he was really pushing for that. So I said, okay, I'll tell you what, whoever you want to run this, you guys can take it over.

[00:41:34.240] - Big Rich Klein

And I said, And I'm going to step away because I'm too busy to continue doing this anyway, because of the events and stuff. And we were expanding. I owned Vora at the time as well. So we were doing somewhere close to 18 events a year, and It was a lot. It was a lot. So that's when Ken took it over.

[00:41:59.380] - John Arenz

And that was before I knew Ken. Yeah.

[00:42:04.480] - Big Rich Klein

So when did you get all involved?

[00:42:07.790] - John Arenz

I mean, when did- So my kids were born in... My twin daughters were born in 1989, and I really tried to be a good dad and spend time with them. If I did spend time in the Rubicon, they were 90% of the time or more, they were with me. I When I was building a career in the fire service, moving up through the ranks. I got two college degrees, one in '96 and one in 2002. I know, for a guy who dropped out of high school, right?

[00:42:46.960] - Big Rich Klein

Right.

[00:42:51.300] - John Arenz

I actually felt like I was on track to be a fire chief, and that never happened. That was okay with me because I got to that level and decided it wasn't for me and stayed a company officer, stayed a captain. That was okay. That was not really a disappointment to me. But That's a lot of outside commitments. Like I said before, if I went to the Rubicon, I took my kids, and my kids had a lot of stuff going on. I didn't get in the Rubicon that much, but I did once a year, at least, and sometimes three or four times. By the time... I didn't really get to the point where I was in the Rubicon a lot until the early 2000s, I would say, when my kids were teenagers and could come with me or not. I also got divorced from my first wife in about 2000. Now we had a custody arrangement, and half the time I had the and half the time I didn't. It made it so I was in the Rubicon more because I had some four days without my kids, right? In the early 2000s, I started spending more time in the Rubicon, I started doing FOTR projects and got tapped to be a I was a crew leader pretty early in that process.

[00:44:34.040] - John Arenz

In 2004, I did my first work project. By 2005, I was leading them just because of my background and experience. In 2006, Gatekeeper happened. I I found out about it before it was going to happen. I called Scott Johnston, whom I didn't know, but I got his number from somebody and said, What's this I hear about you're going to blow up Gatekeeper? I got on his face pretty good. He's like, Who is this guy? How did he find that out? It was because I have connections from living in Placerville. People told me things Because they probably shouldn't have. That spurred me. It didn't put me in a place where I could do anything about Gigkeeper because I just found out about it, made a stink about it, and it happened in a couple of weeks' times. But it was very... When I saw the result of it, it was disappointing to me. I became active politically, and within a year, I was on the board of RTF.

[00:46:09.300] - Big Rich Klein

And not necessarily in agreement with everything that they wanted to do, I take it.

[00:46:15.720] - John Arenz

So here's the thing about, and you know this, but I don't think the general public really thinks about it as much. The thing about being on a nonprofit with a mission like that is you can... You have to You need to trust your board. If you go to a board meeting and you feel adamantly that they shouldn't blow up gatekeeper, I'm not going to use that as an example, you feel adamantly that they shouldn't move Cantina from the spillway to Rob's, and you're adamant about it, and you go there and the vote's 15 to 1, and you lose the vote, you need to trust your board, and you need to realize that if 15 people have seen it this way, that you're probably wrong. Life and politics, and therefore the Rubicon, often becomes about compromises, and people don't like to compromise the things that they're passionate about. But if you want to keep Rubicon open, if we, as a community, want to keep Rubicon open, which we've done a very good job of, we all need to follow our passion at the same time. We need to understand compromise At the same time, if you're on the RTF board and the compromise becomes too much for you to say, This is how I feel, or, This is our position, your position becomes the board's position, or the board's position becomes your position, however you want to look at it.

[00:48:02.470] - John Arenz

If you can't stand up and say, My position is X, Y, Z. If you lose that vote and you can't stand up and say, Well, the position of Rubicon Trail Foundation is that we're going to happily move to a different venue, and that's what we voted on, and that's just how it is. If you can't do that, you need to get off the board. I'm not saying that in a negative way. I'm saying that in a positive way. If you can't live with the decisions of the board. You're doing yourself and the board a disservice by staying. Right.

[00:48:37.400] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, and with that, I want people to understand, because when I resigned from the I was on a board this last month and made the post on Facebook, a lot of people didn't read the whole post or didn't pay attention to what I wrote. And I got a lot of calls and a lot of messages saying, Okay, what'd they do to piss you off? I was like, nobody did anything to piss me off. I'm doing this for strictly personal reasons, and I think that I can be more effective being a single voice than having to be...

[00:49:25.540] - John Arenz

Echo the voice, so echo the decisions of the board.

[00:49:28.540] - Big Rich Klein

Right. Even though I agree the decisions of the board, I couldn't be as adamant about it.

[00:49:38.960] - John Arenz

You couldn't push hard enough.

[00:49:41.520] - Big Rich Klein

Right. I couldn't tell people they were being jackasses outside the people outside the board that were complaining about what what RTF was doing. Because anything I said was then taken as That's the board's position. And even though it may be the board's position, it couldn't be advertised that way. It couldn't be spoken that way. You have to be more politically correct. And I have never... I mean, I've tried so hard to be politically correct, and I just have a hard time doing it all the time. And there's times where I get to where it's like, I just want to tell people they're full of shit. So that's why, that's one of the reasons I stepped away from the board. Plus, I've got some personal things coming up work-wise that are going to be pretty important to me as well as the trail is. And I couldn't, I didn't feel like I give 100 % to either of them by doing both. But I do want people to understand that I do agree with the positions of the RTF board and where how the board is moving forward with projects, and that I'm going to, even though I'm no longer part of the board, I'm still going to be active in being that voice outside the board that tells people they're being full of shit by raising concerns that are illegitimate.

[00:51:26.160] - John Arenz

Yeah, and I totally understand your position. I did not bring that up to segue that for you, but I did. But that's what I ended up doing. It can be a tough position to be in sometimes. Sometimes it's hard to just shut your mouth and let people talk when you know what they're saying is wrong.

[00:51:51.960] - Big Rich Klein

Exactly. I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.

[00:51:59.540] - John Arenz

It's fair.

[00:52:00.540] - Big Rich Klein

I guess it's because I've been in... Every job that I've had, every position that I've held, I'm in a position to make decisions and to be able to voice my decisions how I wish. And being that there, that it's... That RTF has to run a fine line between what's socially acceptable and what needs to get done and how to get that done. That a shit disturber is not somebody that necessarily needs to be on the board.

[00:52:48.400] - John Arenz

Yeah, that's a tough place to be.

[00:52:49.840] - Big Rich Klein

Yeah, and that's what I was feeling. So anyway, so now let's talk more about RTF and projects or any concerns that you would like to talk about, or that we can talk about that is facing the Rubicon and what's coming up Okay.

[00:53:19.600] - John Arenz

I shouldn't say everybody, but many people know about the reroute that's coming up. That's going to happen in August of So we're maybe nine months away from that. And there's a lot of, I guess there's a lot of controversy over that, and there's a lot of misunderstanding over that. There's a lot of misunderstanding over that. And there's a lot of difference of opinion over that. We could do an hour about that, I'm sure.

[00:53:51.640] - Big Rich Klein

Well, first off, let's discuss why it's going to happen, why the reroute is going to happen.

[00:54:00.240] - John Arenz

Okay, so let's talk about that. Will Harris, who's a registered professional geologist with the State of California, surveyed the trail in about 2017. He did that at the request of El Dorado County. After he completed the survey of the trail, his opinion was he was actually charged with talking talking about water movement. That was supposed to be his job, talking about water movement and sediment moving into the water and how to prevent that and what his concerns for the trail were. He wrote a report about that, and it was pretty comprehensive. But the concern he voiced the loudest was that there was a section of trail near Miller Creek that was in glacial moraine, which is decomposed granite that's been deposited by glaciers. There's a very, very large... I don't know. I shouldn't say that. There's a deposit of glacial moraine Some are bigger than others, I guess. This thing's about 10 acres big, and the trail goes through the middle of it. His concern is not that the trail is going to fall into the creek. His concern is that the entire chunk of glacial marine has no anchor to it, and the whole thing could go, and that the Jeep trail needs to not be on it because of that.

[00:55:43.500] - John Arenz

That's what started the reroute, and there's a bunch of other political stuff in between people getting grants to plan for it and then not finishing them. Finally, the Tahoe National Forest said, Look, we're the fee holder here. We manage the land underneath the trail. Leaving it in this spot is unacceptable. We're going to do the environmental We worked to move the trail. Actually, RTF was asked to be part of that, and we declined. We declined to give money to the effort to plan the move, and we declined to be part of it because the board didn't feel like it was a good effort. We thought that that piece of glacial moraine had the trail over it for 100 for the last year, then that probably it was going to be fine and that the amount of money they wanted or any amount of money to spend on that was money not well spent, so we declined to be part of it. The Tahoe National Forest didn't feel the same They did the environmental work. They made the decision to move the trail, and they signed a record of decision that said, We're moving the trail.

[00:57:12.140] - John Arenz

At that point, they approached us and said, Well, we're moving the trail. Now, do you want to be part of it? Our answer was, If you're going to build a new piece of trail, we definitely want to be part of it. The reason for that is because if the forest builds it, they're just as likely to build it a blade wide with a D6 or hire a construction company to do it that's going to build a road. And that's not what we want. We would rather be close to the management of the effort and get a piece of trail out of it, and not change the character of the Rubicon trail for that distance.

[00:57:50.800] - Big Rich Klein

Let's discuss why Tahoe National Forest is the caretaker of that portion of the trail.

[00:58:01.560] - John Arenz

Okay. So there's a lot of talk about RS2477 and the public's right to travel, and what part of the... And this is a very complicated subject, especially on Rubicon. Who's in charge of what? Article 2477 is a statute that came out of 1867 mining law that says That says the public has the right to travel over federal lands that are otherwise unreserved, meaning they don't have another purpose in mind. That's from 1867 to 1976, that was the law, and that was the only law. That's the hole of the law, the wording I just said. There was no regulations to go along with it. Decisions about RS 2477 routes were fought in court and decided in court. So case law. The county of El Dorado claimed the Rubicon Trail, basically from Georgetown to Tahoma as an RS 2477 route, and it became one. That means the public has the right to travel there, and it's really not a forest road, it's a public road. Well, the county of El Dorado moved that from Georgetown to Airport Flat, took that RS 2477 route into its inventory, and it became a county road. That's no longer RS 2477.

[01:00:02.760] - John Arenz

Although the underlying right stays there, the road is a county road. Now the RS 2477 section of it is from Wentworth Springs campground to the county line at Miller Creek or thereabouts in Rubicon Springs. Why doesn't it go all the way to Tahoma? Because in the 1910s, we think about 1913, the El Dorado County and Placer County moved their county line. They did it to facilitate some development in Tahoma. When they did that, the RS 2477 section of the Rubicon Trail moved from El Dorado County into Placer County. There's a lot of arguments about Placer County retaining that right or whether the trail is still ours 2477, now that it's in a county that didn't claim it. We believe, RTF believes, here I am speaking for RTF on a podcast about me. Rtf believes, and I do, too, that the section of Rubicon Trail between Miller Creek and Rubicon Springs in Tahoma has an underlying RS 2477, right? And that if the county of Placer would assert their RS 2477, right, that they would have authority and responsibility over that piece of road, and that that can happen at any time. The underlying RS 2477 right is there.

[01:01:53.880] - John Arenz

It hasn't been asserted by Placer County. So since nobody has asserted that right, The Forest Service realized that during the MOU process, and around 2020, they took the word Rubicon Trail off their maps and put 16 E75 and 14 and 34 in the Tahoe National Forest and Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, respectively, onto the forest maps and onto the motor vehicle use map and claimed authority and started taking responsibility and started working on the trail. That's why the Tahoe is doing the reroute, because the Tahoe, currently, is the fee holder, and has the authority and responsibility on that section of road. Plane and simple.

[01:02:58.440] - Big Rich Klein

Right. So when everybody says that the Forest Service could shut down the trail as it is, they are correct because- Kind of. Kind of. Well, at the county line where they assume the ownership or the management of, if they so desired It could be shut down. Of course, it would go to... There would be court cases and all that stuff. But they've never shown an indication that they're actually going... That they want to do that.

[01:03:43.780] - John Arenz

So the law says I don't know how many of the listeners of this are interested in this much minutiae, but those that remember the travel management effort in 2008 will remember that in 2008, the Forest Service was sued by a group of environmental NGOs that sued successfully. Because they said that the FLIPMA, the Federal Lands Policy Management Act of 1976, charged the Forest Service with managing their roads and their road system, and that they were doing an inadequate job. The agreed with them and told every forest in the country to undertake a travel management analysis of their forest and come out with motor vehicle use maps and tell people which roads were open, which roads were closed, and which they could use, and which they couldn't at what times of year, and how they were going to be managed.

[01:04:48.040] - Big Rich Klein

They did that. Which, in my opinion, was an absolute disaster.

[01:04:53.840] - John Arenz

Well, it was disaster-es, for certain, because Because it took away a lot of off-road access. But that's the law. I don't like it. You don't like it. It's the law. What that also means is that if the forest, and when that happened, the Tahoe National Forest analyzed the Rubicon Trail and said, It's the Rubicon Trail. It's open on the El Dorado side year round. We're I'm going to leave it open on the Tahoe side year round. Once that record of decision was signed, every one of those travel management efforts was a NEPA process, where an EIR with alternatives was introduced, and the public had the right to comment on it and right to appeal and the whole worse. Once that record of decision was signed, in order to change that record of decision would it require a new NEPA process. That means if the Tahoe National Forest, and I'm not saying they do, I believe that they do not want to close Rubicon Trail, and I believe that. I'll get back to that in a second. If they did want to, they would have to undertake a new travel management analysis of the Rubicon Trail, and it would open them up to comments.

[01:06:25.920] - John Arenz

They would have to do an EIR, a draft Environmental Impact Report, a final Environmental Impact Report that would be subject to comments and would open them up to appeal and would open them up to NEPA lawsuits on the subject. I think it would be... You want to talk about a disaster? That would be a disaster for the Forest Service, for the Tahoe National Forest, if they did that. That's the reason I don't think they want That being said, it's a lot easier to influence local county governments than it is to influence federal governments or our federal government and In general, I believe, and RTF believes, that the best outcome would be for Placer County to assert their RS-2477 right and for control of the Rubicon Trail to be firmly as local as we can make it.

[01:07:35.460] - Big Rich Klein

Agreed 100 %.

[01:07:37.360] - John Arenz

Because then we, local people, have a lot more control over what the local government does with our local road.

[01:07:46.880] - Big Rich Klein

True.

[01:07:47.580] - John Arenz

Because even though I firmly believe that the Tahoe National Forest doesn't want to close that road, that's the last thing they want to do. It would be an outcry from the entire United United States' OHV community. I don't think they want to do it. It doesn't mean things won't change, and it doesn't mean that it's always better to have local control. Right.

[01:08:12.100] - Big Rich Klein

The best thing that could happen with the trail is for Placer County to assert their RS 2477 or claim those rights?

[01:08:22.460] - John Arenz

Yeah, if they did that, it probably would not go to court. It would probably... Once they asserted their rights, it would be their right to travel on that road. It's most probable that the Tahoe National Forest and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit would get together with Placer County, and Placer County would ask for an easement, and that easement would also be a NEPA The process and those two forests, as it were, would grant that easement, and that would be the exact situation that is currently in place on El Dorado County. In El Dorado County, the underlying RS 2477 right exists, but the county has asked the forest for an easement in order to manage the Rubicon Trail. But the reason it happens that way is because in case law, typically, if a local government sued the federal government to gain an RS 2477 right, and the judge finds that that RS 2477 right exists, the judge will typically tell the forest, will instruct the forest to grant an easement, and will instruct the local government to for an easement. And it never came to that in El Dorado County. But the county and the forest saw the writing on the wall, and they agreed to do it before the lawsuit.

[01:10:11.780] - John Arenz

Right.

[01:10:13.380] - Big Rich Klein

Which we assume Placer and Tahoe would do the same thing.

[01:10:20.940] - John Arenz

And the Basin, yes. Yeah. That would be my assumption.

[01:10:26.400] - Big Rich Klein

So that's what everybody should wish for.

[01:10:30.000] - John Arenz

I think that's the best outcome, yeah. And that's what our TF is moving toward. And obviously, we have a lot on our plate with the reroute, but that's not our big goal. Our big goal at this point is to get Placer County to assert their RS2477 right.

[01:10:54.620] - Big Rich Klein

So it boils down to, as I see it, that if Placer County was to claim those rights and get that easement and do the whole thing, like on the El Dorado side, then would the bypass before that gets started, if that was to happen, would the bypass be put on hold?

[01:11:19.220] - John Arenz

I can't answer that. That's a Tahoe National Forest question. Okay. And then- I don't think so. I don't think Placer County could move quickly enough. We can't even convince them to do it, much less to do it quickly. I don't think it's going to happen quickly enough for them to stop the reroute. That being said, let's talk a little bit about ours, 2477 rights and the mobility of them. Western aggregate versus the county of Yuba. In the county of Yuba, what's called the Goldfields, which is really not... There's no gold, there's no field. It's an area of sand and rocks that surrounds the Yuba River, where the sand and rocks were washed out of the Sierras when they did plaster mining, previous to the 1860s. It created this big area of rock and sand. This company, Western Aggregate, owns a piece of it, and they dig up the sand and dig up the rocks and crush them up and sell them for aggregate. It's a business venture. There's an old RS2477 road that goes through that. Because of the changing course of the river during flood stage, Western Aggregate moved the road on their property.

[01:12:55.660] - John Arenz

Then after the road was moved, they denied people access to it because they said it's no longer an RS 2477 route. The RS 2477 route is over there underwater. That lawsuit went as far as the ninth district Court of Appeals, and the ninth district said, You can't be the fee holder like Tahoe is of the Tahoe National Forest, like the Tahoe National Forest is in that forest. You can't be the fee holder or the landowner and move an RS 2477 in route and then deny people access. No. That is part and parcel of what TNF is doing. The Court would also say to the Tahoe National... If it came to that, the Court would also say, look over here at Western Aggregate. They own the land, they move the road, and then they denied access to it. In the previous lawsuit, we said that you are denied access... That that's against the law to move the road and then deny access. That's exactly what the... It's not going to get that far because it's the exact same lawsuit over a different piece of property. You can't move the road and then tell people they don't have access to it anymore because you move the road.

[01:14:15.200] - Big Rich Klein

Right. And then the last part of that that I've heard and had conversations with individuals about is that the reroute would put, where it would come out on Barker Pass Road or that area, it would be behind winter closure fences. And that's incorrect, isn't it? Isn't that where the trail would now exit or enter, depending on which side you're coming in from or going out of, that it would not be behind the gate.

[01:14:48.860] - John Arenz

Well, it depends on how you look at it. If you look at it that way, then it's always been behind the gate. The point is the gates that exist at Blackwood Canyon and at At Castaña Campground have always existed. If that's the way you got in there, the gates got closed. But if you got in there via the Rubicon Trail from Tahoma, there are no gates. There weren't then, there aren't now, and there's not going to be. There's no plan for them to be. The answer to your question is, if you come on the Rubicon Trail to get to the reroute, there's no gates. There's no gates to open, there's no gates to close, and there's no gates planned.

[01:15:35.500] - Big Rich Klein

So all the way through? That's correct. Okay. So if you're starting from Tahoma and you're going in, you could go all the way through with the route. Okay.

[01:15:46.200] - John Arenz

And back to travel management. There were no gates in travel management. You can't put a gate on without doing a travel management analysis and a full NAPA process all over again.

[01:16:00.000] - Big Rich Klein

Excellent. Great information. I think we touched on all the high points that I can think of that people have been using to argue against the reroute. What we know is Tahoe National Forest is going to do a reroute. Then it comes down to not whether they should do it or not. It's they're going to do it. That's right. Next is, who do you want Tahoe Forest working with? Do you want them working with wheelers that are going to, with the trail in mind, have the reroute as part of a trail instead of an access road? I mean, a blated gravel road.

[01:16:44.980] - John Arenz

That's how we feel, Rich. Right. Actually, I think there's a reasonable argument that says the Tahoe is concerned about environmental damage and safety on the current trail, and that's why they're rerouting it. If they get stopped from rerouting it, which I don't see how they could at this point, if they were to get stopped from rerouting it, I think there's more... I'm way more concerned that they would restrict access to the area, to the original trail, because they're concerned about safety and environmental damage and sediment in the creek.

[01:17:25.720] - Big Rich Klein

Right, because they're opening themselves up. If that does slide off in there, and they didn't do anything about it. The trail was there, and there happened to be some Jeeps going across that, or Toyotas, or whatever, some off-road vehicles going across that at the time. They've opened themselves to lawsuits because they were told that that's the problem. And then if that happens and there's an environmental issue along with that, then they're going to be sued by the state or by environmental groups for not dealing with the issue beforehand as well.

[01:18:00.000] - John Arenz

Especially now that what amounts to an engineer, a registered professional geologist has told them this is a problem. I actually think I'm not unconcerned, but I'm not super concerned about the safety aspect of it. I'm much more concerned about the environmental aspect of it. He's already signed a piece of paper that said, Hey, look at this. Sediment's going into the creek, and you should do something about it. If we don't do something about it, and if we're actively working towards a solution, If the Tahoe is actively working towards a solution, the environmental groups that keep an eye on that thing are probably not going to do anything because they know that if they take it to court, the Tahoe is going to say, Well, we're actively working towards solution, and the court is going to say, Okay. So it's a waste of resources on their part. But if the Tahoe is doing nothing, and this guy said that there's an environmental concern, that's what happened to the El Dorado in 2009, with the Cleanup and abatement order.

[01:19:19.600] - Big Rich Klein

The Water Resources Board, yeah.

[01:19:21.720] - John Arenz

The Water Resources Board said, Hey, El Dorado County, you got sediment, and oil, and sanitation problems. That are affecting the waters of the state, and you're not doing anything about it. And here's your cleanup and abatement order. And that's the thing that we are trying to avoid. Right.

[01:19:44.760] - Big Rich Klein

Perfect. Well, John, I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about your life, and also about concerns on the Rubicon Trail, especially with the reroute, because I think that's the the RS 2477 issues. I think those are the big things right now that's impacting or will be impacting the trail, and that there's so much being talked about, especially with the stakeholders in the area, and that a lot of misinformation and cherry-picked verbiage from other reports that are out there are being used to try to dissuade people from being in agreement with the reroute, where it's not factual, which we know that's what happens in environments where it's very political.

[01:20:48.080] - John Arenz

Sure. Facts are hard to come by sometimes.

[01:20:52.780] - Big Rich Klein

Yes. So I appreciate you coming on and talking about it. It's The trail is near and dear to my heart. I consider it my home trail, even though I don't get to do it as often as I wish I could. But I'm glad to be part.

[01:21:14.840] - John Arenz

Well, it was a pleasure talking to you, Rich. I consider it my home trail and my home. If I can look back on this last hour, from my point of view, we We chit-chated a lot, but the most important thing we said in this hour was that going forward, the most important thing we, as a community, can do is to encourage and insist that Placer County, assert their RS 2477 route right and ask for an easement on that side of the trail. I hope we all heard that.

[01:21:56.840] - Big Rich Klein

Agreed. And that's the drum I'll be beating. Again, I appreciate it, John. You take care, and thank you for your time.

[01:22:06.100] - John Arenz

My pleasure, Rich. It was good talking to you. Okay.

[01:22:08.480] - Big Rich Klein

Until next time. Bye. Well, that's another episode of Conversations with Big Rich. I'd like to thank you all for listening. If you could do us a favor and leave us a review on any podcast service that you happen to be listening on, or send us an email or a text message or a Facebook message, and let me know any ideas that you have or if there's anybody that you have that you think would be a great guest, please forward the contact information to me so that we can try to get them on. And always remember, live life to the fullest. Enjoying life is a must. Follow your dreams and live life with all the gusto you can. Thank you.