County officials expect to begin building a new trail in the Ramona Grasslands this fall, bringing an end to an exclusive route in the preserve that has been mired in controversy over its potential effect on golden eagles.
The Old Survey Road 97 Trail is a nearly 6-mile out-and-back route on the northwest side of the Ramona Grasslands County Preserve. Due to nearby golden eagle nesting sites and the bird’s nesting season, it’s open just three months of the year, from Aug. 15 to Nov. 15, and then only on Saturdays and Sundays, restricted to 50 people per day.
But this year is the trail’s final season, the county says. The county plans to re-route the trail to put it far enough away from the golden eagle nesting sites so that it can stay open year-round.
Officials also expect the new trail to connect with the San Pasqual Valley to the northwest — and eventually, they hope, to the Coast to Crest Trail, a regional trail network that has been in development for three decades.
For trail advocates, it’s a win.
“If the county has to go further around the nesting area to get that trail opened up year round to the public, I’m all for that,” said former County Supervisor Dianne Jacob, who was vocal in her support for access to the trail during her time on the board. “Finally, something has happened to make that connection from the Grasslands and the San Pasqual Valley. That was the goal originally.”
After years of disagreement, golden eagle advocates see the change as a step in the right direction, too — though they wish the county would close the current trail now, instead of waiting until the end of the current season.
“The existing trail, which the county has been managing and had laid out that way for years, is unacceptable,” said Andrew Meyer, director of conservation at the San Diego Bird Alliance.
For years, the Bird Alliance and a coalition of other groups have argued that the existing trail passes too close to the nesting sites in Bandy Canyon, where a pair of eagles live, and they say the proximity — less than a mile — risks scaring the birds away.
They also say that the county hasn’t abided by state and federal recommendations, nor its own policies, for positioning recreation near golden eagle nesting sites.
Golden eagles are highly sensitive to human disturbance, researchers say, and they don’t migrate, so the birds that nest near the Ramona Grasslands and forage in the preserve can stay and raise their young there year-round.
The birds have been documented in San Diego County since at least the early 1900s, but over the next century, the county reportedly lost about half of its golden eagle breeding pairs. It’s believed to have lost even more to development near their habitats.
And in a new report this year, the U.S. Geological Survey said Bandy Canyon has a high threat level for the birds due to factors like development and recreation, pointing to seasonally-open trails “very close to nest sites.”
Randi Baldwin, left, of El Cajon and Jen Janzer were among the first hikers to set out on the Ramona Grasslands Old Survey Road 97 Trail on Saturday, Aug. 23, 2025. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Golden eagle advocates say it’s hard to know exactly what will prompt the birds to leave an area — so they urge cautious recreation to avoid pushing them out.
“Disturbance can be a factor any time of year,” said Katie Quint, biologist at the Wildlife Research Institute. “So that’s why it’s really important to be careful about the level of disturbance, and then accurately represent what disturbance factors might be presented.”
But county officials and trail advocates maintain the current trail doesn’t hurt the birds and successfully balances recreational opportunities and wildlife protection.
The Old Survey Road 97 Trail is a wide dirt path that’s considered mostly easy for hikers, cyclists and equestrians. It’s surrounded by native vegetation and offers views of scenic coastal mesas, rocky outcrops and the Santa Maria Creek, which flows through the Ramona Grasslands.
The trail has historic roots. Old Survey Road 97 was established in the mid-19th century as a way to route travelers between the San Pasqual and Santa Maria valleys. It was used for mail deliveries and by ranchers — as well as soldiers on their way to the Battle of San Pasqual in 1846 during the Mexican-American War.
The trail is one of the most monitored hiking routes in the county. During the three months it’s open, trail users must apply for a permit by watching a roughly 6-minute video through the county’s website and taking a short quiz. And although the trail is limited to 50 users per day, Matthew Sanford, the park’s regional manager, says it rarely fills up.
During peak opening and closing hours, a county ranger will check trail users’ permits at the trailhead. The county says staff patrol the trail, typically every one or two hours, to verify permits and ensure compliance. Motorized vehicles are banned.
The area is open from Aug. 15 through Nov. 15 because this is considered the golden eagles’ non-breeding season. The eagles breed between January and August.
No other trail in the county has a permit system like Old Survey Road 97. The county can close or re-route other regional trails if there are dangerous conditions — it regularly closes some trails for heat risk — or if there are conflicts with natural resources, such as a bird nesting site. But it’s on a case-by-case basis and typically temporary.
El Cajon hiker Randi Baldwin, who hiked the trail for the first time last weekend, said she appreciated the permit system. A ranger was at the trailhead checking permits at 8 a.m. when she and her friend began their hike.
“It felt kind of exclusive,” she said. “I really felt like, when I walked away, that I had learned something.”
But the trail’s usage has changed over the years — in ways that have at times led to bitter disagreement between the county and wildlife advocates.
The trailhead for the Old Survey Road 97 Trail in the Ramona Grasslands. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / The San Diego Union-Tribune)
Under the Ramona Grasslands’ 2013 mitigated negative declaration — a document that outlines how a project will avoid or reduce adverse environmental impacts — the county said that it would only allow the trail to be used one day a week during the non-nesting season and with docent-led tours.
But in 2018, to the dismay of wildlife groups and state and federal agencies, the county amended the document to open the trail two days a week during the non-nesting season and did away with the requirement for docent-led tours.
The county said that its data on raptors in the area and USGS data showed the changes would not affect the golden eagles, and argued that recreation would expand the public’s education and care for the land.
“Allowing user access to the trail outside the golden eagle breeding season balances protection of the eagles with the opportunity to optimize recreation and education,” former parks director Brian Albright wrote to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife in a letter that year.
The state agency disapproved of the county’s reasoning and pushed back. The county’s own raptor study, the agency reasoned, did not assess the potential impacts of greater trail use on golden eagles.
“The Department remains concerned that opening the trail to increased public use could adversely impact the Bandy Canyon pair of golden eagles by creating an additional stressor on the territory’s viability and potentially lead, or contribute to, territory abandonment,” wrote Edmund Pert, the agency’s regional manager, in a response two months later.
The county says it still stands by its assessment and studies that it used in 2018, and that led to the trail access users enjoy today. It also says it has kept performing annual studies that show trail usage doesn’t harm the birds.
But Quint, Wildlife Research Institute’s biologist, wants to see more thorough data to prove that. The institute conducts its own studies on the golden eagles, including their nesting attempts and reproduction rates, and she says results in the last five years have fluctuated.
The state and federal wildlife agencies say they support the county’s new trail re-route, and Quint sees it as a good thing for the birds.
Most of the new trail route will be at least a mile away from the nesting sites — the distance recommended by federal regulators. One section will be closer, but still outside a 4,000-foot buffer zone required by the county.
The county expects to develop the new trail in phases, beginning this fall and finishing the first section next spring. It says it does not currently know how much the project will cost.
But critics like Quint wonder why it’s so important for the county to have a trail open to users at this part of the grasslands at all.
Even Baldwin, the hiker, said that while she enjoyed her weekend hike, it was pretty basic. She doesn’t see this trail as one to fight to keep open — especially if it endangered wildlife.
But to trail advocates like Glen Morgan, the president of the Ramona Trails Association, it comes down to access and bringing people outdoors.
His group has been at the forefront of the fight for access to the Old Survey Road 97 Trail for over a decade, working with Jacob on the issue and serving on her trail council, which helped gain access to hundreds of trails in her district.
“We want public access to public lands,” Morgan said.
Advocates don’t disagree. Meyer, from the San Diego Bird Alliance, says smart recreation in the Ramona Grasslands, including with a trail re-route to avoid disturbing the birds, is a better solution for everyone — trail users and golden eagles alike.
“We’re ruining it for ourselves, too, if we get to the point at which we disturb them so much,” he said. “Because then we all lose the opportunity to see golden eagles.”