From outside the box

I decided to take my dogs up to table top mountain this morning, and what a great decision that was! I was surprised at how few people were up there today, considering how beautiful the weather was. There were a few people flying kites near the entrance, but out on the open plateau, it was just me and the boys. The valley was crystal clear all the way from the Sutter Buttes in the south to the fringes of Los Molinos in the north and across the valley to the snow capped mountains that etched a perfect skyline in the west. Patches of early spring wild flowers as well as frisbee like cow patties dotted the land scape. I tried to avoid stepping on either of them. There was a nice breeze blowing from the north with just enough chill to keep me cool. It was a great time and place to wonder and ponder.

But here's what I really want to talk about....As I was driving out to table top, in the area of Butte College, I had a strange realization. As I drove by the beautiful Buttes I was thinking that this is the time of year when they look their best, covered in a green blanket of spring grasses. And then it dawned on me that I had never actually been on a Butte (except once in the seventies when we snuck onto private property and climbed one). I've lived here 36 years and never legally climbed a Butte. How many times have you driven to Butte College or out on Neil Road by the landfill and gazed at the beautiful rising Buttes with their rocky edges around the top and the gently sloping valleys in between and wished you could just....go there?

When I moved up here from Southern California in 1972, I had this illusion that Northern California was somewhat wild and open country. Compared to what you see from Palm Springs all the way to Santa Barbara, it pretty much is, but still, I was disappointed to find that all of the natural areas, the beautiful country sides were all fenced in private property. I remember talking to a fellow back then who had spent time in Mexico and telling him about how this no trespassing thing really bothered me. It's like we can go on sidewalks, parks, roads, and stores. The rest of the world is off limits. He mentioned that in Mexico, it's understood that fences were just to keep cattle in, not to keep people out. He said you could go anywhere you wanted to down there! And America is the land of the free? Certainly not in all respects.

It just seems wrong to me that we call this county Butte County, and yet, I don't know of one Butte that anybody can walk on unless you own the property! Can you imagine going to Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes and not having access to one lake? Why can't it be that people who just want to hike, why can't we the public have free access to our beautiful country sides that seem to be reserved only for cattle? I think the law should state that anybody who owns anything over 100 acres, has to let the public have access, for walking purposes only. The entrances would be gates that cattle cannot escape from, like the ones at table top mountain. There would be laws against littering or going within a certain distance of anybodies private residence. Also, we could not sue the property owners over anything that happened to us on their property (assuming it's an act of nature, not aggression by the property owner). Is this idea ridiculous? Maybe, but wouldn't it be a better world if we could actually enjoy the beautiful areas by walking on them and not just watching them breeze by from our car windows?