About Fallbrook Trails Council
The Fallbrook Trails Council recognizes that we live in a beautiful area with the Santa Margarita River runing through it, the last continuously flowing river in Southern California. It is a prime watershed, an area that is one of the last riparian environments in Southern California and home to unique and endangered wildlife.
This is an area rich in history, but also one that is vulnerable to fire and vandalism. It has many inviting trails for hikers, equestrians and bicyclists. Horseback riders say it is the best trail system in Southern California. These are the trails that we are building and want to maintain so the Trails Council was created. The Fallbrook Trails Council now partners with The Wildlands Conservancy and holds a deeded easement for the 18 miles of trails, with TWC owning the 1,384 acres of the river preserve.
We provide hikers, horseback riders and bicyclists with a top-notch trail and pathway system – 1,384 acres of riparian Santa Margarita river area. We also promote awareness and education and conservation of local plants and wildlife – many of which are endangered.
We work with Cal Fire to clean and repair our trails. The Wildlands Conservancy, who now owns the property, provides rangers to help maintain the trails for safety of our users and educational programs for the visitors.
The Fallbrook Trails Council along with TWC have reduced littering and vandalism, and preserves the rural atmosphere, all of which increases Fallbrook property values!
Fallbrook Trails Council Volunteers have spent over 5,000 hours to date in organized workdays – many more hours individually. They clear existing trails and build new trails, buy and install culverts for drainage and erosion control, buy and install picnic tables, benches and trail signs, repair vandalized areas, and clean up trash (lots of it!).
In 2007 we partnered with the county on the San Diego County Open Space Preserve to create the Horse Staging area. Fallbrook Trails Council spent hundreds of hours of volunteer time and expertise running tractors, cleaning the area, and laying 1500 lineal feet of waterline with all the spigots in the park for water. We repaired the well, helped pay for trees, supplied the corrals, installed fencing along the roadway, and installed cameras to help protect trail users safety.
We also repaired the trails so we would have the connections to the Sandia Creek Trailhead, allowing the public to ride, hike and bike throughout the Santa Margarita Trail System.