Calvera Lake has a lot trails in a fairly constrained bit of acreage but there are still plenty of trails to get out and about on. It located in the general area where Carlsbad, Vista, and Oceanside converge. There is a decades long history of recreational use in this area but the surrounding area has seen a lot of development since about 2004. The additional public pressure combined with the shrinking open space has made land use of the Calvera Lake area "interesting".

There are four preserves that cover this riding area with two different managers.

• Lake Calvera Preserve --- Landowner: City of Carlsbad; Manager: Center for Natural Land Management
• Calvera Heights Preserve --- Landowner: CA Dept of Fish and Game: Manager: CA Dept of Fish and Game
• Carlsbads Highlands Ecological Reserve --- Landowner: CA Dept of Fish and Game Manager: CA Dept of Fish and Game
• Robertson Ranch Reserve --- Landowner: Calvera Hills II, LLC; Manager: Center for Natural Land Management

There are also habitat management plans and other competing enviromental interests who would like to myopically look at this area as simply a habitat restoration/preservation project and keep the hands and feet of man away from this area. Given its long history of use I do not see how the typical approach of fencing people out is going to work at all. All you have to do is stand atop Calvera Hill and see that this patch of land is surrounded by over 100,000 people and realize that no fortress of fences are going to keep the public out of here. This entire area needs to migrate to a recreational preserve if it is going to have any reasonable chance of being successfully managed.

The City of Carlsbad and the Center for Natural Land Management are doing a good job with tackling the problem. The master trails plan for the chunk of the area that is under their control has had solid input from the community and keeps much of the quality trails open while closing off much of the poor quality and unsustainable trails and fireroads. There will still be numerous problems to deal with particularly with public access points.

The CA Dept of Fish and Game (CDFG) has a long and tough road ahead of them. The department's default starting position is that biking is not allowed on the lands they manage. Despite the decades long history of multi-use in the Calvera Lake area, the department maintained that position when they took over ownership/management of this area. It is a position that simply will not allow for the successful management of this area. The public simply has not accepted (and will not) that position. Humans are a species too and the trail using sub-species of this area are not going to migrate to another area. The median home price in 2008 for this area was $652K and you can bet the availability of open space usage was part of the selling points. There is an expectation of access to open space from the surrounding community that will not be denied. The only chance CDFG has of successfully managing this area is if they take a more holistic approach to managing the area and work with the community to create a trail network plan that will met the needs of the trail using community.

Recently, I have been urged to take down the orginal page or put a vanilla style page that only showed only the offical Carlsbad trails plan. The historical usage does not mesh up with the desires of some people and they feel I'm encouraging illegal trail riding. Knowledge is knowledge and whatever actions you take based on that knowledge is soley your responsbility. The orginal maps will remain on this site and I have added a Google Earth KML file that shows most of the historical and newer trails that exist in this area. There are more trails than the ones I have shown. There is a lot at stake and if the current trail users simply "go away" is not going to help keep access to this area. The maps on this page are a snap shot in time and must be assumed to be historical in nature. When you ride at Calvera and criss-cross the various preserves and reserves, pay attention to the signage. Things change out here all the time. I also highly recommend you get involved with some of the advocacy organizations who represent the interest of mountain bikers as well as the other non-motorized trail users. The San Diego Mountain Biking Association is a good start.  

Directions: From the I-5 in Oceanside, take HWY 78 East. Take the College BLVD exit and go right.  At the second stop, hang a left on Lake Drive.  From here you can (a) After 2 miles you will see Ridge road.  Hang a right into Oak Riparian Park and park.  (b) After about 1 mile, hang a right on Skyhaven and follow the road until you see the lake.  See trail note for starting options.

Trail Notes:  When you look at the map above you will see that I have drawn it a blue crosshair right trough the middle of the lake.  I will be describing areas in relationship to the lake (N, S, E, W, NE, etc...). Calveras Lake mountain bike riding is all about options.  There are some options of trails and directions that it would be impossible to describe a best route.  You do an easy two-miler with a kid on a BMX bike or you do 20 miles plus by weaving in out out of the labyrinth of trails most of which are single track.  For this reason areas will be described more so than individual trails.

         
Take a look at some of the trails on the eastern area of the park in city of Carlsbad's area.  Most of these trails were old moto trails that are now closed  

           
Here are some picture on the trail up to the top of the big hill. The trail used to be mostly a technical rocky climb, but since the population in this are has risen a lot people have made lots of go arounds for the technical bits so they trail is much wider now. The rocky lines are still there but they are not the predominate lines.    

2009 Trailwork Event

Beware of "iTards" on the Trail at Calvera (Blog Post)

History Note about Connecting to Flightline NOTE: When the Flightline riding area was still active there was a connector route from the "Back 40" to that area. You can read about the demise of Flightline here.