being told merely to break inconvenient (and unnecessary) laws is hardly good advice though - yes, people shouldn't violate the closure, but simply closing the trail (espeically when this time of year, w/ all the brush dormant, you can actually do a COOL circumnav of the monolith which requuires the use of the trail) is tantamount to saying "we dont' have enough cops or funds to pay for more cops to watch this county road for speeders, so we'll just close it for half the year"
and yes, walking around the base w/ your young kids (like dave and i and probably kev too) is quite cool, espeically when you bring headlamps for them to explore the tunnels!