They are billed as "falls" but what makes this hike really worth doing is the small pool at the base of the falls. I caught the pool at its most picturesque, at 7:00 on a week day, when it is totally deserted. On a hot weekend afternoon, the side of that pool would be full of would-be swimmers.

I say "would-be" because two weekends ago during the near-100 degree days I saw plenty of people in bathing suits on the trail, but nobody in the water except me. Several people asked if I was freezing..... I was somewhere between refreshingly icy and slightly numb.

What I mainly was thinking while in the water though, was "Please God don't let these pools dry up before September."

On one of the days I also met an long-time Pasadena resident who recounted younger days where she climbed over the steep canyon walls surrounding the waterfall and climbed up to a higher pool area where there are 13 more falls, and a more private setting.

She told me where to look for evidence of people doing this, and I saw several ropes on incredibly steep rock walls, as well as a less dangerous looking area where it appeared people had recently climbed.

So sometime in the future you may see a hike/climb of the week that involves scrambling to the upper falls of Eaton Canyon. That is, if my girlfriend doesn't catch wind of the plan... she does not really approve of off-trail cliff scrambling.

The hike is about 4 miles roundtrip for the Eaton Canyon Nature Center with minimal elevation gain. There are a lot of stream crossings though.

You can also access the road from the trailhead at the intersection of Altadena Drive and Roosevelt Avenue, or to get even closer, go to the Pinecrest Drive cul-de-sac.

From either the Altadena head or Eaton Canyon Nature Center head back towards the hills, cross the river, turn left, and just keep going. Once you have crossed under a bridge, you know you are on the way. Maps are also available at the nature center.

For more location info, check out the big local hiking board.

I'm glad this place didn't burn down in last week's fire. A sanctuary of shade and cool in a valley of heat and smog. One of the rare places to go and walk under the shade of trees.

If you haven't been yet, go there! It is one of the few places in the county where you can walk alongside a stream under the cover of tall trees.

Here is all the information you need to find it.

View Larger Map

The parks listed above are off limits for those who would try to hike despite the ash and smoke (and in some spots, probably fire department barricades). I count myself among those, as I am thinking of heading to Eaton Canyon after work, if it is not too smoky (or it has not been closed by the time I get there).

The map also shows where the fire begun (thanks to Star News reporter Janette Williams for pointing it out to me). The location confirms what I've been hearing from our reporting: it looks as if the canyons and woods of Chantry Flats are mostly unscathed from the fire. Much as nobody wants to look at the charred remains of the front of our foothills, better that than losing one of the few local places to go and escape the heat under the shade of tall trees.

Ever dream of biking from place to place at top speed? The bikers here are living out the dream, outpacing cars stalled in gridlock traffic. (Video found via thejokeisup.com)

The author of that blog, suggests that biking on the freeway might be safer than on surface streets:

"And truth be told, when traffic is that thick, what they’re doing is safer than riding surface streets.. Intersections are where the vast majority of accidents occur with any vehicles. With bicycles, the most common collisions involve a car turning right or left into a rider’s path. Freeways remove that problem and, considering that traffic is at a virtual standstill, problems from differences in speed are also negated"

Would it be absurd to consider a plan for a biking freeway, or at least one separate walled off lane for bikes? Without stop signs, red lights, etc., a bike could really compete with a car on commute time, particularly during heavy traffic times.

The idea was actually tried out along the Arroyo Seco around the turn of the century (click here for more, including pictures.)

Of course, then cars came along and ruined that idea (btw, I don't mean to disparage cars... I actually love car travel when it is outside the thick urban traffic). I'm not sure exactly when the "bike freeway" was torn down, but it apparently did not last all that long.

I am starting a new blog feature, here with the local hike of the week.... the idea here is to list hikes that are 30 minutes or less away from most in the San Gabriel Valley. I am starting with one of the best in Echo Mountain.

This is a good after-work leg muscle builder, but also a nice piece of local history. The mountain once contained several resorts, including the White City resort, which you reach at the top of Echo Mountain.

There used to be a railway which you could take from Pasadena to get up to the resort, which had hotel rooms, tennis, and gardens. Today all that is left are some old tracks (below, right), and old foundations (shown on left).

Apparently the mountains were not kind to the resorts, which were subject to falling rock and fires, and were ultimately abandoned.

The hike up is on the Sam Merrill trail, and is about 2.5 to 2.7 miles, depending on whose estimate you believe. It takes me about two hours round-trip to go up and down and hang out for a few minutes up top. It is a hefty uphill climb, but not too steep, about 1,400 feet elevation gain. Up there you can see out to Catalina Island on a clear day, but as it was far from clear the day I took these photos, I chose to spare you all the view of the white cloud of smog I was staring into.

It is a busy trail on weekends, and even on weekday mornings, but head there around 5 on a Friday afternoon and you have the mountains to yourself. It is located at the top of Lake Avenue. Go behind the metal fence, and follow the signs.

There are many dedicated historical societies, archaeologists and other obsessive folk who drop by this place occasionally. Most seem to go up for fitness... lots of joggers on this hike.

For more on location, check out my fledgling hiking map.... I plan to eventually integrate it into the blog a little better.

Today our sister paper, the Daily News, reports on damage to flowers by hikers using "unsanctioned trails." I've hiked plenty in the Griffith Park (I lived at the foot of it in Los Feliz for almost two years, and moved shortly before the 2007 fire that gutted the park's vegetation) and have admittedly used some of these trails.

Or at least I think I have. There are trails dotting the steep slopes of the park, which I am sure are there because of years of hikers blazing trails through the area. I am not sure in all cases which the public are allowed to use, and which are not permitted. The picture shown above, for example, is an 'unsanctioned' trail, but as you can say it is wide-open and clear of vegetation, indicating it has been used by hikers for years.

So why the fuss now? I would guess it has to do with Park and Rec's desire to reclaim the trails in burn areas.... with people shut out of many parts of the park, they have a unique opportunity to re-seed areas where trails once blazed through. The article mentions that park rangers are particularly upset about hiker intrusion into burn areas:

"In addition, some are trekking through the slurry of seed and mulch in burn areas that have been hydro-seeded."

Incidentally, it is not just park rangers that are upset about the trails.... the Daily News also quotes several angry Sierra Club hike leaders who accuse other club members of leading hikes on unsanctioned trails. One long-time leader seemed especially put-out by hikers who seem to have a different idea of how to enjoy the activity:

"They were coming straight up where there was no trail, grabbing branches like it was the cat's meow," said Rosemarie White, a hike leader who chairs the club's Endangered Species Task Force. "(They were) No.5 and No.6 (level) hikers, the real hot-doggers, who are going to do it their way to harass Mother Nature. Those wild places should not be destroyed by humans trying to demonstrate their prowess."

And another who rather hysterically anticipates the death of plant life in the park:

"They're treating the park like a gym," said Angela Colicchio, who until recently led Sierra Club hikes for 30 years in Griffith Park. "If this went on for years, there wouldn't be a bush or shrub or a blade of wild grass left."

Meanwhile, one of these "extreme hikers" says that without the steep hiking, there is no fun to the activity at all:

"I'm a fast hiker, but I don't blaze new trails," Serrano said. He added that, without the sporting element, many hikers would rather stay home. "They won't come. I wouldn't come.

"The fire trails are like a sidewalk. There's absolutely nothing interesting there."

Wow. As someone who both likes the peaceful pace of a moderate hike on a wide trail, and the heart-beating intensity of pushing myself up a steep mountain, I never expected that there could be such divisive views within the hiking community.

The Forest Service is taking another step in surveillance of marijuana-growing operations: two pilotless drones that will scan for farms and prepare officers with surveillance information.

I did a story on the CAMP (Campaign Against Marijuana Plating) state teams that do surveillance and bust up farms, and I am sure the drones will help them... one of the team told me that the fly their helicopters overhead right now, virtually ensuring that growers bail on the farms before law enforcement actually comes in.

The concern about the farms has risen in recent years as the Mexican mafia has increasingly become involved in the pot trade, employing poor Mexicans to tend the crops. One officer told during an operation where they nabbed a grower at a site in Central California, the grower told authorities his boss had told him he was being assigned to a site in Arizona.

I drove out to Joshua Tree the weekend before last to hunt up some flowers... and they were easy enough to find. The desert floor was blanketed with them as shown above.

Because of a long dry period these flowers might now be on their way out (the excellent DesertUSA flower report is showing that J-Tree's peak flower time seems to be over). However, with some rain this week, the situation could very quickly change. Also, according to the report, the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve is heavily in bloom right now.

I found that the best flowers, by far, are in the southern part of the park (shown below) by the 10 Freeway. This is the lower elevation part of the park in the Colorado desert. The high alititude Mojave desert zone, with all the fun-to-climb rocks, has very few flowers. The full map of the park is available here.

Following up yesterday's post on 8 young people stuck in the mud up in the Angeles National Forest, I watched a Fox 11 news cast (follow link and click on video) on it last night. Great opening:

"Eating cake frosting out of a can and gummi worms- that is all the food they had- one group of friends thought they were going to be rescued by another group of friends...."

Some how that seems a little over-dramatic..... I mean if you are stuck overnight do you really have to eat that badly? I imagine you'd be kind of hungry, but come on. It reminds me of the South Park episode where several of the town members are stuck inside waiting out a storm for several hours and they resort to cannibalism because they haven't eaten since lunch.

In all fairness to the seriousness of the event, though, apparently the car became surrounded by bees, the group had no water, and one of the teens was diabetic and had no insulin.

Ultimately the county sent out a chopper for the rescue, although I am not sure whether they were actually evacuated by it. One "survivor" described seeing the helicopter like this.

"Once you see that chopper man, you're like 'Thank God!'"

I think there are a couple of lessons to be learned from this, but they are so obvious I will refrain from writing them out.

So when your friend calls up after being stuck in some deep mud up in the Angeles National Forest all night long do you

A) call the Forest Service
B) Call Triple A
or
C) Take your own car into the mud

If you choose C, you might be an unidentified 18-20 year old from somewhere in Los Angeles County. From the L.A Times:

"Four of the young people two men and two women, ages 18 to 20 -- got stuck in the mud while driving an Isuzu Amigo into a restricted area of the park at 11 p.m. Monday, Padilla said.

The Times sent a travel writer to Pasadena to suggest how to spend 36 hours in town. From staying at the Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa Pasadena, to eating at fancy Italian restaurants, I think the Times reporter managed to spend more money in a weekend than I have spent in the city since I moved there a year ago.

In all fairness though, the reporter did hit venerable local institutions like Pie N Burger, and of course, the Huntington Gardens (though entry there ain't cheap either).

Of course, the outdoorsman in me recoiled to not see a nice, cheap hike up to Echo Mountain or to the Arroyo Seco listed on the itinerary, but what the hell.... if everyone wanted to do it, it would be so much more crowded and that much less pleasant to walk.

The Los Angeles Times reports today that an upcoming Congressional bill might leave out a huge swath of land from the Mexico border up through the Mojave from federal protection. The land is currently protected under an executive order, says the Times, which could be rescinded by the White House without Congressional support.... other lands protected under an executive order are moving into formal protection with this bill.

Taking protection away from the Mojave could open up some of the land to mining interests, developers, off-roaders, says the Times:

"Utility companies have proposed hundreds of miles of electrical transmission corridors through California's deserts, and off-road vehicle enthusiasts oppose further regulation of the area."

I do identify with some of the off-road enthusiasts concerns: it is nice to have land with less regulation where you can camp and wander around without being told where to sleep and having to pay for it all.

Of course, we all know the downsides to a lack of regulation: scattered beer bottles and broken glass, abandoned cars, wild fires... the list goes on and on.

The picture at the top of this entry is of Surprise Canyon, a ghost town at the end of a 3,500 feet walk-climb through a verdant desert stream bed. It is the best example in the Mojave of what happens when the desire to regulate butts up against people wanting access rights. Basically, what used to be a road up to ghost town, was washed away by the current stream bed, making it drivable only by extremely souped-up jeeps.

Nevertheless, off-roaders want back in. A group I spent some time with at a nearby Panamint mountain spot insisted on referring to the same steep stream bed I climbed up for hours, beating vegetation away with both hands, as a "road."

Seems like dropping protection for the area, would be opening up even more desert areas to even more intense fights over access and land use.

Will it happen? Maybe, maybe not, but according to the L.A. Times the bill has received support from a "broad coalition of more than 70 outdoor sports, environmental, historical preservation and religious groups." Getting that kind of coalition together is a pretty big effort.... and since the bill expands protections in many other parts of the country, getting national environmental groups to turn on it may be asking too much.

On the other hand, even with an executive order, the land would still be protected until the president decided it wasn't worth it. And considering it survived through the environmentally-unfriendly Bush administration, it might well be safe for a long time.

Most people I know have been rejoicing the warm weather for the last two weeks, but I haven't. I need one more snowshoeing outing with good deep snow to be satisfied. This weekend's weather forecast might help me out:

A COLD STORM SYSTEM IS EXPECTED TO IMPACT THE AREA OVER THE WEEKEND. THIS STORM SYSTEM COULD BRING A VARIETY OF WEATHER IMPACTS TO THE AREA INCLUDING SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS...A WINTRY MIX OF PRECIPITATION TO THE MOUNTAINS...AND GUSTY OFFSHORE WINDS.

Every year around this time (if there is rain) wild flowers bloom in proliferation around Southern California. And every year I forget to go somewhere where I can see them. Most likely, I spent the time slushing around a mountain with melting snow, where the flowers don't show up until later in the year, if at all.

Not this year. Using the excellent wild flower report on the desertusa.com site I am whittling between destinations. The site has regular updates on the status of flowers at Anza-Borrego SP, Joshua Tree, Death Valley, and The Mojave National Preserve, as well as anywhere else they hear about (Lake Elsinore looks amazing right now).

Based on their data, I am thinking Joshua Tree is the place to go right now.

Also, check out the Antelope Valley California Poppy Preserve web site for updates on when to go see the largest output of California's state flower. Right now, according to the site, the preserve is just starting to have poppies grow, so the peak of the season is yet to come.

Of course, you could stay close to home, and follow SGVN photographer Raul Roa to Turnbull Canyon, which is having a poppy outbreak of its own right now.