Public Eye

I met up with naturalist Christopher Nyerges this morning before 7 at his home in The Meadows neighborhood of Altadena, which had been evacuated Saturday as the fire swept through on its way east from the mountains above La Canada.

We walked down the trail into the Upper Arroyo Seco above JPL, hitting the Arroyo floor about where the ranger's house is, and headed upstream.

The fire had moved through the area over the weekend, and we were expecting the worst for this crucial watershed which, though wild land, is actually within the city limits of Pasadena so that the city can capture the water from the year-round stream.

In the Great Hiking Era, dozens of cabins and even hotels were there, and the Valley Hunt Club had a clubhouse, presumably from which to ... hunt. The only critters we saw were lots of quail.

It was an amazing moonscape. We were ankle-deep in ashes. But, somewhat miraculously, the alders that line the streambed were mostly untouched, and the stream continues to flow through deep shade. Firefighters had clearly been there days before, defending the area and stopping its spread into The Meadows and La Vina. Trees had been chopped down to stop the flames. It was overwhelmingly quiet. And then we began to see live embers -- and then, farther up, trees that were still burning, as well as logs burning alongside the trail. We doused some fires with dirt kicked from our boots and with water from Christopher's canteen.

The semi-developed Gould Mesa, where I have often camped, was untouched. But the canyon walls on both sides of the stream were entirely scorched. The fire had just not made it down into the canyon bottom in numerous places.

Until we got past Gould, all the bridges were intact. But the biggest bridge, on the way up to Switzer's, will need to be replaced.

We visited with USFS firefighters on the way down who were in the area from their Devil's Punchbowl base. They, and the many hundreds of them who are still battling the blaze, have done an extraordinary job, and all of us, especially those of us who love to hike, give them our deepest thanks.