Lion Sighting in NW Altadena

These pictures came in at about 9pm tonight via the ACT email loop. I put a Google Map below with a pin at the approximate location described in the email.



From: Richard W: "These pictures were taken from the end of our driveway, looking NE. The ridge where I spoted the lion is maybe 200' and just accross a small canyon from the end of our driveway. Whew!"

Bonnie R added in the thread that it is "an adult mountain lion hanging out on the ridge between the ends of Coate Court and Sunset Ridge Road today around 1:50. It appeared to wander down the hill toward the top of Sunset Ridge or in the canyon behind the houses."


View Larger Map

Cape of Good Hope to Echo Mountain

Last Wednesday, I saw an invitation to join Brian Marcroft, a Forrest Ranger, on a "Railfan Picnic" hike. The flier read:

"Meet at the north end of Lake Ave. in Altadena at 7:30 AM.
Carpools will be organized and will depart at 8:00 AM
After arriving at the Cape of Good Hope there will be a one-mile hike down the railway grade to Echo Mountain.

Tour of the mountain complex will include:
Seeing remnants of the Echo Mountain House and Chalet Hotels, the power plants, tennis courts, observatory, Zoo, Section House, Cable House and Incline. See ongoing work performed by the volunteer groups.

[...]

There will be a limited number of visitors.
We will be behind a locked gate and those attending will be required to stay with the group from 8:00 AM to 1:00PM."

Not knowing exactly where the Cape of Good Hope was, the part that caught my eye was, "we will be behind a locked gate." So I packed a picnic of nuts and water along with my digital camera, and set my alarm for Saturday morning.

We congregated at the top of Lake, and at 8am, we set off with about 15 or 20 people in a caravan of 5 cars. We drove to the top of Chaney Trail and were given special access to drive passed the locked gate at the Mt. Lowe Road. We drove east up a slight grade for about two miles, and stopped at a small dirt parking lot located roughly along the historic rail bed at a point known as the Cape of Good hope.

From this point, there is a nice, well maintained trail, following the historic rail bed about 3/4 of a mile from Mt. Lowe Road, south on a shallow down grade to Echo Mountain. I uploaded my snapshots from the walk, and placed them roughly where they were taken on the map. Make sure you switch to Satellite view (upper right corner) so you can zoom in closer.

Photos on a map

I met lots of nice people, and I hope I meet them again soon. Before walking back to the cars, we sat and had a picnic in the shady area just west of the Echo Mountain House ruin, known as the tennis courts.

I got some nice hand-drawn maps from Brian Marcroft, and found out about his web site, mtlowe.net where I found a topo-map of Mt Lowe and the trails leading to it. I added those to my Altadena Crest Trail map project.

View Alatadena Crest Trails map

Re-greening of burn area at top of Lake

Local photo blogger, Petrea Burchard captured a nice comparison of the burn area at the top of Lake, just after it burned and after a winter of rain:

http://pasadenadailyphoto.blogspot.com/2008/03/naked.html

Altadena Crest Trail Google Map

I have started a Google Maps version of the Altadena Crest Trail. I am transcribing it from the map published in a flier that was snail-mailed out by LA County several months ago (map is dated 2-1-05). So far my Google version only has the trail heads and the proposed Rubio Canyon Gap segments.

I'll work on the proposed Skylane Gap and LaVina sections next (the proposed sections are more time consuming because there is no existing trail to trace). After I get my best shot at those in, I'll trace the exiting trails and access paths as well.

This is really fun, because with the Google satellite and hybrid views, you can inspect the route in tons more detail than you can with the printed maps that I have seen.

On a related note (in case you hadn't noticed), the satellite images of our area have been recently updated (looks like maybe this past winter). While we already had hi-res imagery of the populated areas, it was a bit long in the tooth (recent construction changes were not reflected). More to the point, the new images include the mountains as well. Perfect for mapping the hiking trails!

Enjoy =)

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Update:
posted by Jeremiah 7/11/2007 11:44:00 PM

I updated the map with the two of the three Skylane Gap options that were
published. I'll be adding the third as well as the La Vina ones over the
next few days, as I have some time on my hands (had hernia surgery this
morning, so on bed rest...thank god for laptops and wireless internet).

FYI I have marked the ones "proposed" based on the documents I could access.
By whom they are "proposed" is not indicated. I guess it implies that the
people who did the surveys are proposing them as their favorite ones?

I am copying off a glossy pamphlet I was mailed several months ago (also posted as a pdf), and pdfs I found here:

http://losangelescounty.externaldocuments.com/documents/

(the defualt apache index can be viewed too)
http://losangelescounty.externaldocuments.com/downloads/

These two are my main references:
ACT Trail Pamphlet.pdf

ACT Initial Study - Part 2.pdf

Note the pdf maps above were posted almost a year ago, but that's
all I have to go on, as I haven't attended any of the meetings. Any updates
appreciated.