Big improvement at Eaton Canyon falls

Okay, this picture may not be the most inspiring, but for anyone who may have felt a bit depressed by my June post with photos and video of the extreme defacement of Eaton Canyon, north of the Mt Wilson Toll Road bridge, I have some good news .

Last weekend I hiked the trail, and was pleasantly surprised. First, while the creek was dry about 1/3 of the way up, the water was running over the falls, and was still creating enough of a pool that there were people swimming and enjoying themselves in it.

But more importantly, all the June graffiti was painted out. As you can see from the photo above, some tags have reappeared, and some of the abatement paint jobs are not the most artful, but before you gasp in horror at the thought of painting over rocks to "remove" graffiti, it really is a gigantic improvement, and the ham-handed cover-up paint job shown in the photo in only obvious because it's on a smooth surface. On rocks, the texture forces the paint-over to be more mottled and blend much better than this. I didn't get any photos of the cover-up of the "murals" at the falls (there were some women swimming and I didn't want to be creepy), but they're far less noticeable, and a major improvement.

Selected Station Fire Time Lapse Videos

These are both worth watching full screen (they are embedded as HD already)

View from Mt Wilson Sept 4th - 7th




View from across town, Aug 29

Dodging the Station Fire

Our family's two-week summer vacation started the weekend before the Station Fire. We came home for two nights (Thursday 8/27 and Friday 8/28) before it was seriously threatening our neighborhood in northeast Altadena. The breeze delivered two days of clear skies and two nights of choking smoke.

Thank goodness the wind never presented the seasonal Santa Ana pattern that can happen at this time of year, with the characteristic hot gusting winds out of the north that fanned the local fires of 1993. The Station Fire has only been fanned by the gentle Foothills breathing rhythm that residents rely on to draw the day's hot air out to sea every night. The Stonehill anemometer chronicles this pattern of gentle south breeze all day and gentle north breeze all night. A look at the current 5-day readings illustrates the breath-like regularity of this pattern.



With our windows closed all night, we contemplated our vacation plans and decided that they were in some ways a blessing. So we voluntarily evacuated to escape the smoke and enjoy the second half of our vacation on Saturday 8/29, and monitored the email lists, web cams and blogs from afar all week. The steady flow of information made it possible for us to enjoy our vacation with one eye on how things were progressing online. At one point early in the week, we contemplated flying me back home to help defend the neighborhood should it come to that, but decided against it. Amidst the bounty of near-real-time information, these photos were among some of the most reassuring to me personally. They were emailed by Dan Gollnick, showing professional Hot Shot crews fortifying the perimeter defenses along the Altadena Crest Trail.

Eaton Canyon Falls Graffiti Survey

Today I hiked up to the Eaton Canyon Falls, and I took a picture of every surface that had paint on it, either covering old graffiti, brand new graffiti or both. As you can tell by looking at all the painted over rocks and walls, graffiti is nothing new under the bridge and along the whole creek bed, however make sure you go all the way through to the end of the slide show. The walls and rocks of the canyon by the falls have been spray painted on a scale that is unusual, judging by the fact that many of the surfaces that are defaced do not have abatement paint behind them.

It's hard to tell from the photos just how disturbing it is to see in person. It reminds me of pre-Giuliani Central Park. This video, panning around the falls area helps illustrate how terrible this is.



I plan on calling this defacement into the graffiti hotline now, and will update this post with the confirmation number(s). The county has previously been extremely prompt about taking care of graffiti. We'll see how long this takes to clean up, as it's far less accessible. I suppose they'll hike in with supplies, as a helicopter drop off seems overkill for graffiti.

Update: I just got off the phone with the Graffiti Hotline.

LACO Graffiti Hotline 800-675-4357 option 2

The woman who answered told me they should have it cleaned up by Wednesday. (confirmation #108516)

Bobcat on Chaney Trail

Received these amazing photos via email today:







Here is the note that came with it:

Hi,

I read the Stonehill News blog occasionally, because I'm an avid hiker, and I like the wildlife updates. I wanted you & your community to know about this bobcat I saw today on Chaney Tr., which was acting unusual. I was driving back from Millard, and saw it cross the road. It stopped to look at my car, then walked into the brush. I pulled forward and stopped, and got my camera out, hoping to see it down the embankment.

When I got out of my car, it had walked back up to the road. It simply sat there looking at me for a few minutes, which wouldn't be too strange, except it was vocalizing - sometimes growling, sometimes meowing like a housecat. It then walked back across the road one more time, and up the road cut on the other side.

I have seen a couple of bobcats on hikes before, but they always run away quickly. So I wanted to give you a heads up. I'm sure everyone knows the standard advice - keep pets inside at night, don't leave food out, and just generally be aware. Hopefully this cat isn't sick, and I just had a lucky sighting.

This is a very young animal, weighing probably 10 pounds or so. Not a physical threat to anyone, unless it is in fact rabid.

Attached are the best photos, cropped and zoomed (I only got within about 20 feet, which was close enough for my comfort). The full set of pics are on my photobucket page, here.

Thanks,

-Johanna

Mount Wilson Toll Road Reopening

The neighborhood was aflutter with the news that bulldozers appeared out of nowhere yesterday, and started clearing the landslide off the Mount Wilson Toll Road. This has be closed for how long?! I guess this is a "shovel-ready" project if ever there was one.

View Slideshow



And here's some video that might look a bit boring to the uninitiated, but to locals, this is exciting stuff!

New ACT Trail Markers

Well someone's been busy. On my walk this morning, there were two brand new signs that weren't there yesterday morning.


View Larger Map

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 Forest 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.

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