Moments in Dirt and Ink

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Locate the trailhead. Abbie plus her boy plus a new member of his lab plus her visiting parents and I all went off on a hike down by Malibu. It should be a nice little loop , except for this creep . How he gets away with it so close to Malibu, I have no idea. The trail had been going there long before he bought the property. And he promptly sued his neighbors to force them to give him the same sort of easement the trail has. A clear case of good fences making bad neighbors. The hike starts at the end of Corral Canyon Road, which heads into the young mountains with many curves and steep drops from highway 1 just "north" of Malibu. The road turns to dirt and gravel and widens into a parking lot just before a gate. The fire road beyond may be used by bicyclists and the various single track trails from the spot may not. Castro Motorway continues on from the end of Corral Canyon. We didn't get to see th...

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. Alder Creek is apparently a "trail that was" in the guidebooks even though I found it on the current (Ha! It's getting rather old and out of date. They need to do a new one.) forest map. There seems to be very little to be found about it online. There's a little on it by one Caltech alum who is so often a great source on the local trails. There's also an errata site for Trails of the Angeles that notes you can hike this trail now, but then says it's not particularly interesting. In the 10 years since folks have known it was open, there doesn't seem to have been a lot of interest. The trail heads both ways from where Upper Big Tujunga Road (Between Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest highways) crosses Alder Creek. There used to be a small lot a hundred feet off, but now it has been blocked by a load of dirt as has all the roadside parking for a quarter mile. One presumes this is to discourage use o...