Moments in Dirt and Ink

Sketches for the month. A small pool by the string of water that is so closely borderedby desert in Allison Gulch . The waterfall up Allison Gulch . Some of the leftover construction from cabins in Fish Creek Canyon . Darling Donna, or so a sign is reported to have once said, flowing into Fish Creek soon. Oblique view of the main attraction up Fish Creek Canyon .

Angeles National Forest Fish Creek Canyon has a quarry at the mouth, making access difficult.  The quarry has a few access days somewhat less than every other Saturday during which they provide parking and shuttles to go up the canyon.  This makes the hike up to the falls about 2 miles.  The shuttles used to allow people up until noon and continued running them back down to 3 PM, but recently this time has been shortened.  There is also a route made to bypass the quarry to get into the canyon from just after the gate to the quarry which adds about 3 miles to the trek up to the falls and which no one seems to have anything good to say about.  Previous years when I have gone, the part of the bypass trail coming down to the canyon looked wide and used.  The first mile of the other side, which I have been on, looked used, but was overgrown once it got to the other side of the canyon wall.  When I went this year (28 May 2011), the access trail down in th...

Azusa Front Country Locate the trailhead. I haven't gone up Fish Creek yet this year and the water around various places is clearly on the high side. The access days seem to be getting on the sparse side. I got up there right around 9 AM. It was particularly busy this time. People could have parked more tightly, but it was getting to be a bit ridiculous to find a space when I got there. A crowd was waiting for the shuttle vans. Once up there, it seemed the brush had encroached a bit more than usual and it was quite a crowd going both up and down to make the trail seem even smaller. I started poking around the old cabin spots, finding more behind the first set. The cabins were really packed in at one time. Although now all that is left is stone and metal and not much of that even. A bed frame sitting in the dead grass and a stove tucked away on its side in the brush.

Angeles National Forest There are all sorts of known gold mines, and likely as many unknown ones, around the local counties.  This is gold country, after all.  Iron Mountain must have been a very attractive place to mine because it is riddled with the things even though it is (and was) a remote and difficult area.  One still finds prospectors when going up the East Fork of the San Gabriel River at the bottom of the mountain.  A lot can be found out about these mines from the local enthusiasts .  Many of the mines around Iron Mountain are included in the "mines we will never see" section .  There is also a section of lost mines of Iron Mountain . Some of the mines in the area are: Allison Mine, which may have two almost usable routes to it, one up the gulch  from the "bridge to nowhere" trail and one along the hillside from the maintained part of the trail out of Heaton Flat Baldora Mine, sometimes claimed to be another name for Widco, but a...

Angeles National Forest This is the second and last part. For the first part, go here . More little bits of stream along the way. Just before a final narrowing, a cactus could be found on the slopes. There was also evidence of a trail leading up the side here which I decided against trying.

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. I decided to go off to up Allison Gulch and maybe up to the mine above. I wasn't able to find others to come along, so decided climbing up out of the canyon along long gone trails would be a bad idea and it was already getting latish. I decided to just go to the falls on up the canyon. I got ahold of a permit for entering the wilderness. Didn't pay quite enough attention given the permit mostly filled out and thus had one saying I was going to the "bridge to nowhere". I was only starting off that way, but would turn off eventually. So I started down the road. The campground was full of emergency vehicles and it looked like search and rescue were doing exercises with a zipline over the river. They were all packed into bright yellow rain gear since it had been raining the night before and here it seemed to have lasted a little longer here. There were even a few drops falling now and then. Then the road ende...

Burbank City Park Locate the trailhead. It was suggested that I might join with "Hike the Geek" type peoples. They were going up what they called "Stough Nature (backside)" at a time that seemed somewhat early for me these days, but it's getting to be summer so it seems much more reasonable at the moment. At least I thought it was getting to be summer. I woke up a bit early and heard a dribbling noise. Looking out, I saw there was a light rain falling and everything had gotten somewhat soaked. It probably would be much cooler than two days before, as predicted. I'd left my hat on the desk, so had to go off and get it although then I didn't use it. I was running on fumes, so had to find gas. A generally cheap station isn't that far, so went there but it wouldn't actually pump the gas and there was no one there to flip it on. The next one wouldn't read the card outside, but there was no one inside to take it. A fair bit down ...