The first thing to do after any hike is to find out why it received that specific name. [My favorite is Mount Disappointment.] On this particular hike, my imagination conjured fabulously absurd reasons why this canyon was named after the devil. This must be the place where Lucifer stopped on his [...]

The other night, me, my tripod and my camera sat by the side of the road on Angeles Forest Highway, in the San Gabriel Mountains, above Los Angeles. Please click on the thumbnail to open a larger photograph.

     It was prior to 1906 when the hiking craze came to Los Angeles. At its center was the town of Sierra Madre and the Mount Wilson Trail. But in 1906 the electric ‘Red Car’ line was extended to Sierra Madre and an already thriving business expanded exponentially.      There were three ways to make [...]

     Twice I had hiked past the turn-off for Hermit falls, on my way to Sturtevant Falls. Sturtevant Falls is the one everyone talks about out here in the Big Santa Anita Canyon. So I didn’t think much of Hermit Falls. It seemed like an afterthought. Something not worth visiting. But on this warm Friday [...]

Wild Flowers on the San Merrill Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains above Alta Dena. Globe Gilia Gilia capitata (Orange?) bush monkeyflower Mimulus aurantiacus Indian paintbrush Castilleja Lacy Phacelia Phacelia tanacetifolia Deerweed Lotus scoparius Globe Gilia Gilia capitata Golden Yarrow Eriophyllum confertiflorum Prickly Phlox Leptodactylon californicum

Wild Flowers on the San Merrill Trail in the San Gabriel Mountains above Alta Dena. Orange bush monkeyflower Mimulus aurantiacus Golden Yarrow Eriophyllum confertiflorum Red larkspur Delphinium nudicaule Red larkspur Delphinium nudicaule

The hills of California are blooming. All of the flowers, 31 pictures in all, over the next three posts, were taken on the bottom half of the San Merrill trail, [link to my blog post on hiking this trail], just above the city of Alta Dena. I have done my best to name some of [...]

Title: Hiking Mount Disappointment was disappointing because it wasn’t a disappointment. …no, that’s not right. Hiking Mount Disappointment was sadly not a disappointment at all. …hmmm. With a name like disappointment, it has to be good. …no, that’s horrible. If you want disappointment, don’t hike Mount Disappointment. Ok, that’s enough dreadful titles, on with the [...]

     I was expecting nothing. Maybe, if I was lucky, a long covered piece of human architecture. But what I was not expecting, nestled two miles up in the San Gabriel Mountains, was little piece of civilization.      The hike to Henninger Flats begins at the same place as the hike to Eaton Canyon Falls: [...]

     Benjamin Davis Wilson was born in Tennessee in 1811. In 1841 he headed west with the stated goal of reaching China, but he never reached China, due to the distraction of the San Gabriel Valley.      When Mr. Wilson arrived in California –which was still owned by Mexico- he purchased land in Riverside. But [...]

     There was no water falling when I visited the Rubio Canyon Falls, which serves me right for visiting a waterfall in the August desert that is Los Angeles. But, as I found out later, mother nature has reopened this waterfall after human beings closed it down for 6 years.      After hiking the Mt. [...]

     Last Sunday evening Trey told me about the tunnels.      A group of us were relaxing and somehow the conversation shifted to the Bridge to Nowhere hike [link]. Trey wondered if I had been to the Tunnels to Nowhere.      “What tunnels?”      “The tunnels in the hills above the Bridge to Nowhere, they [...]