On a visit to Pasadena in 1910, Teddy Roosevelt said the Arroyo Seco would make "one of the world's greatest parks." Larger than Central Park by over 100 acres, and one of the oldest continuous footpaths used by the Tonga peoples for thousands of years. Barbara and I followed only part of the 26 miles of Arroyo Seco trails today and we pretty much agreed with Teddy. We've done several hikes in the section we hiked today including a 6.6 mile trek on our Week 17 in September of 2017. Today's hike was short and entertaining. We started at the parking lot on the east side of Washington Blvd and Rosemont Ave, across the street from the Brookside Golf Course north of the Rose Bowl. Instead of crossing to the golf course as expected, the map led us up a narrow trail along a steep hill looking down on the course and across the canyon for a distant view of the canyon hills. Less than a quarter mile up, another trail took us down to street level, then across Rosemont where we picked up the Horseback Riding and Hiking Trail into the woods paralleling the E.O. Nay Course, the shorter of Brookside's two courses that runs on the north end of the complex. We soon broke away from the golfers as we headed toward the 201 overpass, the first section of the 210 that started construction in 1958 from the eastern end of Foothill and crossing the Arroyo Seco near Devil's Gate Dam, and opened in 1966. Just outside the overpass we came to what looked like a circus training setup or a really fun and really high swing and trapeze set up. Had to look that one up—turned out to be a rig the power company set up to measure and prevent oversized equipment from entering the area. I guess the swings were just for fun? Next stop for us, a tricky rock hop over a stream passing under the overpass. As usual we searched upstream for a narrower rock passage, found one, but had to crawl under bushes to get back to the trail. But! Did not get our shoes and socks wet. On the other side of the overpass and the top of our trail loop, the back side of the hike took us on the west side of the golf course on completely charming trail through tunnels of trees and hillsides, in some parts, covered with tumbling flowers. The trail let us out at Rosemont Avenue bordering the other Brookside golf course, the C.W. Koiner Course, opened in 1928 between us and the Rose Bowl, a National Historic Landmark and California Historic Civil Engineering Landmark, opened in 1922. Pretty flowers, funny golfers, good tree tunnels, and stream hopping. We had fun! 

Good trivia: the first game played at the Rose Bowl? October 28, 1922. CAL defeated USC, 12–0. 

The best part about hiking is also the best part of parks: Mother Nature and all five senses are involved, and each comes with a background story. Barbara and I found the Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park on the Long Beach map while searching for another location we never did find. A big green splash on the Long Beach map, we decided to give Harbor a try. We found a pristine haven, a "dedicated city wildlife sanctuary" in inland Long Beach. Part of the backstory here is the Who: in 1948 park namesake Ken Malloy, an environmentalist, led the charge to transform the 231 acres  to a community recreation space, a reserve of wetlands with trails, lakes, streams, and lush vegetation, part of the natural habitat of SoCal for native animals and plants. Time and intruders took their toll, including an invasion of alien species and pollution,  bullfrogs and apple snails "as big as baseballs," Florida banded water snakes, and, from 2005–2007, Reggie the alligator (now residing at the zoo.) In 2014, L.A. Dept of Public Works set out to restore the park, one of the largest remaining coastal wetland ecosystems in SoCal. They hydraulically dredged 240,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment from the lake and installed a treatment system. Three years later, the refurbished park had pathways, observation piers and zones, pedestrian bridges, fixtures, 622 new trees, and over 50,000 new plants. THAT's the park Barbara and I hiked through this morning. Hiking, biking, dog walking, and catch-and-release fishing in freshwater Machado Lake. So beautiful that the view from every bridge could be a picture postcard. Even the cloudy water near the wetland shoreline gleamed in swirls. Canadian Geese roamed the open spaces freely, including the goose, gander, and their three goslings waddling across our trail. In addition,  Egyptian geese, ducks, squirrels, and a lot of birdsong. Adjacent to L.A. Harbor College, the park also includes a golf course. Harbor Park might be a trek from L.A. but if you're down in Long Beach looking for an escape, this hike is a beauty.   

   

   

      

Barbara and I hiked multiple trails north of Burbank Boulevard in the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area, the largest open space in the San Fernando Valley, but never the trails on the south side because of an old reputation for homeless camps and trash. Rumor had it that L.A. Recreation and Parks in conjunction with landowners Army Corp of Engineers, cleaned up the south side. I really wanted to see the Sepulveda Dam up close, so we headed off this morning not expecting much and got a series of treats. Starting behind the baseball fields off the entrance parking lot, the first part of the hike we followed tractor tracks around a huge, plowed dirt field on our left, and the 101 up a hill of stones to our right. Not much to see, then as we walked, a closer look at the mustard plants revealed branch after branch of caterpillars, BIG caterpillars with black and golden brown fuzzy stripes wrapped on and around stems. The caterpillars will morph after 2 weeks into Salt Marsh Moths with a wingspan of 1.7 to 2.8 inches. These beauties kept us entertained until we closed in on the Sepulveda Dam, a dry dam built in 1941 by the Army Corp of Engineers to withhold L.A. River winter floods in response to the 1938 floods that caused 144 deaths. We got as close as we could to the dam (marked with the usual L.A. graffiti) then followed a dirt trail along the Haskell Creek channel, a small arm of the bird sanctuary in northern basin. Socializing ducks and pairs of big Canadian Geese ignored us, but one insistent black-necked stilt made distinctive kipping sounds as we passed. Turning west at the top of the trail, we passed a line of ricinus, the castor oil plant and 2018's poisonous plant of the year. The trail along the north side of the field paralleled Encino Creek and hosted two turkey vultures brunching on a dead something. Ugh. Completing the trail around the field, we detoured to the other side of the parking lot and found another field, presumably one of the lots agriculturally leased out for planting. There were rows and rows of vegetables from beans to squash, tomatoes to corn and more. Good hike for a gray day—the sun remained behind a cloud layer all morning. Good hike for small details, and seeing the dam I've driven over for years was pretty cool. 

   

   

   

   

Barbara and I knew we could extend this 1.4 mile hike in the San Gabriels to 2 miles, but truth is, there's so much to see and do in this park it felt more like a 3 part, 3.5 mile hike. The morning was clear and warm, the large parking lot jammed with cars, yet we never felt crowded. At least 7 different trails web from the bottom of the canyon around the Nature Center or rise up into the north side of the San Gabriels. Well-tended and well-marked by LA County Parks & Rec, our hike followed three trails, each with its own area and personality. We started west on the Heritage Trail into "butterfly world." The Butterfly Garden Pond, a butterfly puddling station (kind of a butterfly health bar), and a butterfly garden. Next up, the Walker Cabin, a 1920 pioneer homesteader cabin where Frank, his wife, and 12 children lived during winters when the rains blocked passage to their larger residents up the canyon, and years later a setting for cowboy movies of the 30s/40s. The next stop was an early 20th century oil pump for the rare "white oil" found in the area c. 1901. And finally, one of the most famous California historic landmarks, the Oak of the Golden Dream where Francisco Lopez fell asleep the afternoon of March 9, 1842, dreamed he was surrounded by gold, and when he woke (hungry?) he dug up an onion and found gold particles clinging to the roots—the first authenticated gold discovery in CA, six years before Sutter's Mill kicked off the Gold Rush of 1848. Next portion of the hike required a wet stone hop across the stream running E-W across the valley to pick up the Karen M. Pearson Hillside Trail, a pretty, well-kept hike up the side of the mountain to a water tank and rest stop before we made our way down a series of rough, manmade mountainside steps to a picnic area at the bottom. But we weren't done yet. We picked up the Ecology Trail on the north side of the Ecology Center, where we stopped for a look at the Batavian Indian Dwelling exhibit, life of peoples in the area who can be traced by artifacts as far back as 450 AD. A beautiful trail around the backside of the Center returned us to the Nature Center, for me, the coolest part of the hike. Out on the plaza, we met Sierra, the Great Horned Owl, and Aiyana, the red-tailed hawk both who live at the center and have their own handlers. Barbara and I have seen many red-tailed hawks in Griffith Park and the Santa Monicas, but never had the opportunity to meet one so very close. Both feathered girls were HUGE. So much more than we expected, Placerita Canyon was a real treat. We won't hesitate to return—so many trails left to explore!