Barbara is great at identifying trees and I like studying architecture in different parts of LA, so this urban walk through South Pasadena and parts of San Marino appealed to us for our final June Gloom hike. Being our first trek through the south side of South Pasadena, we weren't aware of its reputation as the "City of Trees," a real and serious historical factor about Pasadena's 1888 spin-off town. The original residents of now one of the oldest municipalities in L.A., were conservative, middle-class, midwest farmers mainly from Indiana. Six years post establishment, one citizen wrote a 1893 op-ed appeal for shade trees to make their new town look inviting. On April 24, 1894, volunteers gathered and planted 1,000 shade trees, including 800 ficus in one day, all donated by a family-run nursery. Today the town has 21,000 trees and over 100 acres of parks. The best example of the varieties of trees came at our starting point: the South Pasadena Public Library. We parked on the east side of the library on Fairview, and circled Library Park, an entire block filled with 75 trees in 21 different species from carrotwood to magnolia, fruitless olive, liquidambar, London plane, strawberry, ash, jacaranda, and more, including the historic, South Pasadena landmark Moreton Bay Fig Tree (above), an import from Australia, planted as a small potted sapling in 1930 by a city street department worker. The tree allegedly has magical powers that boost the imaginations of those who come in contact and benefit your life in magical ways. My only regret was not giving the tree a hug. The buttress roots alone are worth a close look. The rest of the hike led us down Diamond to Monterey, and crossing Fair Oaks into San Marino toward the second of our three park visits, was like walking into a very wealthy and architecturally stunning Mayberry. Calm, beautiful, well kept. Many streets were lined with a single species like the jacaranda on Morengo Ave or the palms on Stratford. The streets we walked in San Marino, incorporated in 1913 (its first mayor was General Patton's father) were a standing architectural showcase without a rundown yard in sight. Every block reflected the 1920s-30s Golden era of architecture including Craftsman, Spanish Colonial, Andalusian, Mission Revival, American Colonial Revival...if you love architecture, tour the impressive streets of San Marino. And, of course, the trees lining the streets were perfection. We walked down Milan Ave and east over Edgewood Drive to the sycamores and oaks of pocket-sized Eddie Park for our turnaround snack. Back up Chelton Way then over to Mission, Mission Alley, and Stratford to Garfield Park, filled with crawling babies, partying toddlers, and morning walkers among the old, beautiful sycamores. Back down to Mission Street, we passed the Fair Oaks Pharmacy (closed on weekends) on our way back to the car. Looking back 106 years at the tree-planting midwesterners establishing roots in the US, this hike gave us a small town feel, just right going into the USA's semiquincentennial week. Fun walk!

   

   

   

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. 

Barbara and I chose this hike for its closeness to Studio City-Sherman Oaks-Encino, a simple out and back trail marked 'easy' where we could try out our new hiking poles and be done before lunch. How in the world, after 335 hikes did Barbara and I not know about this place? Canyonback Trail has to rank in the top 5 of in-the-city hiking views, better than Fryman and Runyon and Franklin. Utterly breathtaking from start to finish. Internally, it's a no-shade, dirt fire road with multiple offshoots—a mountain bikers' playground and a 3+mile doggie off-leash dream trail. For the hikers, a jaw-dropping, 270-degree view from the valley to DTLA to the pacific coastline out to Catalina. Barbara and I saw the sweeping valley view first,  then, even on a hazy morning it was "there's downtown, wait, is that Century City?" And then "is that the OCEAN or haze?" I did a compass check, the Santa Monica to Palos Verdes shoreline came into view...from Encino! It was awesome. The mountains and valley show off a pallet of lush greens, and Mother Nature had put out her early offering of purple-with-a-touch-of-yellow wildflowers. Easy access from the valley side: down Havenhurst south of Ventura Blvd. to trailhead off Encino Hills Drive. Westridge-Canyonback Wilderness Park is part of the 20,000 acre Santa Monica Mountains' "Big Wild" starting just west of the 405 above the Sepulveda Pass. You'd never know unless you go. My iPhone camera just can't capture the distant views, so the pix aren't even close to what we saw in person. The hike is challenging in places but not hard, but most of all, the view is stunning. Go!