On Friday after Thanksgiving, we were intent upon avoiding shopping areas. We drove off from the campground thinking that we may stop at the Palmdale Regional airport where there were a couple of aircraft displays to be seen, but as we headed up route 14, there was an exit for Angeles Forest Highway with information about restrictions for trucks or vehicles over a certain weight... so we made the spontaneous decision to see where that highway went, in the Jeep, on a road on which Miss Doozie would not be allowed.
The road almost immediately started climbing, and we knew we were heading roughly south toward LA. We thought we might ultimately get to a place where we could see an overlook of the city.
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| We came to a tunnel through part of the mountain... |
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| We were definitely in hills/mountains.. |
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| Gorgeous views on every side... |
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| Several motorcycles enjoyed the windy roads... |
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| It was definitely still desert... |
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| But there was a lake or reservoir with a helipad below us... |
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| A closeup of the helipad... |
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| And of the reservoir... |
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| There was an area just down the valley from the reservoir that looked like it was terraced... |
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| Dwayne got a picture of his honey as she turned to him when he called... |
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| A little further down the road and we found an overlook of LA... |
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| Zooming in... can you see the buildings to the left in the haze? |
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| It almost looks like they are floating on clouds... (I think this may actually have been from a different overlook and slightly different perspective). |
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The Angeles National Forest
This was the first national forest in the state of California, second in the United States, created by proclamation December 20, 1898 by President Benjamin Harrison.
The first name given to the forest was "San Gabriel Timberland Reserve". It was change to "San Gabriel National Forest" March 6, 1907, and then "Angeles National Forest" July 1, 1908.
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| We came across a graphic reminder to keep our attention on driving... This had happened a bit before we got there - we didn't see anyone associated with the vehicle (I guess they had been transported to the hospital) and there were two law enforcement cars there. |
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| This was the route we took -- I don't know why it has the "do not enter" symbol - the road was (and is) open. |
googlemaps Soledad to Flintridge
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| On the way back, we took a route that would take us closer to the reservoir that we had looked over at... |
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| We could see Big Tujunga Dam |
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| A close up of Big Tujunga Dam and the helipad near it. |
As we drove by, we could see the area that looked terraced.
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| When I looked on Google Maps, I could see that it was called "Maple Canyon" |
Google Maps Big Tujunga Reservoir
I did a search for what Maple Canyon might be - and I found interesting information:
http://dpw.lacounty.gov/wrd/Projects/bigtujunga/Expanded_Project_Description.pdf
It seems that there had been a forest fire in the area in 2009 and the terraced area is a "Sediment Placement Site (SPS)" for placing the sediment that would need to be removed from the reservoir.
An enjoyable day avoiding the craziness of shopping on Black Friday!
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