Castaic Crossroads Sept 19-20

I spent a whirlwind two days in the portion of Angeles National Forest north of Castaic, an interesting area of ranges and diverse rock types between the Mojave Desert, San Gabriel Mountains, and Sespe Wilderness. Most pass through this area traveling at high speed on Interstate 5, but I had reason to explore many of the other two-lane roads traversing the area and several notable hikes dipping into more remote terrain. I managed to time my visit with a rare break in the summer heat (even seeing some rain!), which helped me cover more ground. Overall I was impressed at the spectacular geology and variety of scenic wonders underappreciated for southern California. Unfortunately that experience was also paired with aggressive commuters irresponsibly driving on winding mountain roads, rampant graffiti, ruins of the long-past golden age of national forest recreation, and a trash dump at every pullout I stopped at. 

My first stop was visiting the site of the St Francis Dam, which catastrophically failed in 1928 killing over 400 people in the resulting flood and widely considered one of the world's worst dam sites from an engineering geology point of view. There was not too much to see other than large chunks of concrete downstream, a sediment filled valley, and a protruding ridge that formed the natural constriction of the chosen dam site. From here I was happy to leave the reckless commuters behind and take a forestry connector road up to the ridgeline of Lake Hughes Road. I parked on the side of the road and took a short trail to the bedrock crag of Raven's Roost, a stunning outcrop of landslide breccia that flowed into and deformed underlying sandstones and conglomerates (frontispiece). With some care I was able to find a scrambling route to the top of the peak and enjoy the view. I saw abundant rock climbing anchors around its periphery, the first of several "unlisted" rock climbing areas I came across. After a quick detour for a view of Castaic Lake, I about-faced and drove Lake Hughes Road into the mountains. I was surprised how rugged Elizabeth Lake Canyon became with the road clinging high above a confined gorge section and what I imagine must be near-constant rock fall.

Elizabeth Lake Canyon

After crossing the Clearwater Fault the canyon opened up more widely. I parked at the bridge over Fish Creek for an exploratory hike up the creek. The creek had clearly seen considerable change since the 2020 Lake Fire ravaged the area, with remnants of high young terraces still intact and trees buried by several feet. Despite this, the further up I went the more bedrock pools I had to skirt around. Where a small waterfall poured in on the creek's right I would have to wade thigh deep to continue. I stripped down to my boxers and continued on through the brisk waters, soon coming upon a scenic flooded corridor. Past that at an abrupt turn was a scenic sequence of three falls and plunge pools cut into foliated gneisses; despite the graffiti, bolted chain link, and eyehole bolts clearly for hanging hammocks, I think it is fair to say it is one of the more scenic waterfalls in southern California. For so late in the summer, the amount of water was impressive. I carefully used the sketchy chain to climb the falls, appreciating the neat hanging pothole and falls above. A quick drone scout determined the canyon would get much less interesting for a ways so I opted to return the way I came instead of a longer hike, taking an opportunity for a quick refreshing skinny dip before hiking back. Lots of frogs hopped across my path along the creek.

Upper Fish Creek narrows 

Not bad for late summer in SoCal

I drove up the remainder of Elizabeth Lake Canyon to emerge onto Pine Canyon Road and drive north along the San Andreas Fault. At Three Points I drove north to check out some of the rhyolitic outcrops of the Neenach Volcanics, the famous Miocene volcano that has been offset nearly 200 miles across the San Andreas Fault (the other side being Pinnacles National Park in central California). I then drove past Hughes Lake, Munz Lakes, and Elizabeth Lake, prominent sag ponds along the San Andreas and some of the few natural lakes in southern California.

Elizabeth Lake looking along the San Andreas Fault

Past Elizabeth Lake I turned to cross the low saddle back into San Francisquito Canyon where I started my day. I drove through the hamlet of Green Valley, which I found to be a disturbingly dense cluster of houses beneath the trees and with seemingly very little defensible space from the surrounding forest. I shuddered and drove on up Spunky Canyon, briefly stopping at the nice pine grove at the saddle. 

I then descended the other side to skirt around Bouquet Reservoir. Bouquet Canyon Road made for a more interesting drive than I expected, with a windy road following a ribbon of oaks and sycamores, and cutting through the schist of the Sierra Pelona. Abruptly crossing the Pelona Fault near the mouth of the canyon at Las Cantilles was an interesting paired positive and negative surprise. For the negative was a tragic 1970s picnic spot complete with artificial lake, gazebo, and toilet/changing facilities that have since been decimated as stripped, trashed, graffiti-coated ruins, one of several examples I would come across in the area from the long-gone golden age of forest recreation. In stark contrast only a few stone throws away was an neat cluster of crags of Vaqueros conglomerate and sandstone with meticulously maintained trails, erosion control, benches, and not a piece of trash in site. It was abundantly clear this area was a pet project for impassioned local rock climbers and I was most impressed by the local love and complete lack of online presence for this site.

"Los Cantilles" climbing crags

I had one more stop I hoped to sneak in before sunset so I continued out of the mouth of the canyon and joined the bumper-to-bumper hordes commuting home as I drove east to Sleepy Valley. I was happy to find the gate at the bottom of Rush Canyon Road open and set off up the dirt grade. Between the loose slopes, ruts, erosional gaps in the road, and swooping corners from off-road vehicles this short drive made for a minor adventure for my underequipped Prius. I pulled over and parked once I reached the ridgeline and set off hiking 0.5 miles to the crags of the Texas Canyon climbing area. This would be a neat area to explore more thoroughly with many nooks and crannies and a whole line of outcrops stretching a half-mile, but I was close to sunset and so only walked around the first (and largest) crag and had to be content with a drone flight to take in the remainder.

Texas Canyon climbing area

I spent the night cozy in my rooftop tent at Oak Flat Campground. The campground itself was quiet and nearly empty, a nice spot underneath the oaks, only marred slightly by the little-louder-than-white-noise of Interstate-5 echoing across the valley. Despite a forecast of overnight rain, I awoke dry with nice morning sunlight. I broke camp and drove past some classic Ridge Basin outcrops in Osito Canyon, finding the gate closed at Frenchmans Flat trailhead. Fortunately I had the good thought to bring my gravel bike and so could cover the last 2 miles of road below the dam with ease other than the developing drizzle. It was neat to revisit this area since my last time here on a sedimentary petrology field trip in 2005...nearly two decades ago. I remembered several of the excellent outcrops along the way, in particular the amazing tilted bed of wave-rippled sandstone at the very end. 

World-famous Ridge Basin exposures

2005 field trip photo of me on wave-rippled sandstone I revisited

I returned to the car a little soggy and drove back to Whitaker Summit where I hoped to get a drone image of the prominent ridgetop outcrop of Violin Breccia. As I arrived so did the rain and then low clouds and fog to obscure any chance at a successful flight. I waited patiently, perhaps 20 minutes on the side of the road until a break in the rain and clouds let me get a quick flight in. The rain saturated outcrops with wispy clouds and the rough ranges beyond Piru Gorge made for one of my favorite scenes of the trip.

Violin Breccia near Whitaker Summit

Onward I drove to the southern start of the Old Ridge Route to causally see how far I could go before hitting a closed gate. Gates were not the problem though and I managed to snake my way a couple miles up the curvy road to a ridgeline road collapse. I wasn't going to be able to sneak by off the pavement with my low slung Prius and so it was the end of the road for me, but not without enjoying a section with really nice wild sunflowers.

Old Ridge Route

For my last and final excursion (the big one I had been anticipating) I drove down Templin Highway to where it ends abruptly at a roadblock that would serve as my trailhead. My goal was a roughly 11 mile round trip over increasingly rough terrain from abandoned paved highway to half-gone dirt road with a dozen stream crossings to flat trail along a creek to overgrown steeply switchbacking trail to rough and tumble scramble to the summit of Redrock Mountain with its views of red craggy cliffs across the way. As I readied to go a stiff rain set in and I waited it out in the car, wondering how long it might last. It took nearly an hour but eventually it seemed to clear and I set off down the pavement at speed on my bike. I crossed the bridge over Castaic Creek and before long turned off to head up Fish Canyon. Portions of this former road were in good shape while others were coated in rockfall requiring me to walk my bike. Frogs were everywhere and the scenery improved with every bit of progress. At the fourth stream crossing the gain on the bike seemed to be approaching borderline and so I ditched it to continue on foot.

After several more stream crossings I entered an excellent gorge in San Francisquito Formation conglomerate. Here the canyon was the width of a vehicle and I followed the remnants of an old concrete road back and forth across the river through a series of neat waterfalls. After about a thousand feet the gorge opened up and I approached Cienaga Spring and the remnants of yet another golden age campground. Overall I made great speedy progress to this point.

San Francisquito Fm narrows of Fish Canyon

I made good progress on the surprisingly clear trail up Fish Canyon, managing to keep dry feet with care at the six-ish stream crossings. The real standout along this stretch were some particularly majestic oak trees, the shadows of which would have made excellent campsites. I soon came to the mysteriously named "The Pianobox Prospect" on the USGS topo. The spot consisted of little more than a shallow indent in a wall, some rusty equipment, and the remnants of a small dam across the creek. The creek had a pleasant gorge section just above and lots of frogs jumping with my every step, but unfortunately this is where things got rough as I had to climb away from the creek for the first time.

At The Pianobox Prospect

The start of the trail up to Redrock Mountain was hard to find and well guarded by a wall of poison oak such that I took nearly 15 minutes to strategically break through. Once through the poison oak was behind me until the return, but what remained was a 1.5 mile/1800 ft climb on a trail continuously overgrown with chaparral that grabbed and sliced, and yuccas that acupunctured. The moisture from the morning's rain was now turning into aggressive humidity as I felt solidly out of shape and drenched in sweat. The last 800 feet of elevation gain were the most tortuous as the trail dissipated and every step forward was a struggle. I admit I stopped more frequently than I would have liked but eventually reached the summit. The view of the red rock cliffs was neat and did make for unique terrain for southern California but I left feeling a little underwhelmed considering the effort spent. I did appreciate the rough terrain and miles of wilderness to the north though with ridge after ridge and valley after valley. I flew my drone, let some sweat dry, then it was back down to the car as quick as I could to hopefully not bear the brunt of traffic. 

Red rock cliffs

View from Redrock Mtn towards the way I came

With my trekking poles I managed to make excellent time sliding on scree and crashing through scrub, taking a half-hour to reach the creek instead of the 1.5 hours on the way up. A good pace got me to my bike and then back up to my car without incident. All in all it was an action packed couple days spent exploring one of the largest blank-to-me places on my personal southern California map. There were some surprisingly neat features and geology and I did not see anyone every time I ventured off a road. An interesting area that undoubtedly hides many other underappreciated treasures, I certainly came away feeling I had only scratched the surface.

Picacho Feb 15-17

 

I had occasion to spend a few action-packed days in the Sonoran Desert along the Colorado between Blythe and Yuma evaluating its geological resources. I had previously been to some parts of the area including the mines of the Cargo Muchacho Mountains, the ghost town of Tumco, and the slot canyons of Unnamed Wash, but many places, including the four wilderness areas here, were blank spots in my mental map. In some ways I consider this California's Empty Quarter. I found out a surprising number of people live seasonally on the southern slopes near Yuma and Ogilby but once you venture to the north the visitation drops abruptly and you can soon find yourself alone in desert wildernesses of oases, unmapped natural bridges, and dramatic volcanic crags. Along the way I flew my drone about 20 times, getting nice views looking into some of the wilderness areas. It has been quite a long time since I have explored the desert on my own, which was overall great. I could have used some external courage when it came to Picacho Peak though.

I started at the Cargo Muchachos, relocating the quarry with andalusite crystals and finding a new kyanite locality. I drove to the American Girl Mine open pit and mistakenly thought I could take a road through the mountains and so had to backtrack out. I then drove Barney Oldfield Rd past a really interesting isolated basalt mesas and then on to the Valley of the Names, a 250-acre area where people have laid out thousands of names in black basalt on light-colored silty alluvium. It was kind of sad to imagine the effort that would be needed to remediate this but I did wonder if by some classification it could be considered the world's largest collective art project?

American Girl Mine

An isolated basalt mesa

A very small portion of the Valley of the Names

From Valley of the Names I continued on to Picacho Rd. Just past Unnamed Wash I parked the car and ventured about 1.5 miles across desert pavement to check out a natural bridge carved out of volcanic breccia. It had rained the week before and so nearly everywhere I went I found standing pools of water in bedrock potholes.

Picacho Peak at distant center

"Arturo's Bridge"

I continued on Picacho Rd, past the enormous tailings of Picacho Mine, and out to the Colorado at Picacho SRA. Despite the pleasant temperatures the place was nearly abandoned. I was impressed with the excellent campground, facilities, and scenery in this area. This is a fairly unique section of the Colorado where dams upstream have caused the river bed to lower and the river to abandon its floodplain. So instead there are a number of lakes, backwaters, and wetlands that surround the river. I continued on the road up along the Colorado past the main campground. I detoured up Bear Canyon to its interesting slot canyon and tank area, which also featured a really nice slickenlined fault plane.

View from near Picacho Rd saddle

Taylor Lake

Bear Canyon

Bear Canyon Tank (fault plane at right)

With the last of the sunlight spent, I pulled into the beach-front 4-S Campground, which I had all to myself. In the early morning I drove to the Outpost Campground at the end of the road and then went for a 1.5 mi hike through several washes to what I thought could be another natural bridge on aerial photos. On arrival I was excited to find that I guessed correctly with an round tunnel draining a giant breached pothole with dryfalls above.

An unnamed natural bridge N of Picacho SRA

I spotted some deer and a roadrunner back at the river and flew my drone for an aerial view of the Colorado. I parked where the road crossed Carrizo Wash and hiked 1.5 miles up the loose wash. Carrizo Falls was a standout spot with the wash spilling out of a slot in a hundred foot-high wall of ignimbrite with an oasis of 50 palms and a deep clear pool of water below. From the copious droppings I deemed this an important watering hole for bighorn sheep. I climbed up several dryfalls and stemmed across pools until I approached an unclimbable overhanging dryfall.

The hardest working river in the West

Carrizo Falls, a true oasis

After the great Carrizo hike I piled back into my borrowed vehicle and hoped the road to Indian Pass would not be so sandy as to be impassible. Happily the road was in great shape with very manageable sand ruts and I easily made it to the steeper climb out of the wash up to Indian Pass. Here I went for yet another 1.5mi hike up a wash to a unique cluster of arches in free-standing basalt dikes. From the right vantage it was possible to get two of the arches to align like eyes of the mountain.

Unique double arch eyes

Lower arch window

Next I drove up the incline to Indian Pass and walked around looking at the interesting petroglyphs while I ate a late lunch. These were different than any other petroglyphs I had seen before. Instead of figures and patterns carved on rock walls, the field of boulders and cobbles at the pass had intersecting sets of lines scratched into their desert varnish with locally sourced quartzite. Regardless of their actual significance, to me they really conveyed a feeling of this critical pass being a crossroads of the region. Unfortunately for every ancient petroglyph there was at least as many modern "tic-tac-toe" games or names scratched into the rocks.

Indian Pass

Unique Indian Pass petroglyphs 

By this point I had already managed to squeeze in 10 miles of hiking for the day across three hikes, but I hoped to fit in one more rugged 5 mi wilderness hike before the end of the day into the craggy volcanic spires at the heart of the Indian Pass Wilderness. This was probably the hike I was most excited for and it did not disappoint. I went up a rocky tributary of Gavilan Wash and soon climbed up rhyolite slopes to the first of several saddles threading through dramatic steep-walled peaks. I was immediately blown away by the wilderness feel of the place as I crested the first saddle and saw nothing but volcanic spires around me. I worked my way down the loose sloped into the headwater basin below and then sweatily climbed up to a second saddle, this one with even more dramatic views of spires and a distant Colorado River meandering on the horizon. I followed a steep chute down, crossed another basin, and then scrambled up to join the ridge leading to Peak 1280. I had nearly hit sunset at this point but wow what a stunning view. I kind of knew what to expect but was still caught off-guard with the beauty and remoteness of this place. I was surrounded by spires with an expensive horizon including the Colorado River and Arizona to the north and east and Picacho Peak looming on the southern horizon. I would have loved to linger here on this summit but knew I would already be pushing it to get back to the car without a headlamp so I barreled down the slope and followed less rugged washes and saddles back to the car. It was one of the best short solo wilderness hikes I have done. I drove through the dark back along the Colorado to the main Picacho Campground. The campground was nearly empty. I greatly enjoyed the free hot-as-you-like-it solar shower before settling in.

Stunning wilderness view from the second saddle

A partial view from Peak 1280

In the morning I got another early start to drive out to the end of Railroad Canyon Road, which was more interesting than anticipated. Portions of the road traverse the top of the old railroad grade such that in places you are driving across a car-width bed with abrupt drops to both sides. After, I parked at the Marcus Wash trailhead and hiked about 2 miles cross-country (metamorphic rocks this time for a change!) and up the wash to one of its tributaries. The wash became more enclosed with meandering schist walls and then around one turn I was presented with a very nice looking natural bridge spanning the drainage. It was particularly satisfying to come upon this feature after spotting it as a potential natural bridge in satellite imagery weeks before.

A neat seldom visited natural bridge

Next I drove onto increasingly rough spur roads to end up in a wash only about 0.5 miles away from Picacho Peak. I knew the peak as a classic SoCal adventure that was a mix of scrambling, some minor climbing and ropework, and a whole lot of exposure involved in ascending to the summit. I was interested in checking it out and carried gear in case I felt like giving it a try but fully expected it would be more than I wanted to do solo. There is no vantage from which the peak looks anything other than very difficult to impossible to climb but I continued on hiking up past its western wash and then steeply scrambling up a loose gully to arrive at the saddle between its east and west peaks. Here I added my helmet and ascended carefully from one ledge to another, eventually finding myself at the base of a the first ladder. I'll admit there was a lot of exposure and I was feeling shaky and not too into going much further so I sent my drone up to scout. The aerial view was impressive. The best way I could characterize the route was that it seemed like an ant farm without its side wall, with all the ledges sloping outward and covered in ball-bearing rocks. The top ladder looked particularly exposed and then I would have to rock climb, abseil, ascend, abseil to cross and recross the false summit block once on the ridge. With only slight disappointment I opted to not go for the top solo. I climbed the first ladder and checked out the platform someone built across the infamous step-across and then called that good. 

Picacho Peak at left

Interesting Picacho hoodos

Peak 1474 and California red barrel cactus on Picacho Peak ascent

The ant-farm style maze of ledges, walls, and ladders leading to Picacho Peak

I made quick time back down the hill and wash to the car and started heading out towards Yuma. I drove over to check out Senator Wash where I went for a short slot canyon hike and marveled at the vast number of people living out of motorhomes. I met some colleagues at the roadside site of an old Spanish mission and relocated cemetery as the sun set (and mosquitoes swarmed). I joined them for a tasty Thai dinner in Yuma then debated a late drive or camping. I stopped by Holtville Hot Springs which I found rather busy and so opted to drive on for home. Overall I was impressed with all the neat things and hikes I was able to fit into three action-packed days. This area had a lot more to offer than I thought and I would love to come back to explore it some more.

Parting shot of Picacho Peak

West Coast Fieldwork Nov 27-Dec 2

With Fiordland fieldwork a success, we drove on to our West Coast targets with the quickest grocery stop possible at the burgeoning cesspool of Queenstown. The Martyr River outcrop was quite different than previous configurations and portions of the outcrop had clearly eroded back tens of meters since I last visited. The exposure along the river was now eroded back such that the fault plane was right at river level, not much help for excavating. Fortunately the rest of the outcrop further up the slope was much more amendable and included a 6m by 12m exposure of a largely already exposed fault plane that was the subject of much of our work. Happily here too we found plenty of curved slickenlines to document. Despite the dramatically different outcrops my previous observations and interpretations largely held up, always appreciated! Sandflies were very tolerable. I enjoyed showing the others around including the view of Monkey Puzzle Gorge, the Cascade lookout at the end of the road, and Jackson Bay (even though The Cray Pot was closed). We settled in to the nightly routine of going to the only bar and restaurant in town, the Hard Antler, which fortunately did great meals.

We had one day where we ended up going through the effort of driving to the Martyr River but the rain was sufficiently strong that we deemed it unsafe to work beneath the precarious outcrop, and so retreated back to Haast. I decided to use the opportunity to go for a wet bush bash to explore some of the karst on Jackson Head. I struggled upward through some strongly woven kiekie/supplejack combos to eventually reach the hanging valley above. I documented numerous sinkholes, submergences, and resurgences but the most promising sink would have been a bit too dangerous to enter alone. The foggy bush was beautiful and the serenity was top notch, even if I was thoroughly soaking wet the whole time. Mysteriously near the top of the hill I found an apartment-sized chunk of high-grade schist, a hard thing to explain.

With our Martyr fieldwork successfully complete, we shifted to our last and most uncertain field area, the Haast-Paringa Cattle Track. This area probably had not been visited by geologists in decades (perhaps 40 years) but had a number of steep creeks that might give us the outcrop we wanted and at least one creek that had a good exposure in the past. After quite a lot of unneeded confusion, we eventually found the right place to meet the helicopter pilot at the half-pipe in the bush next to the Whakapohai River. In two shifts we shuttled us and our gear around the low clouds into a drizzly Maori Saddle Hut. Unlike Hokuri Hut, we would have this hut to ourselves the whole time. It was a surprisingly unique and tidy wooden tongue-and-groove hut built in 1980 and notably featuring a triple-decker bunk bed. I did not know what to expect but travel on the Haast-Paringa Cattle Track was excellent once we tossed and cut some of the windfall- wide, well-graded, and cliff-hugging. There were a few slippery creeks to cross. Chasm Creek had one of the more impressive swingbridges I have seen anywhere in New Zealand and could not have been much older than a year or two.

Between our time and the weather forecast finally closing in on us, we really only had two days to explore before being pulled out on the cusp of a large storm. We spent the first day looking in Summit Creek where there was an outcrop decades before but found little of what we hoped. We found a sequence of glacial silts tens of meters thick, a bizarre occurrence given the terrain and our height on the range but nevertheless unhelpful. For our last day we came up with a new strategy and decided to explore the southwestern tributaries of Chasm Creek. Here we did find a fault exposure, albeit one with weird kinematics and recorded it for posterity. On a further gamble Russ and I ventured up the steep and intimidating Chasm Creek, eventually finding one of the very best bedrock-on-bedrock exposures of the Alpine Fault anywhere (frontispiece; left side Australian Plate, right side Pacific Plate). We all worked on the various outcrops in this area for a good amount of time. Though the exposure was spectacular, the outcrop was not really amenable to large exposures of the fault plane itself. Though we were unable to record any curved slickenlines, we all were a little jazzed to find a new exposure of the plate boundary.

The flight out from Maori Saddle Hut was on the cusp of the approaching storm and one of the rougher flights I have ever had. We stopped for a meal in Fox and found Whataroa had fallen on hard times- their pub and main hotel being closed. We drove on to Greymouth, effectively getting me there a day earlier than planned. We all had a nice last celebratory meal at the Monteith's Brewery. And now of course the rest of the work begins, compiling field notes, photos, and forming our interpretations. A huge thanks to Russ, Tim, and Jesse. It was some of the most enjoyable fieldwork I have done and I am looking forward to working on the results with them.