Results tagged “santamonicamountains”

       

We're big fans of looking at nature photos taken in and around Los Angeles. We've seen bobcats, mountain lions, waterfalls, scenic views through the lenses of photographers who really haven't traveled that far, sometimes only minutes from Hollywood. It's just some of the best delicious eye candy of Southern California in our opinion.

Joshua Tree, Sequoia and Kings Canyon, Yosemite, Death Valley. These National Parks have captured the hearts of Californians and millions of others. Channel Islands, Mojave, Pinnacles, Cabrillo. They're lesser known in Southern and Central California, but sometimes just as beautiful, if not equally. And closer to home here in Los Angeles and heading west into Ventura County are a collection of National Park units hardly spoken about by the millions who live here (and will not be talked about in Ken Burns' 12-hour epic documentary, which debuted last night on PBS).

       

About 30 people gathered yesterday to assist the National Park Service and other regional parks agencies in developing a new interagency headquarters, centrally located in the Santa Monica Mountains at King Gillette Ranch, just outside of Calabasas.

In 2016, the National Park System will enter its second century. With that, come a new set of problems--population, development, global warming--that did not exist when the series of public lands were dedicated nearly 100 years ago.

In 2007, a collaboration of parks agencies--local to federal--purchased King Gillette Ranch (if you're thinking shaving razors, you're on the right track) with plans to open an interagency visitor center for for the Santa Monica Mountains. Currently, the National Park Service, which manages the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, has a visitor center and headquarters in Thousand Oaks, far off the beaten path for many in the immediate Los Angeles region. King Gillette Ranch sits in the heart of the mountain rage, off Las Virgenes Road between Calabasas and Malibu, which is much closer to trails and nature than the suburban mall and sprawl setting of Thousand Oaks.

   

In less than a months time, rangers with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area area have captured and placed a GPS collar on a second mountain lion. Found Saturday morning in a trap set by National Park Service scientists around Malibu Springs, the approximately 2-year-old lion became the 14th to wear a tracking collar around its neck. At the end of July, a female with a similar age was found and collared. P14 and P13, respectively, have blood samples being analyzed by researchers at UCLA to determine connections, if any, to other lions studied in mountains.

          

It's no Mount Whitney, but the hiking to the top of Sandstone Peak is truly satisfying. Your journey to the top, elevation 3,111 feet, has sights and sounds different than the Santa Monica Mountains we know closer to Los Angeles. Forget the city noise below Runyon Canyon or the families splashing about at Malibu Creek--the trails of Circle X Ranch on the western part of the range are mostly quiet with lone birds heard echoing through the canyons and the sights of sheer cliffs dropping off into deep canyons is exhilarating.

Well, she may not be the newest or youngest in our local mountains, but she is the most recent cougar to be trapped, tagged and released by the National Park Service, who has been conducting a study with them over the past seven years. P-13 (they are named in the order they are caught) was captured on July 31st in the Hidden Valley region, which is the northwest sector of the mountains south of Newbury Park. She is now the third active GPS collar being tracked.

When a bald eagles disappear from the Channel Islands allowing room for Golden Eagles, who eat really cute little foxes, to take over, everyone freaks out (got 20 mins? Watch this amazing short documentary). When a pretty flowering Spanish Broom begins to grow, not many take notice despite it being one of the top invasive and harmful-to-the-ecosystem plants found in the Santa Monica Mountains. Now, that might start to change.

If you didn't know, Los Angeles is placed within quite a rare landscape, biologically speaking that is. There are only six Mediterranean Biomes in the world making up 2% of the world's land area and Southern California's coast and surrounding mountains are part of that. This is one of the reasons why congress in 1978 decided bring in the Santa Monica Mountains and the five northern Channel Islands into the Department of the Interior under the National Park Service. They were named the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and Channel Islands National Park.

Since 2002, the National Park Service has been tracking Mountain Lions in the Santa Monica Mountains, studying their movements, pinpointing their ranges and observing how human development impacts their population. Twelve have been tracked in that time with some remarkable finds.

The state parks that are proposed to be cut are quite beautiful and very popular--still, if they close, it's not like there's nothing left. State parks make up 23% of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, leaving a good amount of acreage to the National Park Service and another state park agency local to Los Angeles, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (note that there is a considerable amount of private land within the Nat. Rec. Area, too).

It was April 17th, 2006 when a contractor working on a Bel Air home looked over into Stone Canyon and swore he saw a bear. He immediately reported it to the LA Department of Water & Power, who own and operate the reservoir and in turn told the California Department of Fish & Game.

Last week, a team of National Park Service botanist were surveying for sensitive and endagnered species near Sandstone Peak, the tallest point in the Santa Monica Mountains, when they came upon something out of place. It was whisker brush (Leptosiphon ciliatus), which is typically found at higher elevations in the Sierras, not in Southern California, even around 3,000 feet elevation.

That was a nice shaker. At 6:11 p.m., a 4.4 magnitude earthquake struck in the Santa Monica Mountains, south of Westlake Village and northwest from Malibu. The Los Angeles Fire Department is in "Earthquake Mode as a preventive measure." They have no reports of damage yet. UPDATE: As of 7:05 p.m., the fire department has stepped down from "Earthquake Mode." However, there is now one reported minor injury that occured when an elderly woman, scared from the quake, ran from her apartment and fell. If you remember from last Fall's Great ShakeOut, earthquake experts recommended you "drop, cover and hold on."

As the feds try to acquire a large chunk of Malibu real estate to protect it from development, Pepperdine University has donated 72 acres of pristine Santa Monica Mountains habitat above Pacific Coast Highway to the state. The newly obtained Little Las Flores Canyon will connect to Tuna Canyon Park and will provide a continuos wildlife corridor to Topanga State Park. "It features a deep canyon system formed by Little Las Flores Creek, massive sandstone outcrops with numerous ledges and pinnacles for roosting and nesting of owls, hawks, eagles, and ravens, and various reptiles," reads a description from County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavky's Office. "The terrain also includes coastal Southern California plant communities including sycamore riparian woodland, coastal sage scrub and native grasslands."

Although President Bush visited the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 2003, he never gave funding for land acquisition during his presidency. Now President Obama "has proposed spending $420 million next year to buy land for national parks, forests and wildlife refuges, and to help states fund parks and recreation projects," reports the LA Times.

       

"We're not a travelogue, we're not a nature fim, we're not a recomendation on which lodge to stay in. It's the story how this place got started," a zealous Ken Burns said of his upcoming twelve hour documentary on the National Parks. He and his crew have spent what many dream about: six years of traveling the country from National Park to National Park exploring some of the country's most beautiful and historically and culturally significant places.

A wind advisory for mountain areas in Los Angeles and Ventura counties expected to end this afternoon are now including the Santa Monica Mountains that divide Los Angeles' basin and the San Fernando Valley--previous advisories did not include the National Recreation Area. 15 to 30 MPH winds are expected with gusts up to 45 MPH. The advisory is set to end at 3 p.m. this afternoon but winds are expected to pick up tonight and tomorrow with susatined 20 to 35 MPH winds and gusts up to 55 MPH.

The National Weather Service released an alert this afternoon announcing that the Santa Anas have weakened and wind advisories throughout most of the region ended at 3:00 p.m. However, the advisory for the mountain areas of Ventura County and LA County (excluding the Santa Monica Mt. Range) are still in effect until 8:00 p.m. tonight. The good news out of this is that air quality could improve with wind subsiding on the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valley floors. Still, weather can change in an instant and fire departments are taking no chances. UPDATE: Another e-mail from the NWS says that Red Flag Warnings will still remain in effect until 10:00 p.m. Wednesday.

For twenty-four hours starting tomorrow at noon, 120 scientists, 1,400 LAUSD students and community members will embark on the 2nd National Geographic BioBlitz in the Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area (though some say it's essentially a National Park), which stretches from the ocean to Cahuenga Pass at the 101 Freeway. Together they will comb the area, as well as Griffith Park, observing and recording as many plant and animal species as possible in 24 hours. Think of it as part scientific endeavor, part festival and part outdoor classroom.

If you open up the National Parks System Map and Guide and look over to Los Angeles, you'll see a green area denoting a National Parks Service unit within the city and into Ventura County. "There's a National Park in Los Angeles?" Why yes, yes there is.

I'm for feeding birds all year, but as we're celebrating it this month, stop a moment and be grateful that our warm-blooded friends live in the California climate. As the Wild Bird Centers of America reminds us:

Maybe you want the 'Subway to the Sea' to go to WeHo instead of down Wilshire Blvd. through Beverly Hills. Perhaps you are evil and think nothing should be done at all letting traffic roll as it sort of doesn't do anyway. No matter what vision, now is the time to chime in like the backseat driver you are at some public meetings or via the written word. Wad at MetroRiderLA has the low-down:By...

Recent major events for the LAFD include last night's apartment fires in North Hollywood and Westchester. Busy day on LAPD's blog: a drive-by shooting yesterday, a labor day homicide, Congressman Xavier Becerra's office burglarized, two fatal Skid Row stabbings, a Carl's Jr. robbery and a fatal shooting this morning in South LA. Sparked by the recent heat-reated power outages, Matt Littman at the Huffington Post asks if Los Angeles is in permanent decay: "It...

When a new development is planned and traffic impact studies are needed, the developer hires the consultant, not the City. So you can see how residents are wary if the developer is in cahoots with the consultant to downplay results in favor of the development. And right some where:In Sherman Oaks, the local homeowners group was following a proposed 89-condo and 16,000-square-foot mixed-use project on Ventura Boulevard. The developer agreed to update an old...

Yup, it's what you were thinking -- razors. The baron of a clean shave himself, King Camp Gillette, bought this land off of the now Mulholland Hwy in 1926 after making a fortune in the early 1900s off of the safety razor. Today, his home and ranch are open to the public for the first time. Near the entrance of Malibu Creek State Park, the 588-acre park was collaboratively purchased for $35 million by...

In the next several weeks, LAist will embark on a series of hikes and present to you an ambitious 6-part photo essay. This is the fifth one. Here are parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. As always, LAist encourages you to get out and take advantage of and experience the beautiful landscape of Southern California. Most of us forget that we are fortunate to live in such a diverse and ecologically unique locale that...

In the next several weeks, LAist will embark on a series of hikes and present to you an ambitious 6-part photo essay. This is the fourth one. Here is parts 1, 2, and 3. As always, LAist encourages you to get out and take advantage of and experience the beautiful landscape of Southern California. Most of us forget that we are fortunate to live in such a diverse and ecologically unique locale that offers...