Oak Groves

This is part of the grove at Oak Grove Park. It's close to the Jet Propulsion Lab. This part of the park can be found by walking north out of the Oak Grove Park parking lot across from La Canada Flintridge High school. It's a serene little forest, rare in an urban setting.

There's an old oak grove in Arcadia for the moment, though it's likely to be gone tomorrow. It's called the Arcadia Woodlands. But unless something drastic happens, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (same folks we discussed here) is going to dump 500,000 cubic yards of debris on it starting...pretty much now.

I guess they'll have to change the name of the Arcadia Woodlands. Arcadia means " any real or imaginary place offering peace and simplicity." I don't know what they're going to call it once it's a dump.

If you want to help preserve the Arcadia Woodlands, there are some good suggestions at the end of this informative post from LA Creek Freak. It's late, but worth a try.

We in Pasadena still have our Oak Grove Park, adjacent to Hahamongna Watershed Park. We can still even call it an oak grove. But I recommend we don't get cocky.

Other blogs participating today:
Altadena Hiker
Ballona Blog
Bipediality
Breathing Treatment
Chance of Rain
Echo Landscape Design
Greensward Civitas 
Greymatters
L. A. Creek Freak
L.A. Ecovillage Blog
L.A. Ecovillage Gardener's Weblog
Pasadena Adjacent
Pasadena Daily Photo
Pasadena Real Estate With Brigham Yen 
Slow Water Movement
Temple City Daily Photo 
The Sky is Big in Pasadena
Weeding Wild Suburbia

Also, Arcadia Patch is giving this issue excellent coverage.

Water Control

There's water under the Devil's Gate dam again. We were told that last week's rain wasn't much and truly it's only a stream, but it's good to see.

Click on over to the Pasadena PIO's recent Mystery History piece about the dam and scroll down to the well-known photo of the "completed project." The dam is no longer a public road, but that square control tower or guard house is still there. From where I was standing when I took this shot, all the water in the PIO's photo would have been behind me, where this is now.

The dam was built back in the days when there was enough water that it needed controlling. We don't have that problem now.

I check in at LA Creek Freak a lot. I don't comment much because I don't know what to say. But they do, and they're worth reading.

Freak Creek

Pasadena Daily Photo has had a lot of outside input lately. As long as people tell us interesting stories, you won't find me complaining.

This one's not so much a story as it is a question: What is, or was, Woodbury Creek?

On June 24th, I received an email from Stan Ellington of Pasadena, telling me about this "concrete stream bed that flows from under Mountain Street just east of El Molino Ave. (Gladys Ct. and Mountain St.). I think this is Woodbury Creek," he said, "that used to flow through Washington Park but is now mostly underground. I can't find it on any map of Pasadena. Do you have any information on this stream?"

I didn't have any information, but that didn't stop Stan. He found LA Creek Freak, a blog about LA's lost waterways, and asked them the same question. On June 29th they posted the outstanding entry, Woodburied Creek. They even posted maps. The one I've linked to shows a blue line through the area at the southeast corner of Washington and El Molino, where you'll find Washington Park. The line continues south between El Molino and Palm, meeting up with Mountain Avenue at Gladys Court where Stan had first noticed the creek.

In her post on LA Creek Freak, Jessica Hall said, "I suspect the City of Pasadena may also have stormdrains over the creek, as we all know it is encased in concrete today." Gee, ya think? From the same position where I took the above photo, I turned around 180 degrees and took this:
The framing's not perfect. I didn't realize at the time what I was taking a picture of. But sure enough, there you have a storm drain and a manhole cover.

Just yesterday Boz and I were walking along another street that crosses the creek path, and we passed a driveway with a manhole cover right in the middle of it. I'd never seen that before. I checked the map and it, too, is in the (concrete) path of Woodbury Creek.

Stan's question still feels unanswered. But I want to thank Stan for asking it and for turning all of us on to LA Creek Freak. They are a find. Maybe someday we'll find Woodbury Creek, too.