Lions and boulders and mud – Oh my!
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Today’s bike ride was the somewhat notorious “Mountain Lion Ride“. This is the one that goes way up the hill in La Crescenta, where they have signs warning that lions have been seen in the area. And because of that, we always try to maintain a brisk pace, which is difficult when going up a 20% grade. Also, we wanted to tour the mud and debris flows that had come down Ocean View Blvd in La Cañada yesterday.
It was chilly, but clear and sunny today. So it was pretty good for riding. We headed out, up into Altadena and then across to La Cañada. Then we started up the hills. When we got close to Ocean View Blvd, we started to see a lot of mud on the street, and occasional basketball-sized rocks. A lot of the houses had sandbags and K-rails in front of them. When we got to Ocean View, it was obvious that something had happened there. There was mud all around, even though a lot of it had already been cleaned up. There were trucks and earthmoving equipment heading up the hill, and there was a pile of random debris. Tree trunks and rocks piled up.
We headed down the hill and then took a shortcut across the wash on a pedestrian bridge. That brought us out in La Crescenta, where we started back up the hill. There wasn’t much mud there, but there were a lot of small rocks on the road, and it was still obvious that great quantities of water had been flowing down the streets yesterday. We rode all the way to the top of Pine Glen Road, which we refer to as “Mountain Lion Hill”, since that’s where they have the ‘Beware of lion’ sign. Then we came down Pine Cone Road, which ends at the Genofile house, which was the subject of one of the stories in John McPhee’s The Control of Nature.
From there, we rode west some more, into Tujunga. Then turned south, passing the Hobbit House and making a loop through the flat part of Tujunga. That was where I got a flat.
After fixing the flat, we rode down through Montrose and up Hospital Hill to Goldstein’s Bagels. We sat at a table in the sun, and it was very pleasant. Then we rode back to the park. It was a nice ride, although a bit more climbing than we usually do.
41 miles.
