Mysteries of Rustic Canyon

Google Earth view of the route. Map here.

Jay called last night to see if I was down for a hike today, which of course I was (like a clown, Charlie Brown). Both of us were looking for something local, and though I'm itching to get out of the city, that will have to wait for at least next weekend, or maybe the upcoming Pac NW trip next month. So we hit up Rustic Canyon near Brentwood, which is in the Santa Monicas, just a couple canyons west of Mandeville, and a few east of Temescal. This was an approximately 6.5mi round trip, short on elevation challenge (a few hundred feet), but long on human interest. Rustic Canyon, as it turns out, is quite mysterious.

The first 1.2mi of the trip was up a paved fire road that featured nice views back toward Palos Verdes and the Santa Monica Bay.

Looking south over Santa Monica Bay to Palos Verdes

At this point we turned off on a side trail that led to a mysterious, old compound of reinforced concrete and steel buildings, along with an inordinate number of long, concrete staircases. Legend holds that this was a WWII era hideaway for Los Angeles nazis, built with the fortune of one Winona Stevens, mining heiress, at the behest of one "Herr Schmidt," nazi spy. This is not established fact, mind you, but a popular legend advertised by a non-trivial number of internet sources (just search google for "rustic canyon nazi") all of which seem to be sourced to a handful of LA Times articles. Both Jay and I are a bit skeptical, but who knows, as the history is apparently rather unclear. At any rate, nowadays the place seems home mostly not to disaffected zealots, but disaffected youth expressing their dismay via graffiti:

Graffiti covers the most intact structure on the property

Behold the "imposing villainy." Life is tough in Brentwood. Is that Sponge Bob?

After taking in the creepy scene for a few minutes and watching a lizard do some pushups, we wandered up the canyon creekbed, dodged some poison oak (FUPO!)...uh oh, here comes another tangent...

Today I came up with an ingenious solution to the P.O. problem: genetically modified replacement P.O. Ok, it sounds crazy, but hear me out... first, we modify P.O. so that it no longer produces its evil urushiol. This can't be too hard. After all, scientists just created artificial life (sort of). Then we modify it so that it out-competes normal P.O. for resources. I'm not sure exactly how to do this. Ecologists? Finally, we spread our new "Friendly Oak" (Love You F.O.!) far and wide, destroying P.O. FOREVER. Bwahahahaha.

Ok, end tangent.

So we walked up the canyon, and after a while stumbled across a camp full of girl scouts. That was cool. Young women learning to love the great outdoors at places like Daisy Way, Junior Junction, and Brownie Town...


There were only two problems:

1) No cookies for sale. WTF, mate?

2) The rifle range:


What? Since when do brownies pack heat? We weren't taking any chances, so we hoofed it out of there (past the very nice swimming pool), and up the road to this "wilderness outpost" (read "picnic area"), where we had some lunch and rock-throwing contests (Jay won, convincingly).

Today Jay got both the hat and the shirt right. Nice work Julia. Fight On!

On the way back, I snapped a few wildflower photos, and we were greeted by a pair of nonpoisonous snakes:

Wildflower scene, including the thistle, a thorny plant I respect

Just keep your distance, reptilian one, and we're cool

Another great day in the outdoors, and home in time to bake (and eat) a shepherd's pie. Boo ya!