Roam
The little-known-so-far but ecologically significant San Diego National Wildlife Refuge Complex includes two units of coastal marshland along San Diego Bay, plus a much larger unit of inland territory near Jamul. Assuming that certain private …
The 65-acre Peter Strauss Ranch, now a postage-stamp patch of open space within the gerrymandered Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, was purchased from its former owner, actor and producer Peter Strauss, in 1983. In …
At an elevation of over 3000 feet, the rolling upland known as Mesa Grande is more reminiscent of Central California's coast ranges than San Diego County's typical rock-ribbed foothills. Through the heart of Mesa Grande …
Strawberry Peak's 6164-foot summit claims the honor of being the highest elevation in the "Front Range" of the San Gabriel Mountains -- the range closest to the San Gabriel Valley and the Los Angeles Basin. …
If you've put off a visit to the local desert this season due to poor wildflower prospects, it's not too late, or too hot, for a rewarding visit to Whale Peak. This gently swelling summit, …
Summit Valley, a.k.a. Edmund D. Edelman Park (named in honor of a Los Angeles County supervisor), is a recent addition to the public lands of the Santa Monica Mountains. The park spreads across both sides …
In the cool of a spring evening, as the sun arcs toward the western horizon at an ever-later hour (especially after daylight time kicks in on April 7), you can escape from the cares of …
Native California fan palms (Washingtonia filifera), familiar to Anza-Borrego and Baja visitors, can be found as well in scattered locations amid the rocky defiles of Joshua Tree National Park, which lies some 100 miles north …
On a bud-bursting spring day, Harper Creek's shallow, jewel-like pools invite tactile exploration — with more than just the fingers. Slide into one of the pools this month (assuming we get a decent amount of …
Scenic Red Rock Canyon hides amid the scruffy slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains, not far from the San Fernando Valley communities of Woodland Hills and Calabasas. Slabs of cavernous sandstone and cobbly conglomerate tilted …
Hidden in the apex of a valley just below Sunrise Highway, near the town of Pine Valley, a small stream has worn its way down to the metamorphic bedrock that underlies much of the Laguna …
Although they slice only about six miles inland from the Pacific shoreline near Point Dume in Malibu, Zuma Canyon and its tributaries harbor some of the deeper gorges of the Santa Monica Mountains. Winter rains …
San Diego County's "big" Black Mountain (not the smaller one looming above Rancho Peñasquitos) rises gently to an elevation of 4051 feet outside Ramona. A fire-lookout tower once stood on Black Mountain's summit, taking full …
Orange County's Thomas F. Riley Wilderness Park -- a wilderness in name only -- spreads over 475 acres of rolling hills and oak-lined ravines and includes about five miles of trails open to hikers, equestrians, …
The 750 acres of open space at Escondido's Elfin Forest Recreational Reserve were opened to the public in December 1992 as a cooperative effort between the Olivenhain Municipal Water District and the U.S. Bureau of …
Created by uplift of the sea floor roughly two million years ago, the Palos Verdes peninsula lay surrounded by the ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Today a vast sheet of alluvium fills the …