Spring Break

Over Spring Break, we took a quick trip down to Southern California to look at a couple of schools that the kid is considering applying to.

Naturally, that kind of chore wasn't enough to be properly motivating, so we planned to do some mountain biking too, and I searched for an interesting place to stay.

Enter Zorthian Ranch.  Nestled in the hills above Altadena, this property formerly belonged to an artist, and now is run by his kids.  There are a number of interesting cobbled-together buildings on the property; the former art studio we stayed in (above) is currently being rented out as an Airbnb.  Up just high enough to be out of the paved-over LA basin, containing some interesting history, close to trails, and close to at least one of the schools we wanted to see.  Perfect.

The property still contains piles of all sorts of bits that Zorthain collected for use in his projects as well as a number of old vehicles slowly going to seed.  All this stuff can't help but be interesting to explore in the late afternoon golden sunlight.

We were joined by a very nice cat on our first exploration of the property.  Kitty just followed us around, looking for attention.

Kitty had to lead us to many piles of old junk treasures.

The air was pretty clear, and we could see downtown LA in the distance.

Among other critters, we found a small herd of free-roaming goats

who we could see outside the kitchen window.

There was one trail leading off the edge of the property in the direction we wanted to mountain bike.  We walked down it a ways, but I decided it might be too technical to be fun on a bike (especially with a still-healing knee!)

After a couple of days of exploring schools with interesting art programs for the kiddo, it was time to play.

We were lucky enough to hit a one-night-only showing of a cool documentary called "The Bikes of Wrath" at a theater down in Pasadena, with the added bonus that the director was there for a Q&A afterwards.  The movie was an entertaining and thoughtful account of a bike trip that a group of crazy Aussie cyclists did along the route taken by the Joad family in The Grapes of Wrath, funded by today's equivalent of the amount of money the family in the book had.

Then it was time to ride :)  The old route of the Mount Lowe Railway started not too far from where we stayed.  Built in 1893, the old railway wound its way up into the San Gabriels above Pasadena.  A dirt road along much of the route remains, peppered with small historical signs. 

It's a pretty steep, windy climb.  Given the kid being a kid on break and me having a knee of uncertain level of recovery, we chose only to ride partway up.  I'm glad the mountain bike had low gears!

The views of the basin opened up the further up we went, as one might expect.

Happy peoples, even though it was hot.

Steep, even with the switchbacks.

We had a bit of a discussion about what the large peak looming on the horizon was.  

Fortunately, I had an app :)  Santiago Peak, at just shy of 5700 feet, is the highest peak in the Santa Ana Mountains to the south.

Chad opted for a singletrack option on the way down.

I decided I'd have more visual bandwith to enjoy the mountains if I stayed on the road.

Zoooooooom down the hill.  There was some pavement near the bottom.

Another up a small canyon started over by JPL

and led us up to a fine waterfall.

It wasn't hard to hang out in the spray at the falls, as it was quite hot out.

Happy Spring Break!  I was particularly pleased to note that my knee was stable enough not only to climb the steep hills, but also to carry bikes across the creek in a couple of spots where there was no trail.  If the kid ends up going to school down here, we as parents will have a good excuse to come down and explore more trails.