Showing posts with label Hiking trails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hiking trails. Show all posts

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Cal-Trans Diversion of Baldy Mountain Creek Shut Down One Ecosystem and Destroyed Another

Google Maps
Off California State Route 74 from Hemet to Idyllwild there was a historical diversion of a major stream which totally shut down a major hydrological flow from a once beautiful pristine area for  which many biodiverse plants, animals, birds, etc were dependent upon and then they proceeded to straight channel it westward collapsing an entire mountainside of the South Fork of the San Jacinto River course. There are no historical accounts or other records of this ecological misdeed for which there was no purpose nor justified reason for doing so other than laziness and somehow profiting more on the deal. As the map shows  to those familiar with Hwy 74, this location along the highway is at the Cal-Trans Highway Turnout where gravel bunkers are located and the South fork Trail head for hiking down to the San Jacinto River southern branch of the drainage area. The actual area where a bridge should have been constructed is just a couple hundred feet to the east of this turnout and has nothing more than a culvert for water drainage. Perhaps I should reveal what got my curiosity going about the major water course origins. Originally, I was never suspicious of any misdeeds. I simply wanted to know the seed source of the lower elevation plants I saw growing in a narrow canyon down to the floor of Cold & Dry Creek Canyons. For years I traveled to work back and forth up and down Hwy 74 to Hemet and back up the mountain. I'm obsessively curious about things I notice in the plant world along many roadways I travel. Take a look at these two photos which show a steep canyon which appears to have a wealth of water which support and large group of older growth Forest trees for which radically contrasts the surround Chaparral Plant community. So one day I stopped at a turn out east of the Strawberry Creek bridge over Hwy 74 and the photos below here reveal what I saw.

Photo Mine
The vegetation here is radically different than the chaparral on both side of the V shaped Canyon. There are clearly Pines, Cedars, Oaks and especially Sycamores and Cottonwoods which would indicate more water. Also, one had to wonder from where did the seed source for this forest come ? What was upstream ?
Photo: Mine
This is the same turnout looking directly east up the Cold Creek Canyon looking towards the direction of Mountain Center. This canyon is especially rich in Big Cone Douglas Fir trees.
Photo Mine
This is a shot from the truck looking back from another angle east of the turnout for a contrasting view of the vegetation.
Photo: Mine

Cal-Trans Turnout


Photo: Mine
Both of these next two shots are from the South Fork San Jacinto River Trail head turnout with the Cal-Trans gravel and sand bunkers. Notice the vegetation lines along those mountains across the valley ? Clearly the geology has some fault lines which seep with moisture from a series of Springs. Just another interesting puzzle I never explored mainly because of the heavy bush whacking that it would take in virgin untouched Chaparral.
Photo: Mine

Fast forwarding up the trail from the parking area and coming around the first bend where you can see the South fork Canyon from which Lake Hemet spills over if and when there is a heavy rain season. Most of the trees here on this steep terrain are Big Cone Douglas Fir (Pseudotsuga macrocarpa)
Photo Mine
Coming further around the bend and looking down where the dense foliage of the green Big Cone Doug Firs are below is the first indication of a slide to the left in the picture where the geology is a much brighter white. The other side of the canyon is rouse Ridge or Hill where there is a campground at the end of this trail. This ridge has also been an area of traditional targeting for control or prescribed burns and yet no fire has ever burned through here on it's way to Hemet and other parts west. On the other side is Bautista Canyon where fires by humans have traditionally started and burned towards Red Mountain and the community of Sage.
Photo: Mine
This point here is the unnatural Creek bed that the south Fork Trail crosses over before falling into the abyss a hundred yards further to the west. Here you can see some of the native Bunch grasses that have made a permanent home among the boulders and cobble stone river rocks.
Photo Mine
This is hiking the trail beyond the unnatural man made creek we just past over and going a bit further south on this trail, we take a photo from the south side of the unnatural slide area. Keep in mind, when I first discovered this human caused disaster, I was not expecting this AND I actually came in from the other side to this point, not from the turnout and hiking trail. So my first discovery was NOT this slide, but rather the deliberate diversion earthen soil berm or dam they Hwy Construction Crews dug by hand to change the water course straight west as opposed to the natural sharp turn north towards the Hwy 74 which even older maps will indicate.
Photo: Mine



Photo: Mine
Both these pictures are looking towards the canyon as the dry wash cuts unnaturally through the top soil layers eroding aggressively into the mountain on either side and dislodging the chaparral. There are no Riparian vegetation built up whatsoever through this wash which would have been normal had this feature been hundreds or thousands of years old like the canyon cut on the other side. Very steep and very dangerous in parts.
Photo Mine



Photo: Mine



Image  .  Google Earth
This sad scenario can only be clearly seen in whole from the vantage point of Google Earth satellite imaging. Notice the location of the Hwy 74 turnout, South Fork Hiking Trail, the existing stream and old stream bad and exact point of where the alignment was trenched and a diversion berm created to redirect the waters which pointed straight for the canyon and which led to the entire muntainside collapse. Interestingly, the collapse now is not as pronoused a cliff-like drop off, but has eroded back to where there is more slope.
Photos Mine
This is the area Patrick Dennis followed and took the photos with my camera. Now the look here is far different than when I first saw it in 1983. In that last picture above, notice the granite rock on the left ? The flatter creek bed use to extend out to that point and when you looked over the edge, there was nothing but a straight drop with large waterfall cascading into the deep cave in below. There was no vegetation as you see it now. There was no foothold for it. now that the erosion has met a harder rock layer and tapered a bit, any chaparral and riparian seed can now get a foothold which it clearly has as you can see. So there is something of a positive here.
Photos Mine 
Preview: Highway Department's South Fork Canyon Stream Course Reroute & Diversion Scheme
Now this is looking east from where the South Fork Trail crosses the creek and we are heading back towards where the Highway Construction crews cut into the higher ground west and built up a dam on the portion starting to head north towards the Highway where no doubt in the old days of a poorly constructed wagon road, it no doubt washed out from time to time. The deep erosion cuts through this geology are deep and sheer vertical to about 15 foot high from wall to wall. Very unnatural and again no indication of any mature Riparian Trees had the pathway been through here for hundreds of years. For further views, see the previous preview post I wrote of the older tradition stream bed which I illustrated the cuts in a series of photos between the South Fork Trail and the Diversion dam.
Photo: Mine
Here is the opening to the diversion area with the built up soil and rock berm on the left. The older traditional natural stream bed is on the other side of this berm on the left. Straight ahead through the pass is McGaugh Meadows and Lake along with Baldy Mountain watershed drainage on it's north face.
Photo Mine

Standing on the soil berm looking at the older channel now cut off from it's once historical centuries course by one act of ignorance and greed. 
Photo Mine


Looking back and photographing the actual man made soil/rock berm which created the blockage and diversion decades ago.



Photos Above all Mine
The series of photographs above are of all following the former stream bed down it's once robust course where we good imagine a wide flowing stream with lush habitat on both sides. However, down further we do run into indications of vast amounts of water still below the surface and sustaining water loving plants.
Photo Mine
Here is a Mexican elderberry (Sambucus mexicana). On an interesting note, below this former waterfall behind the Elderberry and on the opposite side of the boulder it's up against to the right, we saw a fairly larger plastic industrial grade irrigation pipe and in good shape, running from a cave and extending down this former creek where it disappeared into some impassable vegetation areas. There were also some trash where someone had been residing keeping watch over who knows what. Spooky, some thing never change out here. That's why you have to keep watch.
Photo Mine

And sure enough there is the Irrigation Pipe
where no doubt a marijuana farm was nearby


Photo: Mine



Photos Mine
Walking behind Mary Anne Kiger towards our first real Riparian tree, a California Sycamore (Plantanus racemosa) and further on down vegetation increased no only in size, but also abundant diversity for moisture loving riparian vegetation.
Photo Mine



Photo: Mine
These last two pictures are of Pink Chaparral Currant (Ribes malvaceumwhich was abundant along hwy 74 on the way up traditionally, but they has severely made fire breaks along the highway and took out some of the best roadside scenic examples. I've planted two of these that I purchased at Las Pilitas Nursery for shade planting under my mum's six California Sycamore trees in her backyard.
Bush Poppy (Dendromecon rigida)



Photo: Mine
This is an incredible find as a young Pine sapling is pushing up through the chaparral which is in no way impeding it's growth at all. In fact it's very survival is dependent on the chaparral system. The older generation from ancient times past has moved over. Sadly this area was NOT so over grown when I first went through move up through the creek bed in 1983. The fire from the 1990s hadn't done it work as yet and the dense cover of many plants including Poison Oak were not present, the forest understory here along the stream bed was open and easy to navigate.
Photo: Mine


Photo: Mine
Incense Cedar was also present back then and indeed was one of the trees I detected in great number down below in the steeper canyon bottom. Sadly there were no live Incense Cedars here.
Photo: Mine
Ferns were also in abundance everywhere in this shaded lower moist region of the stream bed, along with all manner of herbaceous moisture loving plants.
Photo: Mine
Here is Mary Anne and I making a separation from Patrick who went uphill but we decide it was easier to go back down into an opening in the Creek bed for which we would have missed that giant Holly Leaf Cherry specimen along with it's family. First time ever I had seen such large examples.
Photo: Mine
And finally we can see the Hwy 74 rounding the bend in the distance. This last leg was tough and hot. I think I drank three and a half liters of water during this trek before and after. This rich chaparral area was a pleasant and beautiful surprise. I debated about going at times as I wanted to photo so much from my past experiences and exploration. But i just don't have the time. I hope in some way this provides some historical info as well as to how easily humans can destroy, even when they are in positions of official decision making as experts in their respective fields.



Thursday, May 16, 2013

Preview: Highway Department's South Fork Canyon Stream Course Reroute & Diversion Scheme

Image Credit:

Wikipedia - Prunus ilicifolia
Mostly with this preview Post here, I want to show an example of an incredible find We (Myself, Patrick Dennis and Mary Ann Kiger) found on our South Fork San Jacinto River Trail hike off Hwy 74 of an old growth Chaparral plant that many here reading are already aware of, but probably have never seen a specimen of this extraordinary size. The plant of course is Holly Leaf Cherry (Prunus ilicifolia). We were on a hike on the South Fork San Jacinto River Trail to photo document the old Highway 74 construction manipulation of a major stream tributary of which drains most of the north face of Baldy Mountain's old growth forest which is just south of Mountain Center. Making the deliberate stream diversion saved the Highway construction several 1000s of dollars in bridge building costs by instead installing a pathetic little culvert by comparison. But the cost to the environment was much greater in the long run as i will later show in a future post. First a description of a rarely seen giant. In the upper right hand corner above here is an image from Wikipedia which also has a description about the actual size of the Holly Leaf Cherry as being any where from 8 foot to 30 foot in height and leaves any where from one to two inches in length. Okay, most of us have maybe seen the 8 to 10 foot examples that we thought were huge and which are easily found in many places. But 30 footer trees ? With recent decades of mega-fires, any giant specimens would surely be a rarity. This last leg of our hike was not exactly through any well worn trail, but rather true bush whacking. In fact it was at the very end of the hike, but took us the longest to finish. The example below might be pushing close to 20 foot in height, but I'm not sure. It did take your breath away when you first stumble upon it. Clearly though as you first encounter it, it's very large features first cause you to think it is something else, but you soon realize many of the familiar identification marks. Here is the first photo looking down from the formerly very large flowing stream bed towards the San Jacinto River valley and other tributaries like North Fork, Strawberry Creek, Cold Creek and Dry Creek. Hemet Valley and the town of San Jacinto are to the left in the photo.

photo credit: Mine 
Looking north from the upper reaches of the old now long diverted large flowing stream which now empties west into South Fork Canyon and eroding the entire hillside in that region. There were no trails here. Everything from this point to Hwy 74 was true bush whacking through dense chaparral which was incredibly still very moist with a rich heavily diverse abundance of chaparral plant community supporting an incredible amount of wildlife life.
Photo Credit: Mine

Here you can see the Holly Leaf Cherry which at best is maybe 30+ feet in height. Unfortunately the camera really doesn't do it justice. This entire area was devastated by arson set fire some time back in the 1990s which was I believed named either the South Fork Fire or Baldy Mountain Fire, but it happened in the 1990s some time ago. Notice the old long dead burned branches. This also made the last leg of the hike most difficult as the stream bed was loaded with all manner of down trees and their branches. Also, with the canopy opened, massive amounts of Poison Oak made other stumbling blocks with going forwards, so adjacent hillside brush whacking was the only way to go in short sections.
Photo Credit: Mine

This is a close up shot of the beautiful interior of the tree. Notice the clean smoothness of the almost perfectly straight multiple trunks, The colour and texture of the trunk is reminiscent of the sapling growth of a Fruitless Mulberry tree when cut back very hard to a few main branches. Seeing the stunning large attributes of this Holly Leaf Cherry made you wonder what it may have once looked like pre-turn of the century Baldy Mountain Fire. That fire burned all the way from the Hwy 74 CalTrans gravel bunkers or bins and the South Fork Trail head all the way east to Lake Hemet and Hurkey Creek Campground.
Photo Credit: Mine

This is another angle of the tree's interior further up. In another post later I'll show much of the biodiversity in plant life, much of which is still riparian. In fact, though up stream the diversion was deliberately routed west instead of allowing it to continue northwards as the geography dictates, the water still must somehow be moving underground to still support such moisture loving plants. The newer unnatural creek channel even to this day DOES NOT support such an abundance, with the exception of some Bunch Grasses. Mostly though it is a dry wash with shear steep walled erosion on both side.
Photo Credit: Mine

Here is a close up of the very large size of the leaves. I'm using my adult male hand here for some sense of scale. Unlike the smaller specimens we saw on the trail above and to the west of this location, this one was not yet in bloom, other than showing signs of buds. This great largeness was such a pleasant shocker when we turned the bend and there were other more large leafed examples further down stream. I truly wish there had been berries, as I'd love to collect samples. When I looked for chaparral seeds in the past decades ago, I'd truly be looking for such beautiful examples.
Photo Credit: Mine
And here is the highway, which should have had a bridge or at least an extremely large concrete built double culvert. I can't for the life of me tell you what the name of this old stream was once called, although you will find it on older Topo maps showing it's original course which turns sharply northwards. But it does drain from the flat meadows and McGaugh Lake to the east of this point for which I have written about before.
Photo: Mine
Patrick Dennis and Mary Ann Kiger (both Anza residents) with me on the hike. Patrick with the short pants had the bright idea of following the former stream bed back down to the Highway. We weren't all in favour, but I'm glad we did. He led the way in eventual brush whacking a trail down in some parts.
Idyllwild Postcard - Riverside Co.

Highway 74 as it was in the early days as an original dirt or gravel Wagon Road finally to paved road in 1937-40s coming up from Hemet Valley in the background to Mountain Center with either Lake Hemet or Idyllwild as a final destination beyond.
There are certainly more answers that need to be found on this unnatural disaster and the reasons for which a channel was deliberately cut diverting a beautiful stream bed into another completely different direction which caused and indeed continues the collapse of an entire mountainside which is truly hidden from public view. In a future post I'll show the entire trek we made and the detailed photos showing the unnatural river bed and comparison to the older 1000s of years old historical stream bed. Clearly, saving money on bridge construction costs were the motivation. It's obvious that in it's early days, this section of the old dirt wagon road of the Hemet to Idyllwild highway no doubt washed out several times and was a pain to fix, hence the great effort made to use hand crews to dig another channel and provide a diversion berm of rock and sandy soil to divert the flow westward instead of it's historic northward course. Nothing in any historical records or other writings even remotely hints at such a major riparian diversion to save money in road construction. Clearly a bridge or at least a  major double concrete culvert should have been constructed. More on this later. 

Next post will focus FIRST on my reasons for something not making sense for such a rich riparian habitat being present and spilling out of the chaparral plant community for no apparent reason. It was actually over a period of years from my employment commuting up and down the hill on Route Hwy 74 that got my curiosity from observing out of place plant community anomalies that defied the surrounding chaparral vegetation by contrast.
Update: Here is the link to the main article: 
Cal-Trans Diversion of Baldy Mountain Creek Shut Down One Ecosystem and Destroyed Another