On a warm Thursday morning, I drove from Los Angeles to Lake Casitas with my 10-year-old daughter, Isabella. She wasn’t thrilled with the idea of camping and fishing. Too many biting mosquitoes and idle hours standing on a muddy shore, she said. But when I told her about the water park, she looked up from her Nintendo DS screen and asked, “How big are the water slides?” I took that as a positive response.
The lake is about a 70-minute drive from Los Angeles, a perfect distance for a quick weekend getaway. Drive along oak-shaded California 33 east of Ventura into the rolling hills near Ojai and then turn west onto California 150 and you’ll find the blue-green waters of Lake Casitas. When we pulled up to the entrance, we requested a campsite near the water park. (Camping permits start at $25 per night.) We got a spot in campground C, a short walk from the water park and within earshot of the cacophony on 150.
From Los Angeles, take U.S. 101 north for about 70 miles. Take California 33 east toward Ojai and continue for about 10 miles. Turn left onto California 150 (Baldwin Road), then left again onto Santa Ana Road. The park entrance is on the right. www.lakecasitas.info
No one seems to know exactly when Millard Campground was converted from a day-use-only picnic spot near a nice waterfall into L.A.’s most convenient place to snore in the woods. Or, for that matter, if and when it might be converted back.
But on any given Saturday, it’s clear that word has spread about this quick ‘n’ easy overnight retreat -- the closest place to the city in Angeles National Forest to park, pitch a tent, put up a hammock, plunk a hot dog on a stick and pretend for a starry night or two that Los Angeles (a stone’s throw away) doesn’t exist.
Millard Campground is at the foot of Angeles National Forest just north of Altadena. From the 210 Freeway in Pasadena, exit at Lake Avenue and drive north about 3 1/2 miles to Loma Alta Drive. Turn left and drive a mile to Chaney Trail (at the flashing yellow light). Turn right and continue about 1 1/2 miles through the park gates to the campground/trail head parking lot. Follow the fire road about 100 yards to the campground.
(Francine Orr / Los Angeles Times)
Whenever some local volunteer at a magnificent state park tucked away on California‘s Central Coast waxes on about mountain lions, bobcats and rattlesnakes to a couple of wide-eyed Angelenos, you can be pretty sure of two things.
First, probably nothing more predatory than a turkey vulture will be encountered over the next 48 hours. Second, what may actually be going on (at least unconsciously) during this warmly grave reception is an attempt at crowd control.
Welcome to Montaña de Oro State Park. Please don’t tell all your friends about us.
Montaña de Oro State Park, (805) 528-0513, www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=592. Make campsite reservations through California State Parks Reservation Center, (800) 444-7275, www.parks.ca.gov.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
The desert is a master of disguise, portraying itself as a lifeless wasteland, devoid of color and sound. It’s just the opposite. Among those billions of grains of sand are countless hibernating seeds just waiting for a dose of rain and sun to spring to life, triggering a riot of swaying flowers, buzzing bees, flapping birds, howling coyotes and hopping hares.
Anza-Borrego Visitor Center, 200 Palm Canyon Drive, Borrego Springs, (760) 767-5311, www.parks.ca.gov/
(Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times)
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I’d seen Lake Tahoe only in winter, its shores under deep snow. So, on Day 1 of my first warm-weather trip around the lake last month, I couldn’t stop prowling the water’s edge, scanning for new hues of blue. On Day 2, I rock-hopped and rented a bike. On Day 3, I hiked above Emerald Bay into the mist of Eagle Falls.
So how, on Day 4, did I wind up in man-made subterranean blackness, stranded in a narrow stone tunnel somewhere between a dead playboy’s boathouse and his opium den?
Like thousands of travelers who visit the Gila Wilderness annually, I had come to see the hardscrabble patch of New Mexico that became the model for every protected wilderness in the country. I came to explore the same rocky trails cut by the Apache warrior Geronimo, homesteaders and gun-packing fugitives. But most of all, I wanted to see whether America’s first wilderness area -- protected 84 years ago from roads, cars and other modern intrusions -- was still as pristine and untamed as Leopold had intended.
Surrounded by towering canyon walls and clawing tree branches, I could see that Leopold’s vision for this land prevailed; it was beautiful, wild -- and even a bit scary.
