Angeles National Forest

Elon Musk Thinks His Westside Commute Is L.A.'s Top Problem

L.A. has its fair share of problems, from the nation's most torn-up roads to one of the America's worst unemployment rates. Southern California is an epicenter of home foreclosures. The gap between rich and poor here is bigger than the Angeles National Forest. There are Angelenos who are having trou ... More >>

Checking In: Dinner at Cliff's Edge in Silver Lake

Patio season is upon us, and one of L.A.'s most beloved and loveliest patios is the one belonging to Cliff's Edge, a space that's more like a magical tree house hideaway than a traditional restaurant patio. A lot has been going on at Cliff's Edge in the last six months or so, so I decided to swing b ... More >>

Brian Gerber, Film Producer Behind 'Digital Hollywood' Summit, Commits Suicide off Angeles Crest Highway

Update, 1 p.m.: Gerber's suicide was just confirmed in a post on his Facebook profile. Headline and story have been changed to reflect this fact. Another well-loved member of the L.A. film industry -- documentary producer and digital-tech pioneer Brian Gerber -- took his life this week by driving h ... More >>

Giant Black Bear Roams Streets of Glendale, Scares Crap Out of Texting Pedestrian (VIDEO)

The notorious black bear of northern L.A. County reportedly spent some quality time in the Glendale suburbs last night, trolling for tuna and meatballs as he's been known to do. But this time, he stuck around until morning -- causing an L.A. media frenzy we've not seen the likes of since Caltrans s ... More >>

10 Best Cheap Bastard Things to Do in L.A.

(Note: An earlier version of this post said that parking at the Getty was free after 5 p.m. It used to be free, but is actually now $10, a new policy implemented in Nov. 2011) Are you the person who secretly doesn't put down enough cash for the check, leaving all your friends to scramble to cover i ... More >>

Vigen Sarkisyan, 18, Killed When Car Plunges 500 Feet off Angeles Crest Highway

Corrected at the bottom: There was apparently no car involved in the plunge. An 18-year-old from Sunland-Tujunga, a small mountain community in northeast Los Angeles, died in a tragic Sunday-afternoon accident off Angeles Crest Highway. Vigen Sarkisyan was in a car with two of his friends when it ... More >>

Ecstasy Use Results in 'Erratic And Dangerous Driving,' Says New Study: New Year's Eve Ravers Warned to be Careful

Ravers.​'Tis the season to be raving. At least in the L.A. region, where we'll have two major New Year's Eve massives, Together As One, and White Wonderland, at which to lose it, not to mention several electronic club nights. But in a timely warning a Melbourne university professor says in ju ... More >>

Infant's Body Found in The Angeles National Forest: LAPD Says Baby Died Under Parents' Care Last Year

Angeles National Forest.​The body of an infant was found in the Angeles National Forest yesterday, and the LAPD is trying to figure out why the baby's parents didn't appear to have reported the death. The discovery was made yesterday by the LAPD's Abused Child Section, which received a tip th ... More >>

Marijuana Farm Worth $4 Million Busted in Angeles National Forest North of Santa Clarita

All your bud are belong to the L.A. Sheriff's Department.​All that legal pot-shop weed being grown "collectively" in grandmothers' gardens everywhere, and somebody still finds that it's profitable to start a marijuana plantation in the middle of a national forest? Hmm. Authorities north of S ... More >>

Fourth of July 2011, Los Angeles: The Damage

sfistHere we go again​Updated after the jump: The L.A. City Fire Department received 17 percent more calls than on a typical Fourth of July. At one point, there were 26 brush fires raging. Judging by the American flag-shaped sunburns on our foreheads and bottle-rocket scars rendering our thum ... More >>

U.S. Forest Service Warns Hikers About Marijuana Grows, Wants You to Narc Out Narco-Traffickers in The Woods

An herbal forest.​Snakes, rough terrain and dangerous temperatures aren't the only things you have to look out for in your local federal forest this summer. For at least the second year in a row the U.S. Forest Service has issued a warning to summer hikers: Beware of "marijuana grow sites" ... More >>

Kevin Wolfe Pochter -- Hiker Accused of Killing Old Friend at L.A. Forest Campground -- Leads Sheriff on 'Armed and Dangerous' Manhunt

Los Angeles County Sheriff's DepartmentSuspected friend-killer Kevin Pochter: On the loose in the San Gabriel Mountains​This guy's good. After allegedly murdering "lifelong friend" Dean Ron Albert, 53, deep in the Angeles National Forest on Thursday, Huntington Beach resident Kevin Wolfe Pocht ... More >>

Los Angeles Spring Storm Fells Trees, Floods Streets, Darkens Homes

MuscleNerdTree down in L.A.​Update: PCH was reopened, and so was the Grapevine. Record rainfall was recorded around Southern California, with downtown Los Angeles seeing 2.42 inches Sunday compared with 1.48 inches on the date in 1943. See more records after the jump. The first week of spring ... More >>

Storm Evacuations Ordered For Some La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta Residents

It's starting to feel like Seattle around here.​This rain, rain won't go away. And how authorities are ordering 147 homes in La Canada Flintridge and 85 homes in La Crescenta evacuated. They're afraid the heavy rains in the Angeles National Forest above these neighborhoods, where brush fires ... More >>

Largest Fire In L.A. History Could Have Fizzled Sooner, If Not For Mystery Slacker

kevindean via Flickr​More than a year after the Station Fire spread from Angeles National Forest to wipe out 89 homes and take the lives of two firefighters, the U.S. Forest Service still can't point to a culprit for its embarrassingly slow response, which allowed a small blaze to become a mon ... More >>

Teacher Rigoberto Ruelas, Whose Suicide UTLA Blames On Mediocre Scores In L.A. Times, Got Glowing Reviews From Bosses; Discrepancies Over Tragedy's Cause Grow

Rigoberto Ruelas.​The big question is, did Rigoberto Reulas jump off a bridge last week as a result of a mediocre review in the Los Angeles Times teacher ratings database? The Los Angeles Unified School District on Thursday weighed in with what could be conflicting and questionable information ... More >>

Rigoberto Ruelas Case: Would Seeing A Mediocre Job Evaluation On A Public Website Send You Over The Edge?

​Since the apparent-suicide death of educator Rigoberto Ruelas -- his body was discovered in the Angeles National Forest 100 feet below a bridge Sunday -- some of those who knew him have chimed in via Monday news reports to say that he was distraught over a mediocre showing in the controversia ... More >>

Did Rigoberto Ruelas, Missing Educator Found Dead, Commit Suicide Over L.A. Times' Controversial Teacher Ratings? Union Tells Times To Take Down The Evaluations

​TV news reports over the weekend painted Rigoberto Ruelas as a dedicated elementary school teacher whose students celebrated his impact even after they had moved up the public-school ladder. The 39-year-old hiker from South Gate went missing last week after he phoned in for a substitute to t ... More >>

$35 Million Worth Of Pot Uprooted At Angeles National Forest

Dey via Flickr​According to the Pasadena Star News, about $35 million worth of marijuana plants were uprooted over the weekend at dozens of sites in the Angeles National Forest north of Azusa. Los Angeles sheriff's Capt. Ralph Ornelas told the newspaper that the pot was being grown in remote ... More >>

Rare big-animal deaths in Angeles National Forest's fast-moving Station Fire

By Donna Barstow It turns out, we all lost someone in the Station Fire. The L.A. Times reported on the big animals killed in the Station Fire in the Angeles National Forest weeks ago, and since that time a Google keyword phrase that people have been using most often to find my Griffith Park-orie ... More >>

Suspect Wanted For Questioning In Station Fire Arrested

A 25-year-old man wanted for questioning in the 160,000-acre Station Fire, which raged in August and September and was only fully contained Friday, has been arrested in connection with a smaller, nearby fire that burned in August, Sgt. David Infante of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department rep ... More >>

Mud-Raking: News Stations Tout Mudslides That Never Come

Judging by local television news operations, yesterday's rains comprised a state of emergency. For three days all local news stations led with this story: The first rainstorm of the season could cause disastrous mudslides in the foothills below fire-ravaged sections of the Angeles National Forest. M ... More >>

Station Fire Victims Twice Burned

Ted SoquiStation Fire​One thing the recent wildfires showed us is the media's need to find villains, victims and fools during the narrative of destruction. One popular example of the last category was a pair of men living in Big Tujunga Canyon who, we were told, decided to wade out the Station Fir ... More >>

Fire Map Shows World Ablaze

University of Maryland​Matthew Fleischer's L.A. Flaneur blog at True/Slant puts the recent L.A. wildfires into perspective. Taking a look at a University of Maryland red-filled map showing the world's literal hotspots, Fleischer concludes: "The L.A. fires are just a speck. Meanwhile, roughly a thi ... More >>

Mount Wilson's Towercam Shows Lingering Smoke

UCLA​Back online after backfire activity temporarily cut its connection to a nearby Internet server, Mount Wilson's Towercam surveys the surrounding San Gabriel Mountains, revealing, happily, blue sky -- something that had been ominously missing a week ago. Lingering trails of smoke serve as remin ... More >>

Mount Wilson Towercam Goes Blind

The Mount Wilson Towercam has stopped transmitting images, possibly the result of fire-damaged cables connecting its nearby server to the Internet, according to a Wednesday  night L.A. Times report. Visitors to the Towercam's Web site are met with a generic "try again" screen. For days the cam ... More >>

Station Fire 'Could Double' Today

UCLA Physics and Astronomy Dept.Mt. Wilson Towercam Update, 6:26 a.m.​Thanks to the quirks of geography and meteorology, Angelenos who awoke before dawn today found most of the sky above reassuringly clear. Toward Angeles Crest Highway, however, the horizon told a far more ominous story as smoke f ... More >>

Morris Dam Fire Containment 'Days Away'

Although 45 percent contained, the Morris Dam fire raging above Azusa is not going quietly. Quoting federal emergency authorities, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune  said that the complete extinguishing of the inferno that has blackened more than 1800 acres is "days away." The blaze erupted in the ... More >>

Angeles National Forest Wildfire Rages

Google Maps/InciWebSite of Morris Fire​Many Los Angeles residents awoke this morning to blue skies whose horizons were muddied  by smoke from the Angeles National Forest wildfire 22 miles to the east. The air also bore a campfire scent. The latest wildfire broke out near Morris Dam in San Gab ... More >>

Up in Smoke: California's Pot Forests Cause for Alarm

It's long been a fear of state parks officials -- that California's already vulnerable, tinder-dry forests could be set ablaze through activities of pot growers who have penetrated deep into wilderness areas to cultivate weed. "It's a very big concern of ours," state parks spokesman Roy Stearns told ... More >>

New Vinyl Column, Inches, Debuts: New Wax from Mika Miko, Xasthur, Castledoor, Rx Bandits, Shafiq Husayn (MP3)

In the unpredictable wake of music's digital rebirth, vinyl has experienced a modest boom in popularity, seen by many (with delicious irony) as a replacement for the awkward middleman that is the compact disc. INCHES seeks not only to review the output of L.A.'s healthy vinyl community (one populate ... More >>

They're Heeerrre! Wildfires Strike Angeles National Forest

[Tuesday Update: City News Service reports this morning that the Osito Fire, near Pyramid Lake, is 65 percent contained and only burned 280 acres of brush, less than originally feared.]Four days after the National Forest Service raised its fire-danger alert status to Very High, a wildfire has broken ... More >>

Morning Sixpack: A News Roundup

Little Tujunga Fire Quelled A 130-acre blaze in a canyon of the Angeles National Forest has been almost completely contained, with no loss of life or structures. L.A. Daily NewsViolence Ends Amber Alert A man who sexually assaulted his girlfriend, then shot a woman while carjacking her vehicle -- an ... More >>

Dangerbird's Wings: Silversun Pickups' Label Bangs Out a Template for a Post–Major Label Landscape

Pickups’ new LP, Swoon, hits the streets soon

The World on Fire

Something wicked this way will come again

Shop Till Everybody Drops

What the well-equipped survivalist will be wearing

Prospecting for Beauty

Treasure map to the best park bench in Southern California

Family Planning and Moving Out

Let’s Go for a Ride!

Car culture on Pacific rims

Move It, Pal

A guide to the active party

Diary of a Female Rapist

A short story

The Green Menace

The best of Sitegeist

No Public Displays

Council to protesters: Demonstrate, if you must, at home

Hot Wheels

Summer motorcycling in and around L.A.

The Green Menace

Wilderness, Inc.

Southern California's controversial 'Adventure Pass' program

So Close, so Far Away

Holy grounds for the urban camper

Sweat and Wild

A Bit of Exercise?

....sport

Leisure alternatives for those who covet the indirect ray