Thank you for hiking with us!

On Saturday morning, astir 35 hikers and astatine slightest 3 dogs joined Times and Zócalo Public Square staffers for a past acquisition and trek done Placerita Canyon State Park adjacent Santa Clarita.

We gathered connected a beauteous wintertime time extracurricular the Placerita Canyon Nature Center, starting our escapade with gentle stretches led by Times wellness writer Deborah Vankin, who has written extensively connected however to enactment limber agelong into adulthood. We were soon greeted by Jack Levenberg, a docent and naturalist, with Sierra, a large horned owl, perched connected his gloved hand. The raptor serves arsenic an carnal ambassador astatine the center.

Docent-naturalist Jack Levenberg introduces visitors astatine Placerita Canyon Nature Center to Sierra, an carnal ambassador who lives astatine the halfway and provides acquisition astir raptors.

(Deborah Vankin / Los Angeles Times)

We started our hike by heading to the Oak of the Golden Dream, wherever golden was archetypal discovered by colonizers successful 1842.

Tataviam Land Conservancy committee subordinate and Cultural Bearer Kevin Nuñez led a humanities discussion, explaining that his radical of the colony Japchibit are the archetypal Indigenous radical of the San Gabriel Mountains, and his household has a traceable lineage with Japchibit traceable done 1765.

“In the 1770s, the Spanish-made beingness made onshore and began to physique missions successful the Los Angeles County area,” said Nuñez, the skipper of Japchibit. “My household was impacted heavy due to the fact that Japchibit was the governmental halfway of the Vanyume oregon Serrano radical of the Antelope Valley and the San Gabriel Mountains.”

Tataviam Land Conservancy committee subordinate Kevin Nuñez shares astir however Spanish colonizers discovering golden harmed Indigenous radical successful the L.A. County area. He besides spoke astir the broader harm and unit that came to Indigenous radical with colonization and the operation of missions.

(Brittany Levine Beckman / Los Angeles Times)

Afterward, our radical headed to the Canyon Trail, a 3.6-mile out-and-back hike done a lush oak woodland alongside Placerita Creek.

We paused to odor the zesty aroma of California sagebrush, which grows each on the Canyon Trail. We besides passed dense stands of thick-leaved yerba santa, California buckwheat, sweetener bush and chilicothe vines and we were treated to the squawks of California scrub jays and a red-tail hawk flying overhead. A assortment of hawks telephone Placerita Canyon their home.

Our radical deftly made it implicit aggregate h2o crossings and shared trekking poles and shoulders to guarantee we each could marque it safely done the creek. None of america near the canyon with adust feet, but we did extremity up with caller friends.

About 1½ miles in, we started to odor a sulfur-like aroma and knew we were adjacent to 1 of the astir absorbing features of this hike. We trekked up a steep incline to rapidly observe signs for achromatic lipid bubbling retired of the ground.

“This precise uncommon geologic diagnostic of translucent petroleum has been filtered by nature,” the motion read. “This peculiar assets originates from heavy wrong the world successful the Placerita Schist basement analyzable of rocks.”

Soon after, we gathered nether the shadiness of aged oak trees astatine a ample clearing with respective picnic tables.

Just nether 2 miles in, we rested astatine a ample picnic country nether the shadiness of aged gangly oak trees. A chromatic fireplace and factual instauration were nearby, the past remains of a location that Frank Walker started to physique but ne'er finished. The Walker household lived connected the onshore starting successful the 1920s. We sat unneurotic for astir 20 minutes, sharing our favourite section hikes, including the Gabrielino Trail that runs done the San Gabriel Mountains.

The hike was portion of California 175 — What Connects California?, a suite of escaped Zócalo events and essays, bringing unneurotic leaders and thinkers from each walks of beingness to envision California’s adjacent 175 years.

Please support an oculus retired for the adjacent Times subscriber hike, which volition beryllium sometime successful the spring. In the meantime, privation to larn much astir the L.A. outdoors? Subscribe to The Wild, our (free!) play outdoors newsletter, wherever I supply you with the champion places to hike astir L.A. County. See you retired there!