Wednesday, January 30, 2013

A Morning Hike In Pico Canyon

I love Pico Canyon. It has so much history. The old oil town of Mentryville, CA is there and there is old oil machinery and a historical sight there. Hiker and I took our neighbor Jean on a 5 mile hike there today. She had never been there before.

You park in the lot next to what is left of Mentryville and head up the canyon on a paved fire road. There is a pretty little side trail that goes up into a little canyon with a small creek, a lot of greenery and an oak grove. When we have a good wildflower season, this little canyon is full of blue lupines.



We then headed back to the main trail and headed farther up into Pico Canyon. At one point there is a spot where the old oil workers had an outdoor "casino". There are still card tables there and a frame for a roulette table. There is also an old wooden oil derrick there.


We continued on and came upon some old oil machinery the reached the historic sight of the first commercial oil well in the state of California. It is marked by a couple of plaques that tell the history of the well.


Here you can see the capped off well.


We went a little farther past the sight because I wanted to show Jean the Santa Susana Thrust Zone. Then we headed back down to the car and headed home.


In the photo below, you can see the twisted rock of the earthquake fault in the thrust zone.

7 comments:

  1. These pictures are breathtaking, Kay!! Thank you so much for sharing... and happy hiking to you & Hiker!!

    --Andrea
    XOXOXO

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  2. I browsed through your other two blogs, Hiker is beautiful and yikes on having to get rattlesnake vaccination. Here in Florida we have to get Rabies, Whip-worm, and one that is 5 in one that i can'r remember right now..
    these photos are beautiful and what a wonderful place to hike. thanks for stopping by my blog, my Dog blog is only maybe once a month post. i closed it for 6 months, then decided to just add if i got something new. i spend way to much time blogging and found it hard to keep up.

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  3. These are really amazing pictures! I liked this post very much.

    www.modernworld4.blogspot.com

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  4. What a lovely blog, Kay. I found your blog after visiting Gina's blog, after she had visited my blog :) I loved to walk as much as four miles at one time until my knees gave out...now I am unable to walk even a 1/2 mile without pain...oh well.

    Your photos are wonderful!!!

    Jan

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  5. I do love your header photo Kay.

    Great to encounter the unexpected while hiking.

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  6. I would love this park, all of God's beautiful creation with a lot of rusty things thrown in, so many things to photograph. we have a leash law here in Florida also, beaches and all parks. the dogs and the cat did not go to the park. i photo shopped them in with the computer...

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  7. forgot to say, Madi the cat lives in NC and I am in Florida. i grabbed her photo of Madi and Mom's blog and used her in the park.

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Thanks for hiking along with me and Hiker.
Kay