Submitted by
Alan Leighton
Bochum, Germany, 1999

The other memory is from about 9 or 10 years later, when I went on an afternoon hike with a girlfriend up the canyon. The stream was totally dry, as it usually was, and we climbed up the falls in the usual way, i.e. with the help of the steel cables that were fastened to the rock. When it came time to come back down, my companion froze with terror and absolutely refused to come down holding the cables. Well. What to do? 10 minutes of coaxing, plus a few demonstrations of how easy it was to go down and back up and down and up, etc., did nothing to ease her terror. Hmmm. Fortunately, I had come prepared with a topo map (but we left our windbreakers in the car, a mistake), so we determined to keep walking up the canyon, and follow a trail marked on the map which led up to the fire road near Mt. Lowe. Unfortunately, some of the trails marked on the topo maps are no longer there, and such was the case with that trail. But up we went anyway, and found a relatively gentle ridge to climb (pretty darn steep, though), and after about three hours of bushwhacking through the chaparral, we made it to the fire road, shortly before sunset. Let me tell you, chaparral is a real chore to get through, especially if you're trying to avoid poison oak, which, miraculously, we did. We saw no rattlesnakes, either, but brushed off quite a few ticks. So anyway, we had about an hour of dusk left, and marched down the road, making it to Sunset Ridge in a couple of hours or so. A gibbous moon provided plenty of light to see the road. Two sets of concerned parents had called out the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue team, and were sitting by the phone biting their nails, but my older brother, having called a friend of his who was extremely knowledgeable about the local hills, made the inspired guess that we would be coming down the road, and drove up in his car to look for us. He met us about 1 mile up from the town, saving us about 4 miles of walking, which, at that point, we were glad to dispense with. I think my friend's parents never did forgive me. My parents have certainly never let me forget it. If it had been *my* kids, I would have been quite angry, but --- it was an experience I'm glad I had!

Submitted by
Paul Ayers 1999

In December of 1987, I took a woman I had just started dating, Marshall Nalle, for a romantic hike up in Rubio Canyon. (Two and one-half years later she became my wife, Marshall Nalle Ayers). After arriving at Ribbon Rock / Moss Grotto Falls, we climbed up to the little valley between Moss Grotto Falls and Grand Chasm Falls. From the valley, we could easily view Grand Chasm Falls and the dam built by Professor Thaddeus Lowe to form Mirror Lake. Thereafter, we climbed to the top of Grand Chasm Falls and looked back. We could see the head of Moss Grotto falls and the two pools in the valley. Marshall, had no experience climbing or hiking in the San Gabriels but managed to make the climb to the top of Grand Chasm Falls reminding me of the accessibility of the Rubio Canyon Falls to even the inexperienced hiker. As we climbed we noticed a number of concrete supports for Lowe’s stairway system.

On January 9, 1999 we found that all of these sites were gone. Mirror Lake was covered by some 100 feet of debris and undoubtedly, Professor Lowe’s dam has been destroyed by rocks and debris. In an effort to view the excavation and debris field from above I hiked down the Old Echo Mountain Trail and found this historic trail negatively impacted by the activities of Rubio Land and Water. I Also discovered later that the boulder at Suspender Boulder Falls was completely covered by debris.

This hike is now arduous and somewhat dangerous and should not be attempted by anyone without substantial experience in off-trail travel in the Angeles.