St. Francis Dam

Today started out like all other days, it was my turn to get up early and Erik was awake at 6 am, oh lucky me. We convinced him to play in his room or at least stay there until his "sun turned yellow" at 6:40 so I got almost an extra hour in there. Then I am up, we make muffins, we play games, I catch up on my computer a typical morning for us. I declared it a "no tv" day so we invent a lot of games and the boys stopped asking for a show. Its really amazing what they can do when they stop thinking of tv.

At this point Carl was still asleep, or at least in bed, so I decided to take the boys on some errands but told Carl to be ready when we got home because I wanted to take the boys hiking and they also really wanted to go. So an hour later we are home, I run my groceries into the house while the boys are still strapped into their carseats and tell Carl to get his shoes on.

At this moment Carl is on his computer looking at an article on the St. Francis Dam. He then tells me, we're going to some place new today, hiking in Santa Clarita Valley. So like that we changed our plans from a local family hike to an adventure. I just filled up the water bottles, grabbed a bit of extra food, my camera and we headed out the door. Total time to plan this trip 10 minutes and one potty break on the way to Santa Clarita because the boys swore they didn't have to go potty before we left.

About 40 minutes later and a long drive through the Santa Clarita Valley with me wondering if we really should move up there, we finally arrive at our destination. It is very ominous with road blocks stopping you from entering, but hikers are allowed anywhere, well not anywhere, but they are allowed here.

Let me give you a little history about this place. This is the abandoned and washed out road from the old St. Francis Dam that provided water to Los Angeles. In 1928 after opening the dam, it collapsed and 100 foot high waves smashed through the Santa Clarita River and through the valley until it emptied in the ocean. You can read this complete article if you want more details. What we hiked today were the remains of the dam and what remains of the road almost 100 years later.

See one thing I have learned about being married to Carl, compromise. I love hiking and want to teach that love to my children, he loves anything car related and old ruins. So instead of hiking to the hills we go to this place and he is happy because I take great pictures and he got to go to a fun place and I am happy because we had an adventure.

There isn't much to tell about our hiking adventure. It was hotter than I expected as it was 57 when we left Burbank so I over dressed my kids. This meant it was slow going for most of the hike with lots of stops and water breaks. My favorite part of the trip is that I can let my boys be boys and conquer nature. The means lots of rock throwing and stick playing.

  

  

Of course this trip was more than about just my kids so I took a lot of pictures of the ruins and our rustic setting. Keep in mind that I am taking all my pictures at the worse possible time of day in the mid afternoon sun, but they definitely tell the story of how this site has faired for the last 90 years. This first set are pictures on the way to the dam.

About a mile later with lots of "ups" and stops we finally made it to our destination. Honestly we had to debate amongst ourselves whether this really was the site since there is hardly any rubble anymore, but its here and this is what remains at the actual location.

Although its interesting to see and touch a piece of history, this was a morning about family and just spending time together as a family. I treasure these moments for every second I have them.

 

Let's not forget this, although there were no wildflowers yet, its SPRING and all the signs of spring were showing up on this gorgeous afternoon. I couldn't help but take a few landscapes, although not my speciality.

Here are a couple markers from our trip. This first bus sign confuses me because I thought this road was closed and this sign looks new. Can't figure it out.

The original sign from when the dam opened.