On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #615: A Passing Fancy, Part Deux

Here's another item related to reckless driving in Carbon Canyon: an hour ago, as I was turning right from Canyon Hills Road onto Carbon Canyon Road westbound, two motorcyclists heading east passed two cars while vehicles were coming in the other direction. Because there is a left turn lane at this location, the cyclists "had enough room" to make this maneuver. EXCEPT that if one of the cars they were passing, say the one at the front which they could not really see, decided to turn left at Canyon Hills, the outcome could have been very different.

Notably, my "Useless Documentation #614" post generated three comments or e-mails very quickly. I'm putting them in this post because it would be something to add to the "archive" just in case there was any hope of convincing the police departments in Brea and/or Chino Hills that there may be a need to do more patrolling in the Canyon. I can imagine the plea of poverty being made because of the economy, but even when times were prosperous (or gave the appearance thereof) there wasn't much of a concern that I could determine, at least not on the Chino Hills side.

At any rate, here are the comments offered today:

laurel said...
It would be wonderful if there was more of a police presence here in the Canyon. An incident happened a few days ago where a truck passed me on the left and a car was coming his way. I slowed down to let him back into the lane but it was very close. Shook me up a bit.

January 31, 2009 8:30 AM


Canyon Native said...
I actually think passing over the double line has become more common since the fire. Does the absence of vegetation growing next to and overshadowing the road give maniacs a false sense of safety? Just about two weeks ago, a person (that is giving the driver the benefit of the doubt) passed me while I was in the left turnout lane ready to turn into Olinda Village. Naturally, a car was coming so the driver had to swerve rapidly back in front of me. Luck only lasts so long!

January 31, 2009 12:09 PM

(An e-mail comment from another Canyon resident)

Interesting about the speeder later last night. I almost got nailed at about 6:45 PM heading westbound. The eastbound lane was still clogged - and on a blind curve - led by a flashing police motorcycle that I couldn't see until they were right on me (because of the curve) was a tow truck. My heart sank and my pulse raced. Thee was barely any room to pull over. I mean did they need to speed up the hill for a tow truck on the wrong side of the road. I would understand if it were an ambulance but a tow truck ?

These anecdotes, along with my own, are probably only representing a few of the incidents that have happened just in the last couple of weeks and are really daily incidents.

As has been already said, if there was a major fatality, involving an innocent person, or a child, maybe there would be a sudden sense of urgency, but what I see now is fundamentally benign neglect. Not that this is an excuse, given that the core responsibility of government is the protection of life (and property.)

Prevention, however, seems to be something of an afterthought as being reactive, rather than proactive, is the order of the day.

On the Skids in Carbon Canyon #614: A Passing Fancy

Here it was on a Friday night at a quarter to nine in the evening. Motoring along at 50 mph eastbound on Carbon Canyon Road where the road had just narrowed from six lanes to two, I noticed the bright halogen headlights approaching rapidly behind me, but I'd already merged over to the two-lane portion. Undaunted, the silver BMW accelerated and not only passed me, but also the two cars that were just ahead of me.

I'll say that again: at night, on a two-lane road, with a curve approaching, this "person" passed three cars doing at least 60 mph. The two cars ahead of me turned off at Olinda Village, so they, like me, probably cursed or shook our heads for a moment and, perhaps, put it out of their minds, resigned to the fact that this happens far more than it should. Fortunately, for those of us who were passed and for those who were approaching from the east a few seconds later, nothing happened. Just like nothing happened around 8 this morning when a motorcyclists passed several cars in Sleepy Hollow.

But, I'm reminded, whenever I see or experience something like this about an accident that my wife and I came upon about ten years ago at the bottom of the hill leading out of Olinda Village. Three cars were involved, one had gone off the northern side and into a culvert (that's happened more than a few times even in the five years I've lived in the Canyon) and the other two were askew on the road. In a silver truck, there was a person with a bloodied face and in shock. Another person, presumably from this vehicle was stretched out on the road injured. I didn't see if there were any other injuries and, being one of the first cars on the scene, I called 9-1-1, got out a blanket for the person on the ground, and did whatever else I could. Within a few minutes, a police car arrived and we left.

This could have very well happened again tonight, although I'm sure Speed Racer knew exactly what he (I'll go out on a limb here and assume this "person" was a male) was doing.

Anyway, it's easy, when you live in the Canyon, to get jaded and maybe this is, after all, another pointless exercise in useless documentation, but, as I've said before, it may take innocent deaths to raise some awareness (or not) about the recklessness that occurs daily and frequently on Carbon Canyon Road.

Hidden Treasures of Carbon Canyon, Part Two

The Freeway Complex Fire from November burned thousands of acres in and around Carbon Canyon and has yielded some surprises, including the intriguing structure shown in the photo above.

Provided courtesy of Canyon resident Duane Thompson, the image shows a hollowed-out section within a berm and faced with this arched stone entrance and facade. Evidently, this was a playhouse of sorts built for the children of a family that lived on the property many years ago. Another Canyon resident has stated that: "I have been inside of it and it appears it may be what I call a root cellar, used in the 30ties and 40ties to keep food cool."

Being, however, a dedicated conspiracy theorist and fueled by paranoia, mistrust of all forms of authority, dark suspicions, and other assorted symptoms of a healthy cynicism (or not), I've decided to simply cast aside this perfectly reasonable explanation and offer the following secret history for the use of this hidden treasure of Carbon Canyon:

1. In 509 A.D., the Tongva/Gabrieliño Indians were visited by extraterrestrials who (which?) showed them how to build a sweat lodge out of stones brought from out of the area. But, the space aliens for some reason decided to erase the knowledge from the minds of their subjects before leaving, so the Tongva forgot the technology (the circle at the lower left could well be a mark left by the aliens when they visited.)
2. 1200+ years later, in 1777, the Franciscan priests who established the California missions found and fortified the structure to conduct secret religious rituals and were ordered by the Vatican to abandon its use when Mexico secularized the missions in 1833.
3. In an October 1852 visit to the Los Angeles area, bandido Joaquin Murieta found this and used it to hide his loot. After Murieta was captured and killed the next year, the loot was removed by the remnants of his gang.
4. In 1858, just weeks before his death, rancher Bernardo Yorba, who made bundles of money selling cattle in the gold fields, found the site and buried his hard-earned gold pieces in it.
5. Bandit Tiburcio Vasquez learned of its existence while on a visit to the Los Angeles area in spring 1874. After robbing a rancher in today's Monterey Park, Vasquez hid his ill-gotten gains here, but was shortly thereafter captued and executed. A member of his posse returned to extract the booty.
6. After almost fifty years of inactivity, the structure was rediscovered in the 1920s and the era of Prohibition by bootleggers working in the canyon to hide their stills and other contraband there.
7. For thirty years, the structure was abandoned, although in 1942 overheated citrus growers searched it for suspected Japanese-American loyalists to the Emperor.
8. In 1954, after Vice-President Nixon remembered playing in the structure as a boy in Yorba Linda, the site was appropriated by the Department of Defense as part of a top-secret military installation, related to the Nike missile silos placed in local hills during the height of the Cold War.
9. When the missile silos were decommissioned, hippies invading the Canyon in 1967's Summer of Love secreted their marijuana, magic mushrooms, and LSD in the structure.
10. In 1974, New Age devotees used this as a shrine over what they thought was a magnetic field that they claimed was an opening into a higher realm of consciousness. After a weekend of waiting to be transported to this realm they called Xenex, the group of seven men and five women gave up and went back home to Garden Grove.
11. Frances Klug, founder of St. Joseph's Hill of Hope compound appropriated the site in 1978 and used it to store the sacred texts she was compiling. After eight years, the texts were moved to a bullet-proof glass shrine at the compound and this structure vacated.
12. Horace MacKenna, ex-CHP officer and then wealthy strip club owner, who was killed in his Carbon Canyon hilltop home's driveway, used this in 1988 to hide drugs and money from his business, but partner Michael Woods, who ordered the hit on "Big Mac" found the hideout and took everything with him.
13. In 1993, Orange County Treasurer Robert Citron hid boxes of papers here detailing his use of public funds to invest in repurchase agreements (repos) and floating rate notes. When his scheme was discovered, Citron arrested, and the county thrown into bankruptcy the following year, the papers were seized by the authorities.
14. In 1995, as Aerojet Corporation began planning to sell some of their explosives testing land in Chino Hills for real estate development, they transported some of their most dangerous chemicals to this structure and then removed them after two years for "proper disposal."
15. In 2003, ex-Orange County Sheriff/"America's Sheriff" Mike Carona secreted some of the many thousands of dollars given to him by "Assistant Sheriff" Don Haidl in this structure, but had his mistress Debra Hoffman remove it shortly after his arrest. Ms. Hoffman did, however, leave Corona's ethics, integrity, and morals behind.

Arundo and arundo

Ouch, now there's a painful anagram pun. Anyway . . . a "friend of the blog" has informed me that arundo spraying and treatment on the Orange County side of Carbon Canyon appears to be fairly imminent.

Because of the unseasonably hot weather (it's strange to think of some silver lining in the fire and the January heat wave!) the new growth of stalks has been greatly accelerated. The development of the stalks is important because spraying would only work once there was enough plant material exposed for the absorption of the chemical to work its way throughout the body of the plant.

Even with the devastating financial crisis still evolving in our Golden State, it appears that there is the funding for the initial treatment. There are overlapping jurisdictions within the Canyon, moreover, so a greater level of coordination has been required, but the opportunity has never been better.

So, in areas that are within the purview of CalTrans, that agency will handle the treatment and the same goes for California State Parks. What still needed to be arranged was a very generous offer by the Santa Ana Watershed Authority (SAWA) to fund and coordinate the spraying on the eight parcels of private property that are on the Brea side.

Key, however, is the ability to move beyond an initial treatment and the funding for that has yet to be located.

Still, a critical first step looks to be coming quite soon. As more news is made available, further posts will be made.

Carbon Canyon Historical Artifact #11

Here is yet another postcard from La Vida Mineral Springs, probably from the 1960s, and shows what is called the "Roman baths" in an indoor setting at the resort.

The image shows two women soaking in the 110+ degree water in two of seven tiled units with steps, a handrail, and valves to control the water. The tiled floor leads to a door in the background, next to which are possibly timers, a clock and a window.

This is undoubtedly the same facility that was mentioned in the 1985 "Los Angeles Times" article on La Vida that was the subject of a recent post on this blog and which noted that there was one such room for men and another (this one) for women.

On the reverse is a simple caption reading "Roman Baths at LA VIDA MINERAL SPRINGS / Carbon Canyon / BREA, CALIFORNIA." Dividing the message section from the address area is the information for the publisher, Amescolor of Escondido, from which there are other postcards that have been featured in this blog, including one of the restaurant and another showing the footbridge leading to the motel. As always, double-clicking on the image will provide an enlargement.

This is item 2008.10.1.1 of the Carbon Canyon Collection.

Neighborhoods of Carbon Canyon, Part V

After Sleepy Hollow (1922), Mountain View Park/Estates (ca. 1925), Olinda Village (1964) and Western Hills Oaks (ca. 1965), the next neighborhood to be created in Carbon Canyon was Summit Ranch, located just east of the hairpin curve on the Chino Hills side of the Canyon.

What made this subdivision of 356 homes (probably around 1,100 or 1,200 residents) different than its predecessors is that it came along as a planned tract community, the first phase occurring in the the late 1970s and early 1980s and the second in the 1986-87 boom period.

The earlier built homes, as part of a subdivision closer to Carbon Canyon Road called "The Ranch" and which were started in 1978, had many of the features that were considered advanced for the era: tri-level floor plans, conversation pits around the fireplace in the living room, and "popcorn" ceilings. While the latter has certainly become more than dated, there is something retro and cool about the conversation pits and the split level feature is also pretty great in terms of creating very defined spaces.

The later phase from the Eighties, called "Summit Trails" abandoned those features (an update: a visitor pointed out in her comment to this post that the conversation pits and split level layouts did, after all, continue with this phase), but, from what I understand some of the homes in these areas of the development suffered from foundation problems and soil slippage, as the construction of later phases took place in the higher, steeper elevations along the hillsides to the north.

Still, Summit Ranch, the name that linked the two separate tracts, is a highly desirable community, with twelve floor plans and variations within many of these and a significant attraction being the amenities, including swimming pools, a community clubhouse, tennis courts, parks and horse stables with trails that wind throughout the neighborhood. The cost for these and community landscaping are covered by association fees run $105 per month and there is an HOA and property management firm based in Chino Hills. In addition, there are some lots at the northern end of the tract that have sweeping views of the Chino and Pomona valleys, the San Gabriel Mountains and, looking southward, Carbon Canyon.

For those who are interested in more information about the community, a local realtor created a website: www.summitranchneighbors.com and there is also a site for the HOA/property management at: www.myhoa.com/carboncanyon.

Carbon Canyon Interactive Google Map, Redux #5

I'm reposting this periodically so it appears current for (potentially) greater access and I will make updates to the text boxes as information becomes available. I've set up a Google interactive map for Carbon Canyon that has placemarks (various icons for housing tracts, recreational places, historic sites, and others) that you can access and read information about concerning places of historical interest, notoriety, or distinctiveness within the canyon. If you have corrections and suggestions, please let me know. Here's the link and enjoy: http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=108410844123352552312.00045245ba05b66a7ae66&ll=33.96301-117.763996&spn=0.029401,0.052872&z=14