Hey Pat! Sounds like you had a fun day! - Charles Watson does Geologic tours of different places - I think you know him - maybe he can make up a script for that area !

We did hike #3 today (3 of 4 in prep for the Grand Canyon) - today's theme was the San Gabriel Mountains and Landslides.

Our project for the day was to notice landslide activity and what things do we see that are landslide related. The San Gabriel Mtns are made of primarily Pelona Schist and Granite. It is all shattered by the uplift of the mountains due to our friend, The San Andreas Fault. Therefore they tend to have many, many landslides - the material is easily shed from the mountain sides, most especially after fires followed by rain...

There was pleanty of evidence of the activity everywhere - alluvium deposits everywhere, exposed tree roots along the sides of the very steep mountains, and bare slopes that were the source of the landslides. Probably one of the more interesting items were the large boulders along the base of the mountains that people use to make walls around their homes! The mountains are so kind as to deliver this building material to them.

You don't think they'd take that as a hint of things to come ?

Canie