Whitney Canyon Photos

Here are various photos taken in Whitney Canyon

Welcome to Whitney Canyon (somewhat out of date because Gray Davis is not the governor anymore)

First part of road looking up the canyon

Looking west toward the mouth of the canyon with road on left

These 5 cactus plants are located in a small side canyon

They are very mature - why were they planted here?

Power lines cross over the canyon

This looks like a holding pond for water. At one time this was a horse ranch. Probably other domestic animals were raised in the canyon, too. They needed water. It was not on the Winterer and Durham map, so I believe it was built after 1950, about the year the geology was mapped.

Just past the pond is an old oil well called Fink 2. It was drilled in 1900, but never produced commercial quatities of oil. There is a oil seep on the south side of the road which is probably why they drilled there.

You can just make out the old NIKE base in the far distance

Plenty of oaks in the canyon

Probably at one time all the large oaks had numbers like this. There must have been some sort of environmental impact report done in the canyon. I would sure like to see it. Part of the EIR for the Elsmere Canyon dump consisted of marking all the large oaks so you will occasionally see markers on those oaks.

Small dump area with some old bottles and jars

I believe this is a young California Black Walnut tree

A second, younger, tree is nearby. I only saw two of these trees in the canyon.

An unusual large patch of next to the road

There are a lot of fallen oak trees in the canyon. This one just happened to fall over the trail.

Some kind of meeting place. It looks like it was set up for people to sit down. On one side are stairs and on the other side is a ramp.

Deeper in then canyon you eventually get to this spring. It has a strong smell of sulpher. Whitney Canyon was first called Mud Springs Canyon. There are two major springs in the canyon that I know of. This is one of them.

Another view of spring

Plenty of cattails growing in the spring area

The trail gets narrower up the canyon past the spring

Here we are about at the end of the trail. We have reached the oldest rocks in the canyon consisting mainly of the metamorphic rock gneiss. To the left and below my backpack you can see an obvious fault where the two dark layers have shifted apart.

There are some pools of water here favored by bees. This is September of 2009. There is very little water in the canyon.

The trail has ended. You are on your own from now on.

Looking back, you can see the brown Pico formation rocks in the distance. Unfortunately, you cannot see a good contact between the Pico formation and the basal gneiss rocks.

This is up the first major northeast tributary looking toward the mouth. You can see Eternal Valley in the distance on the right and Elsmere Ridge on the left. This tributary had a lot of squatters that had to be removed after the MRCA took over management of the canyon. There is still a lot of trash up here.

There is a lot of water up this tributary and so there is a lot of plant growth

The water soaks into the ground before it gets into the main canyon.

There are plenty of cattails here, too

If you hike far enough up the canyon, you will find the source of the water in the hillside next to the creek. The water is really gushing out here. This is the second major spring in the canyon.

Closer view of opening. Based on the amount of staining in the area, the water must have escaped in other places through the years.

The spring area is heavily covered with brush so there is not a lot of light to get good pictures. Here you can see where the water flows into the creek. The colors must be caused by the oil that is in the water.

Up a southern tributary is this cave. The shadow makes it deeper than it really is, but it could still easily shelter an animal. It was too high up for me to get close to.

This southern tributary contains an oil seep

It also contains standing water also popular with the bees

Deeper up same canyon

These holes were caused by water erosion in the narrow canyon

This was also caused by water erosion in a curve in the canyon. That's my black backpack.

This is a view looking about east up the canyon. The road is visible in the lower right center.

Another view looking southeast up the canyon closer to the mouth. The road is on the bottom right on the other side of the green main canyon. I am on the north side of the canyon.

View looking west up the mouth of the canyon. I am standing in the middle of the canyon. The road is on the left. You can see the green grass of Eternal Valley in the distance.

View looking west from far up the Whitney Canyon Parkway. Not a very clear day (9/19/09)

Whitney Canyon ends here as the creek is channeled under Highway 14 and Sierra Highway

Closer view