"A Bad Wheel And Rabbit Holes"

22-January 2023: Perhaps interestingly, there was this persistent chopper sound that was dominating the sounds of the hike.

It was only upon closer inspection as we got further down the Old Cabin Trail that we noticed there was a yellow and blue chopper hovering over the mouth of Sycamore Canyon.

We wondered what this was all about?

When the hike descended towards the creek responsible for the canyon, we encountered a uniformed ranger situated by a trail junction where the other trail went into the canyon downstream….

After having had a nice Chinese New Year dinner at the parents’ place last night, we followed it up by doing a hike way out in Thousand Oaks today.

But instead of the usual Paradise Falls out at Wildwood Park, I wanted us to pursue the Sycamore Canyon Falls.

After all, we’ve had a bit of a mixed history with this waterfall tending to be on the dry side more than half the times we’ve been there over the years.

But the other thing was that I knew it wasn’t a difficult hike, and I needed something easier since I had hurt my achilles on Tuesday while doing a boot camp workout in the gym at work.

Further adding urgency to short waterfalling season that we fear, I wanted to choose something with a shorter season.

Given the patterns we’ve been seeing in the past couple of years, especially now that the atmospheric river storms seemed to have passed, the upcoming forecast for the next week or more called for dry weather and that gave us cause for concern.

You see, Julie and I feared that this would be it for the rest of the Winter and Spring season as far as significant rainfall would be concerned, and so I didn’t want this opportunity to pass us by in terms of chasing those seasonal waterfalls.

These included The Grotto Falls, Tenaja Falls, Newton Canyon Falls, Escondido Falls, Santa Ynez Falls, and others.

The problem with these hikes were that there was some element of scrambling, and with my achilles issue, I was afraid I might be pushing it too far (at the expense of the big picture of affecting my ability to do expensive and long trips later this year).

So I figured Sycamore Canyon Falls would be a simple one that the whole family can do, since it was all on a trail with not a whole lot of scrambling (from what I recalled at least), and that’s what we were targeting.

As long as I don’t further aggravate my bad wheel, I’m sure this would be a better way to spend Chinese New Year than going to some overcrowded restaurant with long waits and high prices.

I was never really one to do what everyone else was doing and becoming a lemming, and from past experiences, we knew that just about every other Asian family is doing exactly what was described on a day like today.

Thus, by 6:30am, we awoke and got right to getting ready for the hike as we agreed to meet the parents at the Wendy Trailhead at around 9am.

We could have started at the car park by the Satwiwa Visitor Center, but I figured that one would cost money while the Wendy Trail one would generally be free (even if the hiking would be slightly longer from there).

And so that was set, and we finally left home at 7:55am.

The drive towards Thousand Oaks pretty much went without much incident as it was Sunday morning light, and we surprisingly already got to the Lynn Road exit before 9am.

Based on some text exchanges with Mom, it looked like we were ahead of them when we got to this point.

However, as we followed the routing on Julie’s iPhone, we were driving so far down Lynn Road that we started to go down a narrow and twisty mountain road with 15mph curves.

This was nothing like I remembered where we were supposed to go as I knew Wendy Trailhead was across some residential area on a large pullout with plenty of room for cars.

Julie was debating with me that her iPhone was correct or she was trying to pin it on the address I gave her, but when we called Mom, we learned that she was already at the trailhead and that the address was correct!

Anyways, we backtracked, and went back in the other direction on Lynn Road towards Reino Road (going past the Satwiwa Entrance to the Santa Monica Mountains and passing by a large ranch called Rancho Sierra Vista), and eventually found the Potrero Road.

It didn’t take long going on Potrero Road when we finally saw Mom and Dad standing outside their car, and we promptly parked next to them.

By that time, it was 9:15am, and now we could finally get going with getting geared up and onto the hike.

This pullout area was already very busy, and there were still cars pulling up to fill in the large pullout area alongside Potrero Road.

Julie was still trying to figure out why Google Maps was trying to route us in the opposite direction, and we were wondering if next time we should route to the St Matthews Methodist Church right on the corner of Wendy Drive and Potrero Road.

Regardless, we promptly geared up and then proceeded to head towards the opening in the fencing right at the Wendy Trailhead.

It had been years (probably early 2010) when we had last done this hike, and so far I was able to handle walking though I was still dealing with a limp that was favoring my left achilles.

After getting past a short seasonal creek crossing, and then climbing up some muddy stretches while bypassing some trail junctions, it was clear to me that we weren’t going towards the Satwiwa Nature Center.

Instead, we were going straight up the trail (now the Windmill Trail according to my maps) towards the familiar Danielson Fire Road, and ths was a direct route that I don’t think we had ever done before.

Yet the sights seemed familiar throughout, including the views looking back towards the suburbs and the mountains of the Sespe Wilderness backing the developments in the foreground.

Of course, back in 2010, we showed up when there was a suprising amount of snow in those mountains, but despite the atmospheric river storms we had been getting to this point, we didn’t see any snow this time around.

Anyways, I also got some help getting out my trekking poles thinking I would need them as crutches in case my achilles was acting up, and for a brief time, I was kind of using them during the climb.

However, eventually they kind of gotten in the way of me wanting to document the experience (i.e. taking pictures), and my poles ended up being used by Tahia and my Dad.

The direct trail (now the Windmill Trail) continued to ascend a few gentle switchbacks along with the steps (which I think were for erosion control).

It didn’t take long before we got past a couple more trail junctions (leading to the Lower Satwiwa Loop Trail) before finally reaching the Hidden Valley Overlook Trail junction.

In that instance, we went right (which was away from the general direction of Sycamore Canyon Falls) before reaching the signed Danielson Fire Road, where we then followed the familiar canyon-clinging path that received a lot of use.

Indeed, we were now encountering many more trail runners, which went to show us just how well-used the Danielson Fire Road was.

We also noticed some attractive knobby mountains (though it was against the sun).

Perhaps interestingly, there was this persistent chopper sound that was dominating the sounds of the hike.

It was only upon closer inspection as we got further down the Old Cabin Trail that we noticed there was a yellow and blue chopper hovering over the mouth of Sycamore Canyon.

We wondered what this was all about?

When the hike descended towards the creek responsible for the canyon, we encountered a uniformed ranger situated by a trail junction where the other trail went into the canyon downstream.

I recalled going down that trail (or coming up from that trail) in the past, but this time around, we briefly chatted with the ranger about the chopper activity.

It turned out that many of the workers here actually use the Santa Monica Mountains as a sort of search-and-rescue (SAR) practice ground, and this was apparently one such drill.

So with that, we continued going upstream where we then encountered a stream crossing that was pretty straightforward.

Next, the trail briefly climbed towards another trail junction where the path on the right climbed even higher, but we knew that we had to keep straight ahead to pursue the target waterfall.

And sure enough, by about 10:50am, we made it to the Sycamore Canyon Falls, which as expected was flowing quite nicely (maybe even having better flow than on our 2010 visit, which was the last time we had such an experience).

Besides on small group leaving the falls, we momentarily had this place to ourselves, which we tried to take advantage of by getting what videos and photos we could of this place.

But it didn’t take long before we started to see one guy coming down from the top of the falls (something I wasn’t going to do due to my achilles injury), and in the meantime, there were other hikers who just showed up from further downstream.

Good thing we came as early as we did, and we enjoyed the experience when we did, because before we knew it, there were all of the sudden close to 2 dozen people around the limited real-estate of the falls.

Anyways, after taking our pictures, having a bit of a chat, trying to pry Tahia off of my iPhone as she was playing PvZ, and having some tangerines and water, we then made our way back to the trailhead at 11:20am.

Indeed, as we left, there were even more hikers making their way to the falls (including a very large group of young dudes) along with several families, and it was a good thing that we didn’t linger much longer.

Now as much as I had entertained the thought of making a loop hike encompassing the Upper Sycamore Canyon Lookout as well as the Satwiwa Nature Center, we ultimately decided to go back the way we came.

It was a straightforward hike though the decline’s effect on my bum achilles did cross my mind.

But by about 12:35pm, we finally got back to the Wendy Trailhead after enjoying the views of the Newbury Park suburbia one last time.

Next, we decided to go for a lunch, and since we had done the Thousand Oaks thing in the past, we knew that there was Granville’s along the way in Studio City.

So as we drove along the 101, Julie noticed online that they had changed the menu and the Branzino was no longer there.

However, this kind of forced us to study their menu a bit more and see if there’s something else that might appeal to us this time around.

Unfortunately, I’ve always had not-so-great feelings about driving the 101 on the weekend because there’s always traffic, and sure enough, there was some kind of accident that apparently killed two lanes.

During this time, Julie was upset about some terrible news about a shooting that took place in Monterey Park, which once again reminded us of how screwed up our gun laws (or lack thereof) are.

So there was a bit of a 10- to 15-minute delay as we had to get past it, but ultimately by about 1:50pm, we finally got to Granville’s.

Unfortunately, the structure in the back of the facility apparently wasn’t open for general parking anymore, so we had to back out and take their valet parking, which was a bummer.

Mom and Dad meanwhile found street parking so they didn’t have to pay the $8 fee for the valet.

Regardless, after waiting around 15 minutes, we finally got seated at a nice little booth, and then we could finally have ourselves a Chinese New Year lunch in a bit of a more American style (which was something Mom and Dad were concerned about).

But after having placed our order and doing family-style dining consisting of their signature thick-cut pork chop, a bacon and blue burger, an ahi filet, skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, wagyu birria brisket breakfast tacos, and brussel sprouts, we chowed everything down delightfully.

Indeed, we were so pleasantly surprised by this experience that Mom even told the waiter that she was skeptical of American food, but this place really opened her mind to how good gourmet American food can be.

Heck, we liked our meal so much that we even had ourselves a dessert of flourless chocolate cake with ice cream, and Tahia got her strawberry short cake.

Needless to say we left the place very full and satisfied (something that I felt I wouldn’t need to be having dinner tonight), and we promptly celebrated our precious time as a family before heading back to our respective homes.

Before going straight home however, we had to stop by Julie’s Mom’s place in Alhambra to check in with her and bring her some pomelos from our garden.

We learned during the day that there was a horrific mass shooting that took place in Monterey Park with another attempted one in Alhambra, and that further hit home to us that the US really isn’t safe as long as guns are rampant like this.

It further drove home the point that we really have to treasure our relationships and our time together because you just never know when your time will come (something that my brother reminded us of even though his passing wasn’t gun-related).

Regardless, we finally got home at 5:30pm, and then we could unwind from this eventful day where it was good family vibes all around, and we hope we can keep this momentum going when we’re planning an international trip with the family this Summer.

This will be different because we’re planning on including my niece and nephew, which will be their first time going on an international trip.

Sure it will be a challenge having this many people going to say Japan, but sometimes you just have to say roll with it…