A Hidden Mountain Treasure in the City

The mountain lion tracks were fresh, no more than a day old, cut clean and deep into the wet ridge top of the Verdugo Mountains. The tracks intersected those left by a mule deer, whose teardrop-shaped hoof prints suddenly bolted from a walk into a sprint as both sets of tracks vanished into the chaparral, the cat in pursuit of its favorite prey.

This damp soil was rich in wildlife clues. Bobcat, gray fox, coyote and brush rabbit tracks outnumbered those left by humans. Distance from the center of Los Angeles: 12 miles.

The Verdugos are the forgotten mountains of Greater Los Angeles. On some road maps they appear as an unidentified smudge of brown. A geological orphan, only 10 miles long by about three miles wide, the Verdugos straddle the eastern San Fernando Valley from the Big Tujunga Wash across Burbank to Glendale.

Yet at their summit the Verdugos are the equivalent in elevation of a 100-story skyscraper set atop the highest point in Griffith Park, and with their sparse human traffic, the Verdugos offer a private porch for overlooking the metropolis while immersed in nature.

On a recent afternoon, mountain bikers Rick Burghart and Ron Grubbs made the heaving ascent to the 3,126-foot summit and took in the view. Down below, Griffith Park looked like a bump in the road and the Silver Lake reservoir was so far beneath their feet it looked like a turquoise water dish left out for a cat.

To the southeast, Mt. San Jacinto rose in the sky near Palm Springs. Out to sea, San Nicolas Island was visible 45 miles beyond Catalina, while oil tankers off Long Beach moved as slowly as logs floating on a pond.

Burghart, who recently discovered this getaway perch, got off his bike and proclaimed the obvious: “Look at that view--is that awesome?” They began pumping their way down the mountain, figuring that with luck they could make it to work at the Disney Channel in Burbank in less than an hour. “You can see the building from here!” Burghart yelped.

“It’s a mysterious range,” said geologist Helmut Ehrenspeck, a German native who has been mapping California mountains during the past decade for the Dibblee Foundation in Goleta. “Right in the middle of all this humanity is this incredibly remote mountain. Almost anywhere up there you hear distant freeway sounds, sounds of human activity. But you are totally removed from it.

“It’s wonderful, splendid isolation. The Verdugos seem dark and impenetrable.”

Mountain Range Largely Unspoiled

The Verdugos are dwarfed by, and sandwiched between, two much larger mountain ranges. In the early morning light, the plum-blue Verdugos are sometimes mistaken for a fragment of the massive San Gabriels, which cover 2,000 square miles with a peak, Old Baldy, that reaches 10,064 feet. To the south stand the 52-mile long Santa Monica Mountains, a major recreation center where some trails are so choked with traffic that mountain bikers complain that they must use hand signals before making a turn.

Even surrounded by a population of millions, the Verdugos remain so lonely that it’s possible to hike up to the summit and back in four hours and not see another human being.

Ron Harlan, head of the biology department at Glendale Community College, moved here 20 years ago and was stunned by his discovery of the range. “I didn’t think anything like this existed in Los Angeles,” he said.

Harlan has taken classes into the Verdugos for an instant escape into the wilderness. “You have what is almost like a federally protected forest that has survived human urban growth all around it. It’s like an undiscovered Atlantis.”

By a mix of luck, steep terrain and because the Verdugos overlap the cities of Los Angeles, Burbank and Glendale plus scattered private landowners, there has never been a concerted effort to turn this into a major recreational center. They are too small for a ski resort, but too big and rugged, at least so far, for a massive housing development. Environmentalists are fighting to keep it that way by trying to block a proposed 572-luxury home project on the eastern slope in Glendale.

The Verdugos offer no mountaintop campgrounds to lure visitors, and it almost takes local knowledge to find the rare trail heads, which are hidden in residential neighborhoods that encircle the base of the mountains. Anyone who actually does begin a climb is completely on their own because the few dirt trails are completely unmarked.

George Contreras, with the U.S. Geological Survey, has hiked the Verdugos since he was 10. “I like to say the Verdugos are one of our best-kept secrets,” he said. “You can go up and picture everything like it was 100 years ago.”

Actually, except for the absence of grizzly bears, the wildlife in the Verdugos is much as it was 200 years ago, when the entire mountain range belonged to a corporal in the army of New Spain named Jose Maria Verdugo.

Verdugo served at the Mission San Gabriel. It was a Spanish tradition then to give land to soldiers who captured new territories for the royal family, an 18th century equivalent of a 401(k) retirement plan. So Verdugo’s eyes set upon an empty, fertile tract that lay outside the mission and nearby Indian villages.

In 1784 he petitioned the territorial governor for 36,000 acres, which included a mountain and surrounding flatlands that are now called Glendale, Burbank, Eagle Rock and La Canada Flintridge.

His family grubstaked the parcel until 1798, when after having six children, Verdugo wished to retire from the army and live off his farm. That year he was officially given title to the land. He used the mountain streams to help cultivate cropland and he grew grapes, oranges, figs, apples, peaches and wheat. He used the rangeland to tame wild horses, and after two decades counted more than 2,600 head of cattle, horses and mules.

Verdugo died in 1831 debt-free, and left his ranch to his favorite son and daughter. But by 1861 his son Julio needed money to pay taxes and buy seed and other farm goods, so he took out a mortgage at 3% interest per month--a hefty but common rate at the time. By 1869 his debts swelled to $60,000, so most of the ranch was auctioned off. The Verdugo family kept some land, but creditors sliced away at their holdings and by 1886 newcomers, including former Confederate officers, laid out the city of Glendale.

A Varied Ecosystem

Geologists consider the Verdugos a young mountain. Core rocks date back only 90 million to 120 million years, compared with 1 billion-year-old rocks in the San Gabriels. The mountain that rose from the sea 3 million years ago was shredded and torn apart by faults.

“The reason the Verdugos are isolated and sitting out there by themselves are the faults,” said Gene Fritsche, a Cal State Northridge geology professor. The mountains are straddled by the Verdugo fault along their south, and the Sierra Madre fault to their north. Earthquakes continue to shape them. The 1971 Sylmar quake shoved the western slope up eight feet, while the 1994 Northridge temblor uplifted the range two inches.

Biologist Harlan lives in the Verdugo foothills of Verdugo City and the mountain range continues to surprise him. “This is a part of California’s heritage before development,” he said. “It’s an ecosystem that extends from Northern Baja. And there are little pockets, like the Verdugos, where you can still experience that.”

He searched for some clues on a recent hike. After a drenching rain, yellow warblers began to sing, and the scent of coastal sagebrush, which smells to some like Vicks VapoRub, filled the air. The sage can be used in cooking, as can elderberries, which Harlan pointed out in the Verdugo’s thick chaparral scrub. Sometimes he collects the dark bluish berries to cook “pioneer pancakes”--folding elderberries into the batter.

As the trail climbed, riparian woodlands became visible in the canyons. The streams feed a diverse canopy of trees, from California bay to black walnut to coast live oak, and create a rich forest layer with plant and insect life.

Insect larvae that thrive on the streams help feed the mountain’s songbirds. The Verdugos are home to five types of hummingbirds, including a summer visitor from Mexico, the black-chinned hummingbird.

Harlan also spotted a Stellar’s jay, with a distinctive coal black pointy head, a forest dweller that only faintly resembles the common jay, and a band-tailed pigeon, found in forest woodlands, which is larger than its city cousin and is marked by a golden neck and beak.

Harlan then stopped to inspect warring scat on a trail, one left by a dog and a counterpoint sample dropped by a coyote immediately next to it. With a stick he examined the coyote’s scat, revealing choke cherries and a vole’s femur. “Coyotes eat anything.”

Complex Web of Predator and Prey

Wildlife in the Verdugos is part of a complicated yet interconnected eat or be eaten cycle. Here mountain lions are king: seven to nine feet long (including their tails) and weighing more than 200 pounds, they have a 50- to 200-mile range and can wander out of the Verdugos through a three-mile corridor in the Big Tujunga Wash that links with the San Gabriels.

Last winter a mountain lion drifted down into the residential flatlands of Shadow Hills, jumped over a six-foot fence, grabbed a 50-pound goose, then came back for a second helping of chicken, goat and turkey. But mountain lions mostly eat deer. Mule deer are roamers who at dawn and sunset eat twigs, grass, berries and flowers. They travel in small herds, and if lucky, can live 20 years. But the bobcats also savor baby mule deer.

Bobcats are loners, and in the Verdugos they eat rabbits, rodents, birds and squirrels. The mountain lions can attack bobcats. And so might the red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks and various owls, all Verdugo residents, who may swoop down and grab stray baby bobcats or gray foxes. The gray fox, called a tree fox because it escapes onto limbs, in turn eats rabbits, lizards and mice. Coyotes, who hunt in packs, can eat gray foxes. And mountain lions might attack them both.

“It’s a testament to the resilience of wildlife that this urban fringe area has retained so much of its original character,” said biologist Frank Hovore.

Contreras sometimes goes up for midnight camping and to look at the floor of the city. “It’s beautiful when the sun rises and you see deer coming,” he said. On a recent trip he heard something, shined a flashlight and his dog chased after the sound. “It was a six-point buck who casually strolled away in a ravine. I pick up antlers all the time.”

Occasionally he sees other wildlife. Once he was speeding down on a mountain bike, “when I passed a man, age 50, who was butt naked. He was hiking. Real casual. The guy smiled, said hello, and kept walking.”

The mountain’s isolation also inspires pipe dreams. A decade ago Bruce Speirs, chief helicopter pilot for the Burbank police, found a small marijuana plantation near the Verdugo peak. Someone had cleared away some brush, carried up 50-gallon drums, filled them with dirt and was growing marijuana.

“But on the top there is no running water, so he had to keep hauling up his own water,” Speirs said. “It was destined to fail.” Why? “Deer are vegetarians. There wasn’t much marijuana left. The deer probably found it to their liking and ended up eating most of it,” he laughed.

Land Is Valuable but Inaccessible

Some of the most valuable land in the Verdugos is along the ridgeline. Eight antenna complexes on the mountaintop transmit radio signals, 911 emergency calls and telephone paging. In 1987 Infinity Broadcasting paid $150,000 for an 80-acre plot there; today its assessed value is $2.4 million.

But if you own land near the Verdugo peak that’s not next to a fire road or other access, it’s not very useful. Consider Don Watts, 62, of Palm Springs, a fourth-generation owner of a 20-acre parcel near the Verdugo summit.

“I don’t think any member of my family has ever stood on the property,” he said.

Watts’ great-grandfather was a sailor, and while moving from Florida, he swapped another piece of land and sight unseen took ownership of his share of the Verdugos. The adventurer then drowned at sea. Watts grew up in Glendale, and his grandmother would point to the mountain and tell him the family owned some land up there, though exactly where was hard to tell. A few years ago Watts hired surveyors, who told him this was mountain goat territory, with only half an acre of his land flat enough to build on.

About five years ago the city of Glendale talked to Watts about possibly buying his land for $30,000 to conserve open space. Nothing happened.

So he ponders what to do with this mountainous heirloom, particularly when Watts gets a $540 tax bill each year in the mail. If he can’t find a buyer, Watts may give the land to a charity for a tax deduction. That’s why a nearby plot is now owned by a Serbian Orthodox church in Illinois.

Still, Watts hopes something good might happen. “Maybe somebody will want to turn it into a national park and buy the land,” he said. “You never know.”

Large Development Attracts Opponents

Although the Verdugos have largely escaped development, environmentalists are rallying together to protect 238 acres of green, untouched canyons that run up to 2,400 feet on the Glendale side. The property belongs to developers John Gregg and Sal Gangi, who want to build 572 luxury homes. They will have to do plastic surgery on the land, carve away a few ridge tops, move 5.5 million cubic yards of dirt to fill in one big canyon, destroy more than 3,000 oak and sycamore trees and bury a riparian forest under 100 feet of dirt.

This project, called Oakmont 5, “would completely destroy the best riparian forest in the Verdugos,” said Harlan. Biologist Mickey Long warned: “Removing a large chunk of habitat may not leave enough room to support mountain lion or bobcat populations. They could move out.”

Environmentalists already blame Gregg and Gangi for leaving what they call a scar on the landscape, as a couple hundred homes were built on their earlier Oakmont hillside development. From a distance, that part of the slope appears to be a wall of big white boxes--some homes are 8,000 square feet--that snake up the mountainside.

“It looks like a bunch of motels in a row five feet apart. It’s an eyesore and it destroyed one whole section of Glendale,” said City Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg. “I’ve voted against that project three times. I’ll go to bat for the mountain lions. They survived so I could admire them.”

But in the same way that Cpl. Verdugo once lived off this mountain, for decades Gregg and Gangi have done the same. Now it’s their land and they want to build more homes. They sued Glendale over the city’s restrictive hillside building ordinance, then withdrew the suit while the city reviews their newest housing project. It’s unclear if Glendale’s City Council will approve the project or cut it back, but if everything fell right for the developers, they could start grading next year.

“It’s true we’d tear out one canyon,” Gangi said. “But there are other canyons in the Verdugos that are not going to be developed and are just as magnificent. It’s not like we’re doing the last one. There are lots of nice oak trees elsewhere.”

Meanwhile, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is fighting to save the land. The conservancy owns 1,110 acres of the Verdugos and has added Gregg and Gangi’s parcel to a list of 40 high-priority sites it wants to buy in California.

Are the developers willing to sell?

“Sure,” Gangi said. But the conservancy “has a great appetite and a very small pocketbook.”

What about those who say this land should be left untouched?

“I really believe in national forests for those people,” Gangi said. “And we develop property. That’s what we do.”

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Verdugo Mountains

The Verdugos are a small, isolated jewel of a mountain range that offers one of the best views in the city. The mountains get their name from Jose Maria Verdugo, a corporal in the Spanish Army who won title to the territory in one of California’s first land grants in 1798. Although the Verdugos are surrounded by heavy urban development, the mountains remain rich in wildlife and plant life, much as it was two centuries ago.

AT A GLANCE

* 10 miles long by 3.5 miles wide

* Highest point: Mt. Verdugo 3,126 feet

Rare plants:

* Nevin’s barberry

* Davidson’s bush mallow: Candidate for federal listing as threatened plant

Birds:

* Black-chinned hummingbird

* Cooper’s hawk

* Red-tailed hawk

* Stellar’s jay

* Band-tailed pigeon

* California gnatcatcher

Wildlife:

* San Diego horned lizard

* Bobcat

* Gray Fox

* Mule deer

* Mountain lion

* Coyote

Sources: North American Wildlife; Hunters on the Wing; USGA