Mount Lowe Railway Trail

Professor Thaddeus Lowe, Civil War balloonist, man of fame and fortune, was the quintessential California dreamer. His dream was to build a railway into--and a resort complex atop--the San Gabriel Mountains high above Pasadena. In the 1890s, his dream became a reality.

During the height of its popularity, millions took Professor Lowe's "Railway to the Clouds" to fine hotels and spectacular views of Southern California. Until it was abandoned in the 1930s, it was the Southland's most popular tourist attraction.

From Pasadena, visitors rode a trolley up Rubio Canyon, where a pavilion and hotel were located. After taking refreshments, they boarded the "airships" of the great cable incline, where carried them 3,000 feet (gaining 1,300 feet) straight up to the Echo Mountain Resort Area. "Breathtaking" and "hair-raising" were the most frequent descriptions of this thrilling ride. Atop Echo Mountain was the White City, with a hotel, observatory, and a magnificent searchlight purchased from the Chicago World's Fair. When the searchlight swept the mountaintop, the white buildings of the resort were visible from all over Los Angeles. From Echo Mountain, tourists could board a trolley and ride another few miles to Mount Lowe Tavern at the end of the line.

Mishe Mokwa Trail

Sandstone Peak, highest peak in the Santa Monica Mountains, is one of the highlights of a visit to Circle X Ranch, 1,655 acres of National Park Service land on the border of Los Angeles and Ventura counties. The park boasts more than 15 miles of trail plus a much-needed public campground.

Half a century ago the land belonged to a number of gentlemen ranchers, including movie actor Donald Crisp, who starred in How Green was My Valley. Members of the Exchange Club purchased the nucleus of the park in 1949 for $25,000 and gave it to the Boy Scouts. The emblem for the Exchange Club was a circled X--hence the name of the ranch.

Abalone Cove Trail

Abalone Cove offers the hiker a fine sampling of the pleasures of the PV shoreline: tidepools, sandy beaches and dramatic 180-foot high bluffs laced with trails. The excellent vistas from the top of the bluffs include Sacred (Smugglers) Cove and Inspiration Point, Catalina Island and the wide blue Pacific, and inland to the Portuguese Bend landslide zone.

Mile-long Abalone Cove Shoreline Park boasts two beaches—East Beach, a sandy beach at the east end of the cove and Upper Beach, an artificially raised rocky and sandy beach created in the 1930s for a resort hotel, whose former clubhouse now serves as a lifeguard facility. An ecological reserve protects the rich tidepools and offshore kelp beds.

Sam Merrill Trail

Professor Thaddeus Sobreski Coulincourt Lowe's Echo Mountain Resort area can be visited by retracing the tracks of his "Railway to the Clouds" and also by way of a fine urban edge trail that ascends from the outskirts of Altadena.

This historic hike visits the ruins of the one-time "White City" atop Echo Mountain. From the steps of the old Echo Mountain House are great clear-day views of the megalopolis. Energetic hikers can join trails leading to Inspiration Point and Idlehour campground.

Pasadena and Altadena citizens have been proud to share their fascination with the front range of the San Gabriel Mountains. This pride has extended to the trails ascending from these municipalities into the mountains.