We've got some pretty great mountains very close to home, the San Gabriel Mountains. There are a number of campgrounds up there, lots of great hiking and biking... It's an easy, fun getaway from LA, and really close to home. We tried to go to Buckhorn this particular weekend, but it had already closed for the season. Actually, they were going to be closed for the entire next year due to planned renovations. We decided to stay at Chilao Campground instead, which is just down the road, not very far from Buckhorn. Chilao is also very close to Newcomb's Ranch, a spot that's popular with the motorcycle crowd. It gets packed with all kinds of bikes on the weekends. There's a restaurant and a bar there, as well as a tiny store with a random assortment of t-shirts and trinkets for sale. Chilao is also just behind Mt. Wilson, which is where all of the tv and radio stations in LA have transmitters. We got terrific tv reception at the campground. Kind of a weird unexpected thing, but it was fun to watch the news at night, all the way up there in the mountains! Chilao is also on the edge of the area that burned in the 2009 Station Fire. It was a huge fire, something like 160,000 acres burned. That's like 250 square miles! Two firefighters lost their lives. I think it's important to remember these things, and be mindful whenever you're in a wilderness area, particularly one as dry as the Angeles Forest. Anyway, there are burned tree skeletons all over, but there's also a lot of green coming out now. You can't stop Mother Nature.
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