Cleaned Out and Cleaned Up on the SGRT

 Maybe the latest fire along the SGRT spurred someone into action, maybe it had been planned for some time, maybe it was a spur of the moment decision, but whatever "it" was, the Lario Trailhead area has been returned to the domain of the general public:


The thing is, while it looks inviting again, now that the space is not covered with make-shift shelters, and laundry lines and trash and needles, and tents and tarps, etc, as it has been for the past couple years: 


now there are also "KEEP OUT" signs at the entry from the bike path, so I'm not sure what use "public domain" is. I guess they will finish cleaning and sanitizing and the park will be opened again?

Of course you can still see tarps and tents further back in the brush, and hear music coming from deeper in, so I'm sure we haven't seen the last fire to burn in the area. The latest covers a large swath on both sides of the bike path over by the nature center. The cactus and native plants were pretty decimated, but will grow back:



Wilderness Park in Downey has always been a nice spot along the path to the sea to stop for a restroom break, or a water refill, but I hadn't been there in years, certainly not since the city redesigned it. It is a great looking spot, with new water features, trails, picnic areas, interpretive signs; in fact, with gate closed and locked at the Pico Rivera golf course bike rest area (for what ever unexplained reason), it is the only place worth stopping at between Eldorado Park and the Santa Fe Dam. All the algae in the water makes for some pretty mesmirizing patterns:

flow patterns in the algae






flow patterns

ebb and flow

cattails

bird houses - nice design touch

flotilla

come on, you can do it! up the one, and only, hill


Then again, there's always something to complain about, like this guy (or worse yet, further along where the SGRT is just the width of a trail), the father and young son riding along the bike path on a quad; just what is it that some people don't understand about the term "non-motorized"?


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