Monrovia Canyon hike

Two weeks ago I took a hike in Monrovia Canyon park in the San Gabriel Mountains. The landscape here was wetter (near a stream) and lusher than the other places I've hike in the Los Angeles region. We saw huge oaks and many blooms, including currant, California bay laurel, and hoaryleaf ceanothus. This hike, the Ben Overturff Trail, was pretty strenuous-- up, and up, and up some more. This is an old trail that was built alongside a pipe that brought water from the mountains to Monrovia (no wonder it's so steep!), the trail was restored in the 1990s.




Throughout the hike we saw this stunning pairing of white sage and yucca:





currant



California bay laurel


hoaryleaf ceanothus was blooming profusely so that some parts of the hillside were covered in white flowers