For the most part, we’re avoiding big cities on our trip this year. We’d just rather spend time in nature than in urban landscapes. And trying to haul a trailer through city traffic is just stressful. So we limited our stay in the Los Angeles area to just a few days.
We had two main goals for time in the City of Angels: Malibu Creek State Park and the La Brea Tar Pits.
Malibu Creek was a place I’ve wanted to visit ever since I learned you could hike out to where the TV show M*A*S*H* was filmed. I grew up watching M*A*S*H* and I attribute my sense of humor — and affinity for puns — to the show. I’ve probably seen every episode multiple times, so it was a thrill to come to see where they filmed it.
Most of the 2.5 mile hike to the site follows an old dirt road, before veering off in the final half mile to cross the river. At the gate to the state park, we had seen a sign saying that the footbridge was closed and that we’d have to either wade through the river or cross on a log further upstream. The new bridge was supposed to be installed in the spring of 2024. We groused a bit that May is certainly well into spring.
To our surprise, when we got to the river there was a new footbridge in place, allowing us to cross without getting our feet wet.
We knew we had reached the site when we saw a military ambulance with 4077th M*A*S*H* markings on its bumper. It was the type of vehicle that made a regular appearance on the show. However, this one had been placed there only a few years ago, restored by a local group of military enthusiasts.
Much of the show was filmed indoors in a studio, even some of the outdoor scenes. According to the displays on site, you can tell if a scene was filmed at Malibu Creek if the actors were squinting. The land once belonged to a studio, and was donated to create a state park about four years after the show started shooting there. Since it was a public park, anyone could walk in and watch the filming as long as they didn’t interfere with the process. Other movies and shows were also filmed there, including Planet of the Apes.
Unfortunately, not much is left from the original set. There are a couple of rusted out military vehicles. There’s a signpost showing the direction and distance to various cities, but I don’t think it’s the original one from the show.
The displays onsite show where the various elements of the 4077th were located. Some of the buildings like the one that housed the OR, Col. Potter’s office, and the Officer’s Club, where smaller reproductions made to look bigger with the right camera angles.
There’s a trail that leads from the main set up to what was once the helipad. We had even heard a helicopter flying in during our hike, adding a bit of reality to the entire escapade.
There’s not much to do there, but read the panels and try to imagine what the set looked like when they were filming it. We spent no more than 15 minutes checking out the site, before heading back to our campsite.
The following day, we hit another location that had long been on my bucket list to visit. The La Brea Tar Pits, in downtown L.A., is a fascinating site where thousands of animal fossils have been recovered. The naturally occurring tar pits are deposits of asphalt, or bitumen, that have been bubbling for eons. Some of the largest animals to ever roam the American continent got stuck in these tar pits, their bones preserved in asphalt until they were excavated a hundred thousand years later.
As is true with most tar pits around the world, predators make up 90% of the animal bones found there. Scientists believe that’s because an animal stuck in the tar would attract packs of predators, who then also got stuck in the pitch.
The tar pits themselves aren’t much to see. There’s one large lake where the museum has recreated a scene of a mammoth stuck in the tar pits as a baby mammoth on the shore watches its mother’s fate. Most of the other tar pits are in some state of excavation or look like a mud puddle. The tar still seeps in the grassy areas of the site as well.
The true attraction is the museum displaying the archaeological finds. There are skeletons of sabertooth cats, the American lion and small horses that roamed the continent before the introduction of horses by European invaders. One of the more striking displays is a wall of more than 100 Dire wolf skulls backlit in yellow. It gives you a sense of just how many animal remains have been found onsite.
The museum also showcases fossils of mammoths and mastodons, giant sloths and short faced bears, all massive creatures that disappeared from North America around the same time that humans arrived on the continent. Scientists still debate whether their extinction was caused by natural forces or the introduction of a new apex predator, armed with spears. The museum displays dozens of the different skeletons that have been found in the pits. In one section, you can watch staff working on cleaning up the fossils they’ve found.
Humans have been coming to the site for centuries. Native Americans used the tar from the pits to waterproof canoes, baskets and other items. Eventually, businessmen began to extract the asphalt for sealing roads and other uses. But they soon discovered ancient bones in the tar pits and allowed researchers to come excavate the area. They dug over 100 pits in the process.
When the adjacent Los Angeles County Museum of Art began constructing a new parking lot, they allowed the La Brea Tar Pits museum staff to supervise the excavation. When they came across a jumble of bones, the entire block was sealed in a large wooden box, similar to those used to relocate large trees. That spawned Project 23, named after the 23 boxes of fossils removed from the site. Museum staff have been carefully sifting through the remains, one box at a time.
While more than 750,000 different fossils have been removed from the site, only one set of human bones has been found so far. Known as The La Brea Woman, scientists have various theories about how she ended up in the tar. We learned about her through a podcast about the tar pits. There seemed to be no mention of her anywhere onsite.
From LA, we drove up the coast to Ventura where we caught a boat to Channel Islands National Park. The park’s five islands are considered America’s Galapagos, with species of animals, birds and plants not found anywhere else. You can visit any of the islands, but most people make a day trip out to the largest island, Santa Cruz.
I had originally thought about a backpacking trip across the length of the island, but we opted instead to stay at the campground near Scorpion Cove and do some shorter hikes from there.
The campground is a 5 to 10 minutes walk from the boat dock. After a short camping introduction from the rangers, we found our site and set up our tent.
Santa Cruz is known for its foxes and ravens, both of which are highly skilled at stealing food from tourists. Each campground had “fox boxes,” large metal storage lockers where you could protect your food or anything else with a scent.
From the camp, we hiked a 5-mile loop trail to the Potato Harbor overlook and to Cavern Point. The islands are reminiscent of the British Isles, with tall grass and white cliffs. We returned to our tent and Mrs. 123 wanted to read for a bit. So I headed off on a second hike up Scorpion Canyon.
It had been a while since we’ve camped in a tent. There’s a curious phenomenon we discovered: as you get older the ground gets a lot harder. We were also very close to the group campgrounds and our neighbors were having quite the party. Thankfully they shut things down once the campground’s quiet hours started at 10 p.m.
We had to be out of the campground by 11 am, but our return boat ride wouldn’t leave till later in the afternoon. We packed up our things and stored them in a fox box near the dock, and went for hike down to Smuggler’s Cove. The 8-mile round trip hike leads to a rocky beach that featured more seabirds than smugglers.
We returned to the dock and still had about two hours to kill before the boat departed. We toured some of the buildings that remained from when the entire island was used as a sheep ranch.
The island is also a popular site for snorkeling and sea kayaking. It was a little too cold to get into the water, and the price for kayak tour was well out of our budget.
Once we returned to the marina, we drove 15 minutes to a campground right on the edge of the ocean. We didn’t spend much time enjoying the view. We were just happy to rest our old bones on a real mattress.
Days: 124
Miles Traveled: 15,473
Next stop: Pinnacles National Park
