The Time Mascheen & The Corona Snow Hike



This Christmas we spent a couple weeks out in SoCal, again. One morning I decided to take my nephews on a hike in Corona where my Grandpa's orange groves used to be. Now it's just empty land that is waiting to be sold. I call this the time mascheen (intentionally misspelled, watch Idiocracy and you'll get it). Back in the 80's we used to have to drive through miles and miles of orange groves just to get to my Grandpa's. In the 90's more and more people were selling off their land and houses were being built in the hills. Right before my Grandpa died he tried to be the farmer to sell but the economy took a dump and the land has been sitting there. Each time we go up there it's different. Dirt roads are gone, gates have been moved, houses built, bridges going over the creek, etc. The last time I was up there was when Natalie was pregnant with Adri and it's changed a lot. It took me a while just to figure out how to get to my Grandpa's land from where I parked.

 

Anyways the first hike we took up there we didn't get very far. The kids wanted to shoot so I took them up a trail above my Grandpa's dried out reservoir. After ten minutes of shooting we stopped thinking someone is going to call the police, even though there is nothing illegal about shooting there. Sure enough as we came down the hill we saw a police car sitting at the road with both doors open like they're hiding behind it looking for someone.

 

Like I said there's nothing illegal about what we were doing. In CA you only have to be 150 feet from a building outside of city limits to shoot. My Grandpa's property meets the requirement and going up the trails we were pretty far from everything and in a safe location. But I didn't feel like seeing if we were going to deal with a cop on a power trip or one that doesn't know the law. So once we got to the bottom of the hill we cut back the other way, I put on a sweater, everyone else took theirs off, and we stuck back to our cars a different way. I spent a lot of time up there as a kid and I know my way around, at least on my Grandpa's property.

 

So the next week I decided we were going to give the hike another try. I wanted to see how far I could make it up the hill. So I decided to wait until after the rain that was forecasted. The snow level was predicted to drop down to 2000 feet and many were doubtful it would happen. When I woke up that morning I walked out to my Dad's backyard and noticed the hills in Corona and south of Riverside had been blasted with snow. So much for all that Global Warming they keep trying to sell us. I had never seen anything like this in my life. It was very cold and windy in Riverside so I was just hoping the wind wouldn't be as bad in Corona because there's no way we would have made it in the wind.  As I was driving out to Corona that morning cars were passing me with 4-5 inches of snow on top of them. I got on the 15 fwy and snow was flying off cars and into my windshield.

 

We got up to my Grandpa's and the wind was light. We decided we could make the hike. Looking at the hills you wouldn't think they are that high. They go up in layers. One peak after another. You think it only goes a couple hundred vertical feet but it goes over 2000. So we had no idea how high we would be hiking. Turns out we ended up going probably 6-8 times as far as we had the hike before. By the time we reached 1300 feet there was already ice. At 2000 feet there was snow. We made it all the way up to 3160 feet that morning. When we got to the peak at probably around 9 that morning it was still below freezing and the winds were high. The wind probably had the wind chill down to about 5 degrees. So we managed to take a couple quick pictures then we had to run down the mountain. We only had to go about 200-300 yards to get out of the wind but it took a good 10-15 minutes to recover from the cold. I went up to the real mountains later that week and I didn't even experience cold like that.

 

The funny points of the trip come from actions from my two nephews. First knuckle head #1 was wearing my new gloves. He found fur from a dead animal and decided to pick it up and play with it. I'm already making fun of knuckle head #1 when knuckle head #2 starts poking what he thought was snow in a bush. At this point we were still 600-700 feet below the snow line. It wasn't snow, it was used toilet paper. Kids.....

 



 

View of part of my Grandpa's land. This is where some of his navel oranges, to the left avocado hill, and the back is Hagador Canyon.

This road rides the property line.

Used to drive down through this creek to get onto my Grandpa's. One side of the creek is his property the other is Skyline road.

I'm standing there at the bottom of what was my Grandpa's reservoir. He always claimed it was 100 feet deep. I don't know what it was when they created it but know its about 40-45 feet deep and close to half a mile around.

Melvin and the kids in the reservoir.

View from the reservoir. We used to camp up here and we could see nothing but orange groves for miles and city lights in the distance.

The old spillway. The concrete used to be two feet high on both sides with a concrete slab running across. Now it's all filled in with dirt.

The city from above the spillway.

Avocado hill.

Showing the kids how it's done.

Hagador Canyon. This is where we used to go hiking looking for Newts. We almost always got poison oak.

I was up on avocado hill trying to see if the cops were still there.



Back by the cars on foothill. 99.99% of people walk by this and don't have a clue what it is. This post was part of the old county gate. The county gate was a huge gate 1/4 mile south of my Grandpa's gate on Skyline. They moved the gate up to the road above the houses and left this post.

 

The snow hike. This is what it looked like behind my Dad's house.

 Driving down the 15 towards Corona.

The start of our hike. Look at that snow in Southern California.

I wasn't impressed with the snowpack on the south side of Baldy. They got a little but not much. At the left side of the picture you can see Prado Dam.

Looking towards Riverside/San Bernaghetto.

Kids don't use common sense. It's all about fun with them. So I told them go ahead and play but if you get snow on me we'll be driving home without the heat on. We got to drive home with the heat on.

At 3,160 feet. It was so cold up there. To the left of the kids there is a big tower with a round top. Some type of radar dome? If it wasn't so hazy might have been able to see the Pacific from there.

If it had been warmer I would have kept going.

Behind this hill to the left are the hills around Lake Matthews. They had snow for a couple days after this storm.

Lake Matthews in the background.

I think still about 2,220 feet up. All that green grass used to be my Grandpa's orange groves.

This trail was very steep. I think it was something like 20% incline average. Obviously much steeper here.

Prado Dam.

From Skyline drive. This picture shows what I was explaining at the beginning of the post. The hill to the right doesn't look so big. But once you get further back it's as high or higher than the one on the right.