Hiking with Jason

The day after christmas Jason and I went for a couple of hikes. First we went to Beales Cut, the old, very old pass from the San Fernando Valley to the Santa Clarita Valley. It was the very first pass from northern to southern California. I won't put in all the information about it, but here's a link to one of the historical web sites that tells something about it and has more pictures. This isn't completely accurate. For example the Newhall tunnel and Highway 14 was only three lanes till the late 60's. The middle lane was for passing, and there were a lot of head-on collisions because of that, but it's not bad. See http://www.e-adventure.net/land/treasure/bealescut.html.

Here's Jason standing at the top of the cut.

Next we went way up into the Sierra Pelona mountains, the range between Santa Clarita and Bakersfield, just before Frazer park and the Tehachapis to the Knapp Ranch. We wanted to take the old, famous Ridge Route from Castaic to the top, but there was a landslide 2 years ago and the route is temporarily closed, so we took I-5 to Quail Lake, just before Gorman and backtracked into the top of the route down to the cut off to the ranch. The ranch is literally in the middle of freaking nowhere, miles from the ridge route, which is miles from the 138, which is connects to the I-5 just before Gorman. The area was originally homesteaded in 1865 and is about 3 miles west of the old trail that the Spaniards took from Los Angeles to the San Joaquin or Central Valley up Bear Canyon. Sometime in the 1920's till 1964 the ranch was owned by a man named Kelly. Coincidentally there was also a roadside stop on the Ridge Route named Kelly's Inn, that, although it was WAY across the canyons from the ranch, you could see the ranch from the inn. There is speculation that the two Kellys were one and the same. In '64 Kelly was severely beaten by a group of poachers he caught on his ranch and he was either too sick or too scared to stay there, so he sold it to Frank Knapp. (By the way, for all my kids who remember staying at "Uncle Eddies Camp" on the Pacific Crest Trail, you will remember that we used to go to the top of Liebre Mountain to look at the lights of LA and Lancaster. If you were to go directly down the other side of the ridge where we stood you would end up at the ranch. If you go to Google Earth and type in Knapp Ranch, CA it will take you reasonably close to the location and you can zoom in to see the layout. The ranch is located about 45 degrees southeast from the marker about 3 miles away)

Frank had a long and interesting history, which I won't write here, but it involves working on the Saint Francis Dam with William Mulholland, doing search and recovery in Santa Clarita when the dam failed, searching for the Lost Padres Mine with King Gillette, heir to the Gillete razor empire, in Bear Canyon (the area near the Gillette Prospect is currently being actively worked by the Benz family - I went to school with Frank Benz at Hart Hi - Benco Mining Company, so there is something worth digging up there) and a lot of contracting work in the San Fernando Valley. Knapp street and the Knapp Ranch Park in Chatsworth are all by or named after him. Coincidentally, Brother Brian Ashton knew Frank through his father when he was very young and stayed at the ranch several times in the 70's. When Frank died in '82 the property passed to his brother and was eventually sold to Rosie Greer, the pro football palyer, who traded it to the Forest Service for some land near Elizabeth Lake.
This is the ranch from the lower pasture. There are actually three houses, the main house being the white one on the right. The ranch is fed by a spring that comes out of the canyon to the upper right of the houses. Jeremy and Eddie and I hiked up to the source once years ago.
This is Franks horse. It has to be about 30 years old. It is semi wild and its hooves are in need of some real care, but it has survived all this time.
We found this old Kenmore stove in one of the houses. The lid goes down over the burners and has a roasting guide printed on the inside of it.
This old Kenmore ringer washer is in the basement of the main house.
This shot is kind of washed out, but if you look close you'll see a funnel built into the door of the coop. Brain Ashton told me Frank had a captive bobcat in the cage on the left and the funnel was used to feed live squirrels and rats to the bobcat. Here is a link to someone's web who took more photos of the ranch if you're interested. http://bbs.keyhole.com/ubb/showthreaded.php/Number/231526. Go to Ranch Pictures and click on the top photo for their shots.