The old Gold Mine Creek Road, Part 1

Let's see if I can follow this old road that branches off the Canyon Trail and heads down to lower Gold Mine Creek in the Montebello Open Space Preserve that can be seen on the USGS hill shade map.

Last year, I didn't have my hill shade maps properly calibrated. This is the sort of old road that requires an accurate map as there are long stretches of road that are invisible on the ground.

I've ridden by this part of the Canyon Trail countless times and I've never noticed there's a road here. But once you know where to look, it's there. This is located just down from mile post 2.5. I'm not sure why this road was built. With the large grassy meadows, this area might have been used for cattle grazing and this road was used to access the lower portion of this area. There are other such meadows uphill from the Canyon Trail, although one of them appears to have traces of terracing on the hill shade map. Will need to check that out some time.

This may also be a good way to access Stevens Creek to see what this part of the canyon looks like. From Google Maps and the hill shade map it appears to be quite spectacular but also incredibly hard to access. This section of the canyon was ground zero for the 1838 San Andreas earthquake. That quake likely triggered some slides and earth movement that caused the creek to have to cut a very chaotic canyon here. I suspect it's this very rugged terrain that precluded extending the old Canyon Road up the main branch of Stevens Creek.

USGS National Map Viewer w/ Hill Shade:
https://apps.nationalmap.gov/viewer/

About the USGS HTMC:
https://www.usgs.gov/programs/national-geospatial-program/historical-topographic-maps-preserving-past

View/download maps on the TopoView site:
https://ngmdb.usgs.gov/topoview/

Montebello Open Space history page:
https://www.openspace.org/preserves/monte-bello#history

Some interesting links on native land use practices, which this large meadow may have been an example:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/features/working-with-tribes-oak-groves-meadows
https://oaks.cnr.berkeley.edu/the-ethnobiology-of-californias-oak-woodlands/
https://directives.sc.egov.usda.gov/OpenNonWebContent.aspx?content=25907.wba
https://pubs.usgs.gov/dds/dds-43/VOL_II/VII_C09.PDF
https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/downloads/sn00b2449
More to come...
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