The Schabarum Trail, previously known as the Skyline Trail, extends along the ridge of the Puente Hills. These pictures are from a walk in February 2009 from the western end at Rio Hondo College's Police Academy approximately 1.5 miles to the top of Nike Hill. This provided grand views of the Los Angeles basin in every direction.
The banner image above is a wide-angle view of the San Gabriel Mountains taken from Nike Hill. At the far left, the range in the foreground (without snow) leads up to Mt. Wilson, just outside of the picture. Left of center and heavily snow-clad is Mt. Baden-Powell. In the middle of the right-hand half of the image is Mt. Baldy, the highest peak in the San Gabriels. The four smaller peaks at the far right are, from right to left, Cucamonga Peak, Ontario Peak, Telegraph Peak, and Thunder Peak.
As shown in the pictures, the walk goes by a land-fill area, where there is a small power station that is the the largest Gas-to-Energy plant in the U.S., generating 46.5 Megawatts of electricity. It is powered by the gases coming from decomposing organic matter within the land fill. Typically these gases are 50% methane.
Nike Hill is the site of a missile battery that was operational during the cold war of the 1960s.
Click on the thumbnails to see higher-resolution images.
[Note: Thumbnails arranged vertically as your browser does not support the “flexbox” feature.]
Thanks to Jane Strong for assistance in identificaiton of plants and flowers.