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Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 8:33 pm
by HikeUp
I've not heard of any stories of haunted places in the San Gabriel's but i assume there are plenty of them. Let's hear your story regarding haunted places, ghosts, Sasquatch, Chupacabra, monsters, UFO's, aliens, etc. in the San Gabs.

We've all seen the pictures of Godzilla on Mt. Wilson, so no need to go into that one!

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 11:00 am
by Mike P
HikeUp wrote:We've all seen the pictures of Godzilla on Mt. Wilson, so no need to go into that one!
Aw shucks, HikeUp, you took all the fun out of it :)

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 11:51 am
by Taco
There were some Bigfoot reports. One can read one of them by looking at one of the dams on Google Earth, and a little "i" will pop up, which has info in it.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 2:10 pm
by cougarmagic
Rubio Canyon has a spooky past. Reportedly haunted by the ghost of five year old Thayer Drew and his dog...wooooooo

http://mraltadena.com/mount_lowe_rr/ch17.html

"...until 1909 when a late winter electrical storm created a landslide that rolled a huge boulder down into Rubio Canyon crushing the Pavilion. Unfortunately, the Fred Drew Family, the Pavilion caretakers, had come up from their Pasadena winter home a little too early and were trapped under the rubble of the Pavilion.

Daughters Helen and Dorothy had escaped injury and were able to get the incline car up to Echo where they called for help. Rescuers from Echo and Pasadena found Mr. Drew pinned under some timbers and nearly drowning under the rising water. Three year old George Drew was found suffering from a concussion and a broken hip. Mrs. Drew was found twelve hours later dangling by her skirt from a pipe unconscious and unnoticed. Thayer Drew, their five-year-old boy, was not found until next morning. He had attempted to rescue his dog and cat, and that's where they found his body, buried in the wreckage with the two animals in his arms."

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 9:45 pm
by Zach
I thought i remember reading something about bichota canyon being used as grounds for ceremonial witchcraft-type stuff. Didn't they start a forest fire with their candles?

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sat Feb 14, 2009 10:23 pm
by Taco
Zach wrote:I thought i remember reading something about bichota canyon being used as grounds for ceremonial witchcraft-type stuff. Didn't they start a forest fire with their candles?
I think so. It's a pretty boring place. I was going to mention it. I used to hike through there when I was into survival stuff, as the area lent itself well to that kinda stuff. Just a bunch of chimneys and foundations now.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 11:53 am
by Mike P
YES!! There is definitely a strange creature that inhabits our mountains. We have only heard this animal and never actually seen it. It is certainly malodorous! Locals call them 'barking spiders'. It seems that they tend to haunt (or harass) groups of hikers.

Has anyone else run across these animals? I have smelled evidence of them in different mountain ranges in California.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 12:15 pm
by HikeUp
Mike P wrote:YES!! There is definitely a strange creature that inhabits our mountains. We have only heard this animal and never actually seen it. It is certainly malodorous! Locals call them 'barking spiders'. It seems that they tend to haunt (or harass) groups of hikers.

Has anyone else run across these animals? I have smelled evidence of them in different mountain ranges in California.
FIGHT ON? :lol:

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 12:48 pm
by Mike P
OMG, No!! :shock:

I can see where the post is FO-esque, though. Now that is scary!

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Feb 15, 2009 9:09 pm
by Ze Hiker
I don't know about the San Gabriels, but I just watched this Dateline feature about "Escape from Brushy Mountain". absolutely insane. As I knew before, stay away from western Virginia/ West Virginia.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29187510/

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 8:50 am
by EnFuego
I don't know whether the San Gabriels are "haunted" but there are some good stories of the area.

I remember one my grandfather told me when I was a kid and I googled it and something actually came up.

This was the story of Suicide Bridge


"......According to the tales, a number of spirits are said to wander the bridge itself as well as the arroyo below. Others have heard unexplained cries coming from the canyon........"

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 5:59 pm
by Leslie L
Once while on the Backbone Trail near Pine Mtn I spotted something way down below to the west – looked like a tree but in the shape of a large man that stopped walking mid stride and had frozen in it's tracks. We watched it intently for a while, half expecting it would start walking, or flinch or sneeze, or something! But it didn’t. So we continued on our way, laughing at ourselves and our Big Foot sighting. For some reason we sometimes get spooked while hiking... some places just feel creepy... so we chalked it up to over-active imagination. But the thing is, the “tree” was gone when we looked for it on the way out. Seriously.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 7:52 pm
by Zach
i know this might seem a little off-topic but why are the rock pools right underneath the bridge to nowhere always filled with a blood-red liquid? Creepy.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Mon Feb 16, 2009 9:08 pm
by EnFuego
Zach - it's because the people who bungy jump sometimes don't bungy back up.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:28 am
by Taco
Nuggets that never got back up.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:10 pm
by AW~
Only place I know that is spooky...photographer names it the bat cave for the bats that hang out.
Image

Been there once and it is creepy with little light..certainly wont be back. As you can see, the ground is uneven, so walking in this place in the dark and maybe you step on a dead person?

As far as the Monrovia haunted hike, that is cancelled for 2009
http://www.mcphauntedhike.com/
"Monrovia Community Services Department decided recently to cancel the 2009 version of the wildly popular Halloween event that's been a fixture for 6 consecutive years. "

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:16 pm
by AW~
Zach wrote:i know this might seem a little off-topic but why are the rock pools right underneath the bridge to nowhere always filled with a blood-red liquid? Creepy.
I think the culprit might be some berries...see picture below on the upper left center.

Image

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:28 pm
by AlanK
AW wrote:
Zach wrote:i know this might seem a little off-topic but why are the rock pools right underneath the bridge to nowhere always filled with a blood-red liquid? Creepy.
I think the culprit might be some berries...see picture below on the upper left center.
I assume that you mean that some hapless folks ate some poisonous berries, died, and left behind pools of blood.

The one-way bungee jump explanation seems plausible too.

:twisted:

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 2:31 pm
by HikeUp
Looks like maybe it is an altar where virgins are sacrificed to the gods or some such nonsense. :twisted:

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 3:15 pm
by AW~
Oh, I thought this was a public forum so it was necessary to maintain plausible deniability...nice photoshop work eh? Have to keep it on the psst psst hush hush to not arouse the suspicions of the scooby doo wannabes. Its not one way jumpers though. See the dealio is some survey was sent up nearby Devils Gulch and never returned or reported back. A history was reviewed upon why Devils Gulch belongs to the devil. Lucklily there were some dusty documents recovered from the backroom of some library. In those documents was an account of a forage by miners to explore it....and a roar and rumbling of sorts was heard and that was that...they thought of it as the devils landslide. But whats weird is blood still drains out of the ridge, so it is necessary to plant berries there until the facts are known.

From the air, theres a cave-like pathway into the ridge, but its filled with heavy rocks. So something is amiss. Maybe whatever manner of beast is responsible only shows up every 3rd full moon or something. Whatever is the cause needs to be kept under wraps from the general public. We are keeping abrest of the situation at Morris dam(the bridge to nowhere area is only used for black helicopter landings) which shows trace amounts of human DNA but also animal DNA. And yes, the bridge to nowhere came close and ..lets put it this way, thanfully there was an epic flood or there would have to be additional cover for the accounts of those workers that were digging and heard....well its just unspeakable horror.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Wed Feb 18, 2009 12:02 pm
by Kit Fox
Sycamore Flats, Little Rock Canyon, and Big Rock Canyon are the areas of the Angeles National Forest where "Big Ben," a particularly tall sasquatch, was repeatedly seen by local residents, rangers, and campers in the early and mid 1970's. These canyons form part of the eastern flank (facing the great Mojave Desert) of the San Gabriel mountain range, which towers over Los Angeles on the western side.



Wednesday, November 21, 1973
Sycamore Flats sightings indicate Bigfoot's in Valley.
By Chuck Wheeler,
Lancaster, Ca. Daily Ledger Gazette

Sightings near Sycamore Flats camp ground a few days ago by a woman who momentarily saw a faint outline of a creature reassembling our most renowned Antelope Valley Bigfoot were accompanied by grunts and screeches much as is described in John Green's "The Sasquatch File." CBO members first heard about it, and they were the first to locate prints.

During the past few days something different developed. Along with Grumley and Smith and DLG photographer Jack Overlade, and myself, Chuck Wheeler DLG Staff Writer, journeyed to Sycamore Flats, extremely interested now but not any less skeptical.

While Grumley showed us this foot print, and that faded foot print, this pretty good print, and another that might have been a footprint. It was Overlade who found the only print I would say showed great definition and looked authentic. The prints, definitely were not made by a bear, and could not have been made by man because, it was a haphazard footprint, which appeared as if the owner of the foot was surprised and slipped. He slipped breaking the humus-type top of the of the ground and leaving a print of a hurried and harried person, perfectly carved out of the decaying top layer of ground.

That footprint that Overlade found was in a campground and other lighter prints lead from it, about forty five to fifty inches apart. The foot itself was possibly twice the normal man's foot in length and maybe twice the width. It is the second time I have seen so-called bigfoot prints. It looked like a real footprint of some huge animal but it was difficult to ascertain whether there was bone structure since the twigs in the other impressions defied further detection.

It was reported, by Grumley, that not far from the Valley, several teenagers had their frankfurters stolen by something that boldly came into their camp and scared "the living daylights" out of them. Their stories conflicted a little and they weren't sure of what they had seen, only that it was large, hairy and shaped like a man. They, like so many, added "But it definitely wasn't a bear.

The Overlade print convinced me in a different way. It looks like the animal slipped and crushed the humus-type layer into the ground. The depth of it was uneven, like a slip, for it was on a grade near a large bush, indicating stealth. The Overlade Print definitely was not made by someone out on a lark, for the anxiety surrounding the print, the slipping of it on the soft, twiggy ground and the ragged definition of it indicates that bigfoot is in the Valley, but as elusive as ever.


Additional Bigfoot references

http://www.bfro.net/GDB/show_article.asp?id=173

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2009 8:28 am
by eazup
AW wrote:Only place I know that is spooky...photographer names it the bat cave for the bats that hang out.
Image

"
where is this? looks amazing

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 3:34 pm
by AW~
eazup wrote:
AW wrote:Only place I know that is spooky...photographer names it the bat cave for the bats that hang out.


"
where is this? looks amazing
How much you willing to pony up for access? :wink: Thats the tunnel under the Big Tujunga canyon road at Ybarra creek. Photo is taken from private property(Ybarra ranch). Visting said place from general public side would involve short distance route with some overgrown vegetation travel. Standard warnings apply..creek levels, possible unsavory visitors, etc....flashlight highly recommended. I dont know about any bats..but if there is...and one of them turns into Drakula, dont blame me :roll:

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Mar 29, 2009 11:15 am
by outwhere
DamOTclese wrote:little more than dark shadow but still recognizable.
I don't like to drive fast but if i saw those shadows and heard some ghostly sounds... i'd reach Azuza in about 7 seconds flat!

One morning at Crystal Lake, we woke up to find a fairly good sized knife stuck in a tree, very very close to our picnic table.

Each one of us thought the other person put it there as a joke.... but that doesn't make sense, none of us are the 'stick and knife in a tree' type.

Seriously, we don't know how it got there, it wasn't there the night before... but we were sure glad it was Sunday and there wasn't gonna be another night at that place...

[maybe it was the same fool that was firing off some kind of automatic weapon that Saturday morning around 10am --- oh the 'adventures' of southern california car camping :lol: :lol: ]

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Mon Mar 30, 2009 8:45 am
by AlanK
DamOTclese wrote:
outwhere wrote:Each one of us thought the other person put it there as a joke.... but that doesn't make sense, none of us are the 'stick and knife in a tree' type.
Hey! You found O. J. Simpson's knife!
Maybe this will lead to the real killer. :?

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:03 am
by PackerGreg
The first time I visited Big Santa Anita Canyon I camped at Hoegees Campground. As I tried to go to sleep at night, I kept hearing distant conversations, yet somehow they seemed very close. When I moved on to Spruce Grove, I had the same sensation.

Later that year, when I was working at Adams' Pack Station, I mentioned it to some cabin owners and they said "Oh yeah, the creeks talk." So I brushed it off as some sort of trick on the brain, like Pareidolia. At some point after I heard an Art Bell show on Frank's Box, an electronic device that is said to allow transmission of the voices of ghosts by means of white noise. A caller mentioned that she used to hear voices when the steady rain hit her tin roof (more static noise).

I couldn't help but wonder if the hiss of the creeks allows the voices of spirits to come through. Then I got embarrassed for myself and forgot about it.

Then one day when The Canyon was nearly deserted, I stopped for a rest at the picnic table behind Glen Owens' cabin, which is across from the site of Fern Lodge, where the East Fork joins the creek proper. Water was flowing and I heard the same distant conversations, but this time I also heard the laughter of children and old-timey music.

I told Chris Kasten, manager of Sturtevant's Camp about the eerie feeling I had and my embarrassing curiosity about whether or not this could really be sounds from the other side. He said that until someone proves otherwise, he is willing to consider the idea because he too has had the same eerie feeling. Chris, far more than anyone else, hikes the Upper Falls trail, which passes a feature at the North Fork confluence that is known as "The Grotto" or "The Ivy House" adjacent an old cabin site. But Chris told me he calls the area "Laughing Waters" because he often hears the distinct sound of a little girl laughing.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Fri Sep 17, 2010 12:17 am
by PackerGreg
Steve Burns was a member of the defunct San Antonio Hiking Club which was started by Will Thrall, Alhambra resident and editor of Trails Magazine. Steve now owns exclusively the club's second cabin, located in Winter Creek; the first, on the Arroyo Seco tributary of Bear Creek, having burned down in the late 1950's. He is also a frequent visitor of Sturtevant's Camp.

This is a story, in Steve's own words, that he gave to me for the Adams' Pack Station website:

"This is a first person experience which occurred in March of 2004. Sometime in the previous year, Chris Kasten had set up sleeping quarters in the old storage room beneath the dining hall in the main lodge of Camp Sturtevant. It had become my lodging of choice when I would visit, and I thoroughly enjoy sleeping there to this day. If you are not familiar with the layout of the room and the dining hall, it is important to note that the row of tables along the east wall of the hall is directly above the small room below. The wooden floor is old and squeaky. I have occupied the room both when the camp was empty as well as when groups were in. Hearing people walk above was known to me; but this time it would be different.

I awoke Sunday morning around 6:00 and was dosing in and out when I heard the door of the dining hall open and foot steps walk straight through to the far wall, just above my head. They clicked-clacked much like a hard sole boot; stopped, turned and walked back towards the door. My first thought was that Kastens had awoken early, so I jumped up, pulled on my pants and hurried out the door. As I turned the corner towards the front of the hall I noticed that the curtains were drawn at the manager's house, a sure sign that the Kastens were still in bed. As I approached the door, I saw that it was locked from the outside. As I peered through the window, I was reminded that the tables were directly above the ceiling of my room, not allowing anyone to walk there. I then remembered: I had heard no squeaking associated with the footfalls.

When the Kastens awoke, I joined them for coffee and told them about my observations. Joan was taken aback and Chris told me that someone before me had heard footsteps as well. What spirit this might be I do not know. Could it be Bill Adams, who had said before his death, that if he could return to the canyon he would try make it up to Camp Sturtevant? Or is it the ghost of Wilbur Sturtevant himself?

One thing is certain; the camp is old, and holds secrets that we may never know."

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:13 pm
by HAIL TO THE 4 WINDS
does anyone know if there is any cult activity in the bridge to nowhere area and or crystal lake area?i been camping in the san gabriel mountains ever since i was little at follows camp and crystal lake area.i heard there are cult activities in the crystal lake area. i remember being a lil boy and hearing there is a place like alter type where they sacrafice people sum sort to the gods etcc. in the crystal lake area. i just hiked to the bridge to know where at night fall kinda creepy but facinating

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 5:39 pm
by PackerGreg
They find animal sacrifices (usually chickens), pentagrams w/ candles, etc throughout the range. I think it was the 1997 Narrows Fire that was started near the bridge by a ritual candle.

Re: Are the San Gabriel Mountains haunted?

Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2011 8:03 pm
by HAIL TO THE 4 WINDS
mmmmm that explains it yeahh the chicken sacraficed are due to santeria magick spells being cast by santeros (usualy alot of spanish speaking cubans)paying homage to oshun the river goddesand somtimes having rituals there right by the river. the pentegrams is what really attracts to me i read alot about wicca,dianic wicca and such forth. pretty intresting have you ever encountered any of this spell paraphenelia. one time me and my friends were gonna go up to crystal lake to camp on a friday night but one of the guys had to work so he wouldnt be off till the morning so we decided to wait for till saturday morning once we got there it was nice and a couple came out of nowhere and told us directly why didntyou guys came last night ,we were expecting you? didnt quite get it it was kinda odd but now thinking twice how would these couple know we were gonna be there friday night kinda creepy?