Wildcat Gulch
Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 7:30 pm
On Nov 11 1944, a US army C47 transport went down in Wildcat Gulch (one of the channels that drains the North face of Barley Flats). Like most of these, there's little information on the internet, and many mostly-unhelpful contemporary newspaper reports. Today (almost 75 years later!) I went up there to see if there's anything left to find.
My thinking was (and is) that the impact occurred in any one of the numerous small drainages in the upper area of Wildcat Gulch. So if I knew which channel was the right one, it'd make sense to go to Barley Flats and hike down. I don't have this info, though. So instead I started below at the mouth of Wildcat Gulch, at Upper Big Tujunga rd, and hiked up. The hope was that I'd find breadcrumbs to follow as I climbed up.
I got up late, took my sweet time in the morning, and started walking bright and early at 11. Big Tujunga is flowing nicely, and there're enough big boulders to make the crossing easy. I started a bit East of the main channel of Wildcat Gulch:
This channel was dry, although the main one was flowing nicely. The forested ridge in the background is the general area of Barley Flats. I didn't get nearly that high today. Initially the area is wide open and relatively flat. As you follow the drainage, it eventually steepens, and closes up. Relatively soon after leaving Big Tujunga I started seeing chunks of metal. The first one:
The breadcrumbs were filling in nicely:
Then the canyon started to narrow:
And I'd still see chunks of stuff periodically
The plane was flying to the SW, so the thought was that it impacted on a ridge on the West side of the Wildcat Gulch drainage. So I'd choose the West fork of any split I would come across. This seemed like a good strategy. Eventually I cam across a small, flat area below a number of steep converging drainages. This served as a catchment basin, and contained a large number of the biggest pieces I'd see today:
Above this point the channel splits multiple ways, each choice being very narrow, steep and brushy.
I followed a number of these, finding nothing. But that doesn't mean much: anything flowing downstream wouldn't settle in these steep areas. I felt satisfied-enough, and wasn't feeling like looking for needles in a haystack, so I turned back at this point. There are a few avenues for research to follow-up on, so I'll come back if there's any new info. On the return I found some chunks I missed on the way up:
Also, "Wildcat Gulch" appears to be an appropriate name. Didn't see any feline tracks, but there were lots of deer tracks and more-than-the-usual number of deer bones. This young buck may have gotten caught:
I followed the Wildcat Gulch drainage all the way back to Big Tujunga. Ran into this at the river:
I'm 99% sure this is a gate across an old road. The photo is looking across the road. The gate is open; it swings around the post at the bottom-right of the photo, and connects to the post on top of the photo. After years of neglect, the gate bar is now half-buried. I followed the roadbed across Big Tujunga, and up to the road. There're some metal bollards in the brush to make sure people don't try to drive this road. Interestingly, I can't find evidence of this road in the old aerial photos or the old usgs quads. Granted I didn't try very hard. If somebody else wants to find info, I wouldn't complain
My thinking was (and is) that the impact occurred in any one of the numerous small drainages in the upper area of Wildcat Gulch. So if I knew which channel was the right one, it'd make sense to go to Barley Flats and hike down. I don't have this info, though. So instead I started below at the mouth of Wildcat Gulch, at Upper Big Tujunga rd, and hiked up. The hope was that I'd find breadcrumbs to follow as I climbed up.
I got up late, took my sweet time in the morning, and started walking bright and early at 11. Big Tujunga is flowing nicely, and there're enough big boulders to make the crossing easy. I started a bit East of the main channel of Wildcat Gulch:
This channel was dry, although the main one was flowing nicely. The forested ridge in the background is the general area of Barley Flats. I didn't get nearly that high today. Initially the area is wide open and relatively flat. As you follow the drainage, it eventually steepens, and closes up. Relatively soon after leaving Big Tujunga I started seeing chunks of metal. The first one:
The breadcrumbs were filling in nicely:
Then the canyon started to narrow:
And I'd still see chunks of stuff periodically
The plane was flying to the SW, so the thought was that it impacted on a ridge on the West side of the Wildcat Gulch drainage. So I'd choose the West fork of any split I would come across. This seemed like a good strategy. Eventually I cam across a small, flat area below a number of steep converging drainages. This served as a catchment basin, and contained a large number of the biggest pieces I'd see today:
Above this point the channel splits multiple ways, each choice being very narrow, steep and brushy.
I followed a number of these, finding nothing. But that doesn't mean much: anything flowing downstream wouldn't settle in these steep areas. I felt satisfied-enough, and wasn't feeling like looking for needles in a haystack, so I turned back at this point. There are a few avenues for research to follow-up on, so I'll come back if there's any new info. On the return I found some chunks I missed on the way up:
Also, "Wildcat Gulch" appears to be an appropriate name. Didn't see any feline tracks, but there were lots of deer tracks and more-than-the-usual number of deer bones. This young buck may have gotten caught:
I followed the Wildcat Gulch drainage all the way back to Big Tujunga. Ran into this at the river:
I'm 99% sure this is a gate across an old road. The photo is looking across the road. The gate is open; it swings around the post at the bottom-right of the photo, and connects to the post on top of the photo. After years of neglect, the gate bar is now half-buried. I followed the roadbed across Big Tujunga, and up to the road. There're some metal bollards in the brush to make sure people don't try to drive this road. Interestingly, I can't find evidence of this road in the old aerial photos or the old usgs quads. Granted I didn't try very hard. If somebody else wants to find info, I wouldn't complain