Story and Photos by Katherine Gould
This article appeared in the Jan. 21, 2005, edition of the Crescenta Valley Sun.
The park rangers were ready to check for damage on fire roads when the call came in that a mountain lion had been sighted at a school. After a day of paperwork, interpretive programs and other administrative duties that fill the rangers’ often quiet days, the mountain lion call was a heart-pounding jolt. And it wasn’t the last time in what would become a very long day that the rangers’ hearts would be set pounding by a sudden turn of events.
Rushing down the freeway toward Glendale Adventist School in a Jeep Wrangler outfitted with four-wheel drive equipment and police lights and sirens, Park Ranger Supervisor Russ Hauck explains, “The typical ranger operations include law enforcement, resource management, public relations and interpretation. We’ve got a lot of balls in the air.”
Most mountain lion sightings turn out to be bobcats, much smaller and less dangerous animals, even in populated areas. Hauck carries with him pictures of both felines to help people identify the cat in question. This one is a bobcat. Hauck educates the school officials on the difference between the two animals, but assures them that calling for help was the best, safest option.
That adventure completed, Hauck and Ranger Linh Dinh head to the fire roads that provide access to the Verdugo Mountains for hikers, bikers, crews servicing radio antennas, rescue crews, and in case of brush fires, firefighters.
Dinh, driving a four-wheel drive truck, leads the way up the La Tuna Canyon Motorway toward the Glendale roads that fall under the rangers’ jurisdiction.
Hauck follows behind in the Jeep. He has asked Dinh to go first, because, “I was driving up here once and a mountain biker hit me, so I’m a little gun-shy.” Color
Hauck and Dinh have no idea how far they’ll get before a landslide or washout forces them to turn back. “We’re just hoping this is our best chance for getting in,” Hauck says.
They have brought along picks and shovels and pry bars and a sledgehammer to move rocks and dirt if it looks like they can make a slide passable.
“We just make sure they’re passable by ranger vehicles,” Hauck says. The department is expecting delivery of some all-terrain vehicles, which will make more roads passable for the rangers, who are called upon to assist in rescues of injured or lost hikers or bikers about 20 times a year.
For the first few miles, the road is remarkably clear, with only small ruts where water has run off across the road. They travel quickly until Dinh gets a flat tire, one of the hazards of driving rutted, rocky roads, even with heavy-duty tires.
Getting out to change the tire, they laugh that recently, another ranger had blown out not one but two tires. The vehicles only carry one spare.
Another hazard of checking the roads is the possibility of getting stuck, which is why Hauck and Dinh have brought two vehicles. Both vehicles have winches on the front so either can help pull the other out. It’s a plan that will turn out to be insufficient, but they couldn’t know that yet.
Heading up to an area called “the Bench,” a flat area that houses several radio towers, only two small slides give the rangers pause. But after cutting a few branches off a fallen tree and moving some rocks, the rangers drive across at a dramatic angle, but without trouble.
Hauck calls a police helicopter he sees flying over and asks where the worst slides are. The pilot reports two slides on the Brand Park Motorway that appear impassable, so Hauck and Dinh head for that road.
The rangers don’t get far before an impressive landslide of rocks and dirt, with a yucca plant standing on top, stops them.
“I think if we move a few of those rocks we can make it,” Dinh says.
“You think so?” Hauck replies.
“Yeah, if you get one tire up on the berm there, you can get through fine,” Dinh says with a lighthearted confidence.
They do make it across that landslide, but just a few hundred yards farther is a much larger slide. This one has completely covered the road for probably 30 feet. At the base of this hill of rock and dirt are two stones the size of file cabinets.
“We do need to get through here,” Hauck says. “We get calls from hikers for rescues and things.”
Hauck and Dinh decide to move the big rocks, which should leave them enough space to get through. They go to work with picks and pry bars and a sledgehammer, busting apart the pieces they can, digging around the rocks to get to a place where they can hook the winch line around the stones to drag them out of the way. 
They smooth dirt from here and move a rock there until they’ve got a space large enough, they think, to get through.
It’s taken half an hour to clear the way, but the rangers have turned an impassable road into a passable one.
Hauck drives through first, with Dinh in front directing him, turn your wheels right, straighten out. Hauck eases the Jeep across the bumps and holes. It slips a little, but catches in the damp dirt and he rumbles across to the flat space on the other side. Then Hauck directs Dinh across the slide.
With their late start, a flat tire and stops to rearrange the landscape, the rangers have gone just over seven miles in two hours. A half-mile farther on, Hauck sees an even bigger landslide. “That’s it,” he says, throwing up his hands. “We’re done.”
Hauck and Dinh turn their vehicles around and Dinh starts slowly back across the big landslide. The wheels of the truck catch, then roll across a bump, then catch again. Then the back end of the truck slips toward the edge, just inches from a 100-foot drop-off. Dinh revs the truck forward a few more inches, but the rear end of the truck slides sideways, off the side of the road.
“Get out! Get out of the truck!” Hauck yells from inside the Jeep as the truck slides, slowly, then stops with its right rear wheel hanging several feet off the side of the road.
Hauck rushes forward to help Dinh out of the vehicle. Both are pale.
“My heart was in my throat there. I was fine until here,” Dinh says, gesturing to the spot before the truck started slipping, “and then the back end just slid.”
Forward is the only way out of this road, and with the Jeep behind, they can’t get out without help. Hauck calls for another ranger.
About half an hour later, after sunset, Ranger Tony Navarro arrives in the dark. They hook the winch on Dinh’s truck to the tow bar on Navarro’s truck and pull it taut. Navarro sits in the cab of his truck, pushing the brake pedal. The winch pulls and strains -- and Navarro’s truck begins to slide forward toward the edge. Navarro turns the wheels to stop the slide, and finally Dinh’s truck eases forward, slowly pulling off the slide and onto flat and solid ground.
The rangers spend a lot of time moving dirt and rocks before they try to get the Jeep across. Finally, an hour and a half after the truck slipped, the group is finally on its way back down the hill.
“I am exhausted,” Hauck says driving back down the hill. “Mentally and physically. Just exhausted.”
But more roads and trails need to be checked, so tomorrow, they will do it all again.