Electing and hiring people based on identity rather than job qualifications turns out to have been a bad decision.
DEI is nothing more than the new name for affirmative action, something California voters have rejected via Proposition 209 (from 1996) and Proposition 16 (from the year 2000).
Yet, job discrimination is still pervasive and it played a role in Los Angeles' devastating wildfires such as the Eaton and Palisades Fires. It resulted in not enough equipment being available and pre-positioned. And, it resulted in a reservoir that holds over 100 million gallons of water being empty (that's enough to keep one firetruck operating non-stop for about 35 days). Those wouldn't have stopped the fires from starting, but if competent leaders had been in charge they might have kept the fires from doing as much damage as they did. (And, to be clear, Rick Caruso is just as horrid as Karen Bass and even more corrupt).
The good news is that, of course, nature is resilient. I recently toured some of the burn areas and while the hillsides and trees are charred, there's a great deal of new growth.
This was on the "Caballero Canyon Outer Loop" (link). I took it clockwise from the trailhead off Reseda Blvd and it starts up a fairly steep slope. I beat a couple of other parties up said slope and when it topped out I continued west on dirt Mulholland a bit and explored a few of the spur trails. The other side of the loop goes through a rocky bottom area that showed signs of the previous day's rains. That area would probably be interesting to see during a rain storm.
The hike isn't steep enough or long enough to drive out of my way to use it as a conditioning hike, but if you're in the area already it's a good option.
For hikers, doing the loop clockwise is probably best, but if I were biking it I'd go up and down the bottom area. However, since most of the bikers in the area are on ebikes, that doesn't really matter much. Given how quickly ebikes can sneak up on you, I'm not sure they should even be allowed on this trail or ones like it. There was even a guy wearing a suit on an ebike. Maybe he'd just gotten off work, or maybe he'd just gotten out of a garden party. Wearing a suit while hiking or biking seems like something I'd do as a stunt, but I'm sure he was serious. In any case, if you're on a real bike, the steep area might be too much to go up or down. Parking was on the street, but I'd imagine it's almost never difficult to find a spot.
On the Mulholland part of the trip, I didn't go as far as the San Vicente Nike Base because I thought it was closed, but I later saw someone biking to it so perhaps it's open. You can see that in the tenth photo. I wasn't able to find out if the parking area at the eastern entrance to dirt Mulholland is open. In the nineteenth photo there are marks from a bulldozer on an overlook over Sullivan Canyon. The preceding image shows a mix of charred and unaffected dirt. I saw a few bikers on Sullivan Canyon but I don't know how open that is.
And, yes, I realize the macro images need work (perhaps a tripod, or perhaps a real camera).
I also went to Gizmo "Peak", which isn't even a bump on a ridge. It's just a nondescript flat area, but it's a named "peak" and I bagged it.
