Calabasas Creek

I was thinking of the rain in Eliot’s water-soaked Georgia golf course shot. Los Angeles normally has 15″ of rain a year. Not a lot. This year ending on June 30th, we got 5″ total. It’s dry and we are and have been in a drought for several years. I thought it would be interesting to see the opposite of a rainy landscape. This lead me to look for the origins and headwaters of the Los Angeles River. I knew it started in Canoga Park (elevation = 772′), a few miles from where I live. This is the confluence of Bell and Calabasas Creeks forming the Los Angeles River, now lined with concrete the entire 48 mile path to Long Beach (elevation = 0′). Up in the mountains at the back of my shot, water is channeled in very small concrete drains feeding into Bell Creek. By the time this gravity-fed channel reaches the Pacific Ocean, the controlled river channel is quite deep and very wide to handle the runoff volume. On the rare occasion when it rains, the river channel fills up quickly and the water moves extremely fast. Bell Creek on the right drains from the Simi Hills and Arroyo Calabasas Creek drains on the left from the Santa Monica Mountains. This is very close to the intersection of Vanowen and Owensmouth Avenues in Canoga Park.