Angeles Crest Highway

With extreme heat and wind and low humidity forecast for next week, firefighters stepped up their final attack Saturday on the Station fire, calling in four helicopters to douse hot spots near Mt. Wilson with water and fire retardant. Fire officials feel a sense of urgency to extinguish still-smoldering areas and reduce the risk of embers igniting brush during the hot days ahead. Of particular concern were hot spots in rugged, inaccessible terrain on the north face of Mt. Wilson, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Brian Grant.

In a standoff with federal forest officials, Caltrans is proposing to abandon a popular, cliff-hanging highway in the San Gabriel Mountains because it is too expensive to maintain. The proposal to walk away from California Highway 39, enjoyed by an estimated 3 million people a year, comes as the state struggles to close a $9.2-billion budget shortfall. To avoid closure, the California Department of Transportation is trying to persuade the U.S. Forest Service or Los Angeles County to take over the roadway, which runs 27 miles from the city of Azusa nearly to the crest of the San Gabriels.

A section of California Highway 2 between La Cañada Flintridge and Angeles Forest Highway will reopen Friday, according to California Department of Transportation spokesman Patrick Chandler. Angeles Crest Highway has been closed since Jan. 17, 2010, when heavy rain fell in the Station fire burn area and washed away three major sections of pavement through the Angeles National Forest. Caltrans had planned to reopen the road in December 2010, Chandler said, but record rainfall that month and in January 2011 brought down so much debris and water that the runoff overwhelmed a culvert and washed out a slope, necessitating further repairs and delays.

A car plunged off Angeles Crest Highway on Saturday afternoon, killing an occupant in what was at least the fourth fatal solo-vehicle crash since the highway reopened, the California Highway Patrol reported. A stretch of the steep, winding route through the San Gabriel Mountains was closed from January 2010 to June of this year for repair of road damage caused by heavy rain that washed debris from slopes denuded by the Station fire. Three fatal accidents — one involving a motorcycle and the other two solo car crashes — occurred on the highway during the first three weeks after it reopened, and CHP officers blamed all three deaths on excessive speed.

Firefighters worked today to rescue people from 90 vehicles stuck in the mud along a 12-mile stretch of Angeles Crest Highway as the National Weather Service issued a flash-flood warning for the Station fire burn area in the San Gabriel Mountains. Local law enforcement officials reported flash flooding with mud and debris flow on Angeles Crest Highway about eight miles north of the 210 Freeway. At 3:15 p.m., firefighters responded to reports of scattered vehicles caught in mud flows between mile markers 27 and 39 on the highway, said Capt.

With a small day pack strapped to his back, Scott Groves set out from his home in Pasadena to the foot of the Mt. Wilson Trail in Sierra Madre. He climbed seven miles to the top of the mountain and then proceeded down Mt. Wilson Road before happening upon the closed portion of Angeles Crest Highway. "It wasn't even on my radar that this was closed," Groves said as he stopped to fill his water pouch near the intersection of Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest highways. "I had read that it was clear to come up from the Palmdale side, so I figured everything here was cool."

After weaving through rocks tumbling from the barren hillsides along the scenic Angeles Crest Highway, Danny Macias was physically shaken. "I'm terrified," he said Monday. "I wouldn't go up there. There's rock slides everywhere." Macias, an equipment operator for Caltrans, was among commuters using four roads reopened Monday after being closed since September because of a wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains. But parts of Angeles Crest Highway were covered with rocks loosened by high winds, prompting officials to shut it down Monday for a few hours.

A car plunged off Angeles Crest Highway on Saturday afternoon, killing an occupant in what was at least the fourth fatal solo-vehicle crash since the highway reopened, the California Highway Patrol reported. A stretch of the steep, winding route through the San Gabriel Mountains was closed from January 2010 to June of this year for repair of road damage caused by heavy rain that washed debris from slopes denuded by the Station fire. Three fatal accidents — one involving a motorcycle and the other two solo car crashes — occurred on the highway during the first three weeks after it reopened, and CHP officers blamed all three deaths on excessive speed.

An 8-mile stretch of Angeles Crest Highway from La Canada Flintridge to Angeles Forest Highway will be closed until further notice because of avalanches, Caltrans officials said Thursday. Using aerial surveillance to assess conditions of the mountain pass, state Department of Transportation maintenance supervisors spotted three or four avalanches Thursday that were larger than one Wednesday, which they estimated at 20 feet deep and spread 100 to 200 feet across the roadway.

One woman was killed and two people seriously injured Sunday in a collision on Angeles Crest Highway, creating more congestion in an area snarled by hundreds of motorists headed to and from the San Gabriel Mountains, authorities said. The two-car accident occurred about 3 p.m. near the highway's intersection with Mt. Wilson-Red Box Road, northeast of La Canada Flintridge, California Highway Patrol Officer Bob Smart said.

The truck driver involved in a fatal 2009 collision on Angeles Crest Highway was convicted Friday of two counts of vehicular manslaughter, but the jury found him not guilty of more serious second-degree murder charges. Marcos Costa, 46, also was convicted of three counts of reckless driving causing an injury. Costa's big rig lost its brakes as he traveled downhill on Angeles Crest Highway. The runaway car-hauler sped through the intersection at Foothill Boulevard in La Cañada Flintridge and slammed into a vehicle carrying Palmdale residents Angel Posca, 58, and his 12-year-old daughter Angelina, killing them.

When fire, rain and mud closed this winding stretch of asphalt through the Angeles National Forest, bicyclist Kerin Huber said she lost more than just a favorite bike route. "It's been so long, it's like not seeing a friend," said Huber, who, along with hundreds of other cyclists, motorists and nature lovers, spent part of the day Saturday reacquainting herself with a beloved stretch of Angeles Crest Highway. The heavily trafficked, scenic route had been closed for a year and a half after portions of the roadway were washed away in the aftermath of the 2009 Station fire.

A section of California Highway 2 between La Cañada Flintridge and Angeles Forest Highway will reopen Friday, according to California Department of Transportation spokesman Patrick Chandler. Angeles Crest Highway has been closed since Jan. 17, 2010, when heavy rain fell in the Station fire burn area and washed away three major sections of pavement through the Angeles National Forest. Caltrans had planned to reopen the road in December 2010, Chandler said, but record rainfall that month and in January 2011 brought down so much debris and water that the runoff overwhelmed a culvert and washed out a slope, necessitating further repairs and delays.

Gustavo Ortega had expected problems, but nothing like this. The overnight storm, a typical February torrent, had rolled through La Cañada Flintridge, and Angeles Crest Highway stood right in its path. The next day, Ortega surveyed the damage. Less than a mile out, with the rooftops of the city still visible in his rearview mirror, he stopped. The road ahead had nearly disappeared, 24 feet of asphalt reduced to a sliver barely the width of his Expedition. Somewhere in the canyon below lay the rest of the pavement.

With a small day pack strapped to his back, Scott Groves set out from his home in Pasadena to the foot of the Mt. Wilson Trail in Sierra Madre. He climbed seven miles to the top of the mountain and then proceeded down Mt. Wilson Road before happening upon the closed portion of Angeles Crest Highway. "It wasn't even on my radar that this was closed," Groves said as he stopped to fill his water pouch near the intersection of Angeles Crest and Angeles Forest highways. "I had read that it was clear to come up from the Palmdale side, so I figured everything here was cool."

Officials for the Amgen Tour of California said that because of bad road conditions caused by fire, rain and snow, it will not be possible to use the Angeles Crest Highway (California 2) as part of the bicycle race's Stage 6 route next month. Said tour director Andrew Messick : "We have been forced to change the route for Stage 6" at the request of Caltrans. "We are working to secure a new stage start." He said the stage will still finish at Big Bear Lake and will include an uphill portion in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains.

A task force representing two dozen agencies and elected officials will begin meeting later this month in hope of reducing the number of deaths and injuries on Angeles Crest Highway. Accidents on the two-lane road--which is popular with recreation enthusiasts and motorcyclists on the weekends and Antelope Valley commuters on weekdays--have claimed 23 lives and resulted in 282 injuries between Jan. 1, 1995, and Dec. 31, 1998, according to the California Highway Patrol.

A state appeals court panel Tuesday ordered two murder charges reinstated against a trucker whose out-of-control big rig killed a Palmdale man and his 12-year-old daughter last year in La Cañada Flintridge. The three-justice panel from the 2nd District Court of Appeal overturned L.A. County Superior Court Judge Lisa Lench's ruling dismissing second-degree murder counts against Marcos Barbosa Costa. The panel found that Lench erred in her decision to grant a motion by Costa's attorney to dismiss the charges.

A flash flood warning in the San Gabriel Mountain foothills damaged by the Station fire has been lifted and a second band of rain cells passed through the burn area without triggering more of the mudslides that damaged or destroyed 43 homes in La Cañada Flintridge, closed several roads in the Santa Monica Mountains and washed out portions of Angeles Crest Highway and Ortega Highway near Idyllwild. But with debris basins along the San Gabriel Mountains near capacity or overflowing, any additional rain or thunder storms will carry the threat of more damaging debris flows.