Los Angeles River

Nobody walks in L.A.? Ridiculous! This is one in a series of articles exploring the many opportunities for walking in (and around) a city of 3.8 million. ARROYO WALK Distance: 3 to 7 miles Duration: 1 to 2.5 hours Difficulty: 1 Transportation: Free parking; Metro bus: Nos. 176, 177 This is a lovely country-in-the-city walk, flat and undemanding, offering rare views of the untamed river - less than five minutes from Old Town Pasadena. The 22-mile-long Arroyo Seco, a river-bed canyon that begins in the San Gabriel Mountains and runs into the Los Angeles River, was a lot of things before it became home to the world's first freeway and a concrete ditch with water in it. Today it's a great hiking opportunity.

A no-flowin' Owens Re " Choking the Lower Owens ," July 25 I beg to differ with the negative assessment of the Owens River restoration project. I agree with lead scientist Mark Hill, who pointed out the success of the creation of 3,000 acres of water and wetlands. With 108 identified species of birds visiting the area and the multitude of fish being supported by the life generated by the water, I think the project has been extremely successful. I will survey my science students when they return to class, and I am sure they will concur.

Concerned about high winds, Stephen Boswell, 59, grabbed a sandbag and lugged it over to the edge of his tent near the Anaheim Street Bridge in Long Beach, where he has been living for two years. "My weight should keep the rest down," Boswell said. "Hopefully I won't get blown away. " Like many of the 48,000 homeless people across Los Angeles County, Boswell is bracing for what is shaping up to be a cold, wet winter. Many living near the bridge and along the Los Angeles River have begun doubling up on blankets and jackets, occasionally starting small fires to keep warm.

A homeless encampment along the Los Angeles River near Imperial Highway was broken up Monday, forcing about 20 people to move from the area. Officials from South Gate and Lynwood, which share authority over the site with other public and private entities, said the camp had become a health and safety concern, with residents defecating in bushes and lighting fires to keep warm. "This is such an unsanitary situation," said David Torres, field operations manager for the South Gate Department of Public Works.

Ronald P. Schafer, who as superintendent of the California state parks' Angeles District pushed to develop urban parks in the core of Los Angeles, has died. He was 53. Schafer had finished competing in a Malibu triathlon Sept. 12 and was eating with friends when he had a stroke. He died Wednesday at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, said his brother, Randy. In a statement, Ruth Coleman, director of California State Parks, said Schafer did everything in life with "tremendous passion" and left behind "a legacy of park protection.

Every time it rains, workers in Long Beach rush to the mouth of the Los Angeles River to scoop up the floating islands of plastic bottles, grocery bags and other debris before it's all swept onto local beaches or pulled out to sea. Now, a deceptively simple solution is underway to fight the ongoing problem of river trash by intercepting it before it's washed into the river in the first place. Over the next year, 16 cities in southeastern Los Angeles County are installing screens beneath nearly every storm drain that flows into the lower Los Angeles River.

Seriously? You still don't know there's a river in L.A.? That there wouldn't even be a Los Angeles without the Los Angeles River? You haven't been paying attention. And you especially haven't been paying attention to the writer and poet Lewis MacAdams, or to FoLAR, Friends of the Los Angeles River, which he co-founded nearly 25 years ago when the river was pretty much a joke, a nullity, a 50-mile-long paved toilet of a drainage ditch. Decades ago, Los Angeles, just about the chintziest big city in the country when it comes to parks, sold out what could have been an "emerald necklace" of the river and its byways.

Environmental activist George Wolfe has always believed the best way to know a river is to kayak it. So when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently designated the entire Los Angeles River a "traditional navigable waterway," he organized an expedition. Toting a waterproof first-aid kit and a sack of binoculars, Wolfe led seven people clad in T-shirts, shorts, sun hats and life vests to a lush, eight-mile stretch of river bottom near Griffith Park known as the Glendale Narrows.