Waterfalls

The cleanup could have cost as much as $6 million and taken years to complete. But Mother Nature accomplished in three hours what six years of debate failed to do: A sudden deluge swept away 50,000 tons of boulders that had buried Rubio Canyon's six historic waterfalls -- which a century ago were one of Los Angeles' top tourist attractions. On Wednesday afternoon, the falls above Altadena were roaring again.

Only one paved road delves into the heart of Kings Canyon National Park, and it ends where the Kings River thunders along beneath mile-high, glacier-carved canyon walls. The scene is one of the Sierra's most awesome spectacles. Most visitors, though, never get this far. They drive California 180 to the park's western border and, after just three miles, stop at Grant Grove, with its visitor center and friendly village of shops and large campgrounds. Not us.

The jumbled landscape of Washington's North Cascades National Park, one of the wildest corners of America, can be intimidating even to experienced hikers and backpackers. The park embraces the most rugged peaks in the Cascade Range, which stretches north from Northern California to British Columbia. Drenched by Pacific storms, the western slopes nurture a dense, eerily dark forest dripping with moss.

A mountain lion caught on tape by a security camera last week near a Rancho Santa Margarita school was captured on video again Wednesday near the same waterfall, authorities said. Volunteers with the state Department of Fish and Game canvassed the gated communities near Santa Margarita Catholic High School to distribute fliers warning residents about the sighting. The school was also cautioned. A Dove Canyon Homeowners Assn.

When I am on the trail that leads to Monrovia Canyon Falls, I am reminded more of the East Coast than sunny Southern California. The park is a dense woodland, and it certainly doesn't seem like a place you'd find close to an urban area. It's a year-round hike that's equally pretty in all seasons. I started hiking there less than a year ago. I like it because it's easy -- there's not much of an incline -- and it makes me feel like I am far from South Pasadena, where I live.

Too bad Thaddeus Lowe is not around to cast a little light on Rubio Canyon's problems. After all, his 6-million-candlepower searchlight was believed to be one of the world's brightest a century ago when it was perched on a mountaintop above the rugged Altadena gorge. The scenic canyon with seven waterfalls bearing names like Roaring Rift and Grand Chasm was a focal point of hotels, restaurants and a 3 1/2-mile narrow-gauge railroad to Mt.

Adrenaline coursed through my body as we approached Devil's Throat, the roar of the waterfall drowning out any conversation softer than a shout. Raincoats couldn't keep our faces and hands from getting drenched by the cloud of spray rising from almost 300 feet below. I clung to the catwalk railing and watched the torrential Iguacu River rush over a plateau and disappear into an abyss. Devil's Throat is the largest of about 275 waterfalls that constitute Iguacu Falls.

If Los Angeles can be summed up in a glance--if all its grandeur and despair and history can be distilled into a single urban block--that place might be Pershing Square. The city's oldest public park, founded before George Washington took office, now sits bounded by office towers. It's had eight names and nearly as many looks. The last restyling, nine years ago, gave the park bold colors, cubist lines and a purple carillon that stands 128 feet high, topped by a large pink globe.

Clouds curdle round it, crack open, let it through. Radiance shaded by cloudshapes; fat fruit of incandescence; sphere of peeled silver. I wonder what living by such light would be: soft collusion of moonshine with grey gables; walls in a whitewashed trance; argentine grass; twigs limned in pewter.