Teach Me to Hear Mermaids Singing

Sea lions (or could it be mermaids?) swim close to shore in the clear water off Point Dume. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind. 


—John Donne, "Song"


In spring, the sea lions congregate on the rocks below the Point Dume Headlands. This area is only accessible by humans during the lowest tides and treacherous tides and submerged rocks make it off limits to any vessel with a deeper draft than a kayak, but you can get a glimpse of the colony from the trail that winds around the edge of the cliff and you can hear the sea lions—and smell them—from nearly a half a mile away.  The rookery is indescribably smelly and noisy—like a 100-piece orchestra tuning up in a feed lot.

Sea lions are almost comical on land, waddling, lounging, chatting and arguing with friends, sunning themselves with evident contentment, just like human beachgoers. However, in the water they are transformed into graceful, powerful sea spirits. It's easy to imagine one might hear mermaids singing when one catches an unexpected glimpse of a sleek swift form gliding through the waves. From the vantage point of the wooden lookout deck on the east side of the Point Dume Headlands, the whole exuberant crowd of sea lions lazing on the rocks and playing in the water evokes some mad Romantic painting of sea nymphs.

California sea lions play in the surf off Point Dume. They remind me vividly of this:

One of Swiss symbolist Arnold Böcklin's sillier paintings, c. 1885, but it captures the same exuberance. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

Sea lions love to lounge atop any convenient rock. This is a group of females, shiny from swimming. Their fur is a lovely golden retriever color and surprisingly fluffy when dry. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

Nereids—Greek water nymphs—seem to share the sea lions' fondness for rocky roosts. These are Les Oceanides, taking a break from minding their rivers, apparently. The painting is by Gustav Dore, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sea lions are eternally curious. They like to drop in on waves to check out what the surfers are doing or pop up near swimmers to see if you doing anything they should know about. Sometimes they keep you company while you're walking on the beach, following along in the water, bobbing ahead and doubling back, until they grow tired of the game and the dull humans who so often seem oblivious.

Sea lions seem to enjoy watching the antics of humans every bit as much as we enjoy watching them. This one was actively observing his observers. You can tell it's a male because of the bump—officially called a sagittal crest—on his forehead. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

However, life isn't as idyllic for sea lions as it is appears to be for mermaids. Sea lions depend primarily on fish and squid and can face starvation in years when the fish population crashes. Sea lions can also be poisoned by domoic acid generated by the organisms that create the phenomenon known as red tide, and they are always at the mercy of the weather.

Although these marine mammals are highly intelligent, sociable and playful, they face myriad hazards that include encounters with white sharks and orca—their natural predators, as well as human-caused hazards, like gill nets, ship strikes, loss of beach habitat, and even bullets. They have also adapted to humans, taking advantage of breakwaters, buoys, and docks for hauling out, and following fishing boats in hope of a free lunch. 

This is our resident 800-pound gorilla, the Point Dume sea lion colony's alpha male. He's more than three times the size of the female sharing his rock and his coat is a couple of shades darker. Bull sea lions are not as lazy as they look. That fat is essential, since the males go for long periods without eating during mating and breeding season—May-August, while they protect their harem of females day and night. Bulls don't participate in raising pups, but they have reportedly been observed defending them from predators in the water. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

Sea lion cows give birth in early summer. It's early in the season for pups at Point Dume, but there are currently plenty of weaners and yearlings— sea lions that are just striking out on their own. These young animals sometimes have a difficult time fending for themselves and occasionally turn up stranded on local beaches. Malibu residents and beachgoers also  encounter pups on the beach, or more often on a rock above the high tide line. Sea lion cows stay with their newborns for the first week or two, and then leave them in a safe place to forage for food. 

Sea lions sometimes leave their pups on the beach or on a rock above the high tide line while they hunt for fish, but this sea lion pup, one of the victims of last year's sea lion starvation crisis, was clearly seriously underweight. One of the challenges for the residents who found this animal was keeping dogs away until the California Wildlife Center rescue team arrived. Rescues can be tricky, involving rock climbing skills, patience and luck. Animals like this one usually respond well if they can receive help in time. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

It can be difficult to tell whether a pup is safe and well and waiting for mom to return or if it's sick or injured. While sea lions are otariids—walking seals—and are able to move fairly rapidly on their powerful front flippers, they are still at a serious disadvantage on land and can be frighted by the presence of humans and injured or even killed by off-leash dogs.

At this time of year, young elephant seals and harbor seals can also end up on local beaches. Anyone who encounters a stranded or distressed marine mammal of any type is encouraged to call the California Wildlife Center's Marine Mammal Team at 310-458-WILD (9453).  The CWC is currently swamped with young native animals of every species and donations are welcome—seal and sea lion pups need to eat enourmous quantities of fish and the center is a non-profit that depends on support from the community. 

The CWC offers the following advice for anyone encountering a stranded seal or sea lion:

1. Don't touch and do not pick up, pour water on or feed the animal! They are wild animals and can bite. They also are easily stressed by humans.
2. Do not return the animal to the water
   Seals and sea lions temporarily "haul-out" on land to rest. Harbor seal mothers often leave their pups ashore while they're feeding at sea. A beached whale, dolphin, or porpoise should be reported immediately.
3. Observe
   Observe the animal from a distance of at least 50 feet. Keep people and dogs away.
4. DescribeNote physical characteristics such as size, presence of external earflaps, and fur color. This helps us determine the species, what rescue equipment and volunteers are needed.
5. Condition
   Note the animal's condition. Is it weak and underweight? Are there any open wounds?
6. IdentificationDoes the animal have any obvious identification tags or markings?
7. Location
   Determine the exact location of the animal in order to provide accurate directions. We cannot rescue an animal if we cannot find it!
8. Call the Rescue Team with as much information as you have (310) 458-WILD (9453).

Sea lions aren't the only pinnipeds that turn up on Malibu beaches this time of year. Here's a young female Northern elephant seal, doing a good furry slug impression. Elephant seals may not be mermaids, but they are true giants—females can grow to be 10 feet long, while males can reach 14 feet and weigh nearly 5000 pounds. It's extremely rare to encounter an adult  on the beach, but in the past two months the CWC has rescued and treated more than 20 elephant seal pups. Elephant and harbor seals are "true seals." Unlike sea lions, neither species has external ears and their front flippers are much smaller and not nearly as useful for getting around on dry land. Photo © 2014 S. Guldimann

The day I took the photos of the Point Dume sea lion colony I met a friend on the trail to the lookout. "There's a man there who told me that mermaids are real," she said. Alas, the man was gone when I arrived, but whoever he was he put the thought of mermaids into my head that day and reminded me of the first time I saw a sea lion in the water as a child and how much I wanted it to be a mermaid. Mermaids may be vanishingly rare these days, but how fortunate we are to still have marvels like sea lions. 

Suzanne Guldimann

12 May 2014

Very few mortals have the chance to hear mermaids singing, but around here we are blessed with something that, in its own way, is just as miraculous and wonderful. Above, Mermaids frolic in a study by 19th c. American impressionist George Willoughby Maynard. Below, a trio of Point Dume's resident merfolk enjoy calm seas.

A Glimpse of Something

A gray whale calf relaxes in calm water in a deepwater cove just north of Thornhill Broome State Beach. A record number of migrating gray whales have been spotted this year, but it doesn't diminish the thrill one feels at moments like this. All photos © 2014 S. Guldimann

Are you ever surprised by Joy? It is quite likely that you are, if you ever experience it at all. Like its source, Joy isn’t the sort of thing that can be summoned or commanded. The glimpse of Something captures us for fleeting moments, its elusiveness maddening our mortal frames. What was that, just beyond, that we would pursue at whatever expense if only we knew how? 

—C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

My mom always says the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway from Malibu to the 101 is so spectacular  that the drive makes her feel like she's on vacation.  Before the "Great Wall of Malibu" was built (that's the local nickname for the wall of houses and landscaping that entirely block the view of the ocean in many areas and especially in eastern Malibu), the whole trip through Malibu on PCH must have looked like this. Once you are west of Point Dume, however,  it's nothing but sea and sky and mountains most of the way up to the 101.

The sign says "27 miles of scenic beauty," but it's more like 12 miles of scenic beauty and 15 miles of garage doors and privacy hedges. It's ironic that this sign is located here, instead of up by County Line at the Malibu City Limits, since by the time you arrive here, you've already passed much of the scenic beauty that's visible from the road.

She and I were on our way home from Ventura when we saw dolphins close to shore, leaping and dancing in the water. We pulled over to watch. It was my mom who spotted the whales: a cow and her calf, close to shore, swimming with the dolphins.

A gray whale and common dolphin in the water off Point Mugu State Park.

We were soon joined by other observers. Cars stopped. People pointed and exclaimed. Strangers who had never met before and were unlikely to ever meet again were united in a moment of shared joy. This is joy in the C.S. Lewis sense of something almost divine in its wonder.

We watched for almost half an hour as the whales and the dolphins surfaced and submerged, spouted and rolled—flukes, barnacled gray backs and a small—for a whale—head poking out to look around for a moment and then disappear, leaving a whale "footprint" behind.

It's hard to capture the moment with a camera. The whales are too elusive, they are only above water for seconds before disappearing back into the ocean. I feel like a Flatlander. These are true three-dimentional beings, flying through the water as if it was air, leaping into the air in the way we might into water, while we humans are trapped on the shore, our feet on the earth.

Mama whale, baby whale and a dolphin. There was a pod of around six common bottlenose dolphins in the cove with the whales. They appeared to be extremely excited by the presence of their much larger cousins.

The inquisitive baby gray whale pokes her nose out for a look around. It was a quick peek, not  like the prolonged "spyhopping" of adult gray whales. Compared to the size of the nearby dolphins, the whale calf appeared to be around 15 feet long. The cow—a hopelessly prosaic name for something so awe-inspiring—was probably close to 50 feet. 

Here's a close-up of the adult's blowhole. Gray whales have a double opening. This whale has a distinctive patch of barnacles on her back.

Mama whale roles over, showing one of her powerful flippers and an expanse of the blotchy gray and white coloring that gives this species its common name.

 We had a good view of the distinctive dorsal ridges that are characteristic of the gray whale.

One last spout—it's easy to see how whales could be mistaken for sea monsters.

...And then the whales were gone, leaving only footprints behind.

When the whales and the dolphins were gone it was like waking up from a dream. Most people wandered back to their cars. A few stayed, scanning the horizon for more marvels. Mom and I headed for home. But we did see one more marvel along the way...

In the sky over the ocean there was a sunbow that with only a little bit of extra imagination resembled a great celestial whale. 

We had the chance to have this remarkable experience because that stretch of coast is undeveloped, letting all of us who stopped that day see something extraordinary that would otherwise pass unseen. It's another reminder of why it's important to keep fighting for preservation and conservation.

Suzanne Guldimann
3 May 2014

Surfing Safari

It feels more like October than May this week. Gale force Santa Ana winds and temperatures in the 90s  have raised the red flag for fire danger and sent crowds to the beach, braving sand-blasting to seek relief from the heat, but before the winds blew in there was one perfect day for surfing.

You could tell the surf was up without even seeing the ocean. The Chumash name for Malibu—Humaliwu, "where the surf sounds," was well chosen. When there's a powerful swell the sound of the surf forms a dull roar in the background of the lives of anyone within a mile or so of any of the major local surf breaks.

Another sure sign of surf is the mob of cars parked along PCH at Surfrider, Leo Carrillo, Nicholas Beach, as hopeful surfers skive off work or school in search of waves. They were double-parked at the Malibu Lagoon, but a car pulled out just in front of me and, on a whim, I stopped and joined the rag-tag army of wetsuit-clad surfers heading for the beach.

"Not surfing today?" the guy behind me asked. 

"Just taking some pictures," I replied.

The vegetation at the controversial Malibu Lagoon restoration and reconstruction project is beginning to fill in, despite the drought, although there are still more flags than plants in some areas. The plastic flags are supposed to mark where the native plants are so they aren't weeded out by mistake. There was an American crow foraging for breakfast on one of new manmade islands. It's the first time I've spotted a bird there. 

Here's the same scene in 2013, during construction. I was amused to find there's a crow in this photo, too. Perched on the wire.

The surfers took the quickest route to to the shore, but I stopped to admire the kayak of an audacious explorer, drawn aground near the parking lot. Later, I saw the kayaker paddling lazily around the lagoon. The sand berm is closed right now, transforming the newly re-contoured and enlarged wetland into a kind of brackish lake that is ideal for kayaking, even if it isn't an activity State Parks necessarily approves of. 

I also watched the crow carefully picking its way along the edge of the water, looking for breakfast. A few minutes later, I saw him again, harassing a black-crowned night heron at her nest on top of a ficus tree in a Malibu Colony garden adjacent to the park. Later, he was down on the beach, on the lookout for unattended picnics.

This black-crowned night heron was defending her nest from the crow. The crow eventually gave up on eggs for breakfast and settled instead for whatever he could scavenge along the edge of the lagoon. I would never have spotted the heron if she wasn't giving the crow a piece of her mind. The genus name, Nycticorax, means "night croaker." It doesn't exactly do justice to their amazing range of vocalizations.

I also stopped to examine the "Winter Ramp-Summer Clock" installation, which has already stopped being a ramp and become, well, not exactly a clock, but a water level gauge. It's designed to fill with water once the sand berm seals off the lagoon in summer, transforming the walkway into a kind of post-apocalyptic scene that reminds me of Belgian symbolist painter Ferdinand Knopff's melancholy vision of the end of the world, "Verlorene Stad." 

The last tide slowly and silently fills up a desolate Brussels street in Knopff's pastel drawing. I doubt that's what the Malibu Lagoon project's designers had in mind, but it does sort of convey the same impression, doesn't it? 

There was no silent end-of-the-world-evoking emptiness at the beach. Instead, an astonishing number of California Brown pelicans were gathered on the lagoon sand berm. I've described Surfrider Beach before as a kind of miniature Jurassic Park. Being on the beach with hundreds of pelicans is about as close as it gets to seeing live pterasaurs. Pelecanus occidentalis is on the smallish side compared to other members of the pelican family, but this bird is still a giant, with an 6-8-foot wing span. The distinctly prehistoric looking bill can grow to be more than a foot long and the throat pouch can reportedly hold up to two gallons of water.

The pelicans, grave and silent, were joined by a huge,  raucous flock of terns, their shrill voices rising above the sound of the surf. California brown pelicans are a rare conservation success story, rebounding from the edge of extinction in the 1970s. The terns' fate remains less certain. They are a California species of special concern due primarily to habitat loss. 

California brown pelicans crowd the sand spit at the Malibu Lagoon. 

A huge group of elegant terns, the punk rockers of the tern family, were having a convention on the berm, too.

Here's the Malibu Lagoon berm. It forms naturally every year after winter storm season ends and the sand deposited by the tides is no longer washed away by the creek. During the winter, the creek flows directly into the sea. During the summer months, the berm impounds the creek and turns it into a closed system. At the end of summer, it's either breached by the first storm of the season or by human intervention. 

The terns like to take advantage of the calm water inside the main channel of the creek. Usually they have to share with a flotilla of ducks, coots and cormorants, but they had it to themselves on this morning.

The surfers are just on the other side of the berm, waiting for the waves that give Surfrider Beach its name.

It gets crowded out there when the word goes out that the surf is good.

But almost everyone—birds and humans—would agree that it's worth it. And every now and then, everything comes together and you catch that perfect wave.

I walked back along the old Adamson House wall. When you see it in surf movies, it's always the side that faces the ocean, although a section of it is missing now, torn down after a truck smashed into it, and it's blotched with mismatched paint, where State Parks has painted over years of graffiti. This is the land side. It's in better shape and still decorated with bits of Malibu Potteries tile.

Here's my favorite detail:

The Malibu Potteries' pseudo-Aztec god has kept a benign, if slightly lunatic, eye on the Surfrider surfers ever since the 1920s, when local legend says pioneer surfers Tom Blake, Sam Reid and Duke Kahanamoku first hit the waves at what is now Surfrider. 

More than anyone else I know, surfers understand the philosophy of living in the moment. Just hours after I took this photo the Santa Ana winds arrived, signaling the end of this surf event, but it didn't matter. "I was out there all morning and it was awesome," a surfer told me as I walked back to my car. It was, too. Carpe diem, dude.

Suzanne Guldimann
1 May 2014

In Plain Sight

I was reminded the other day that sometimes the things that make Malibu remarkable can be overlooked among the noise and haste and busyness of life. I had stopped to catch my breath for a few minutes at Zuma Beach. It was almost entirely empty except for a few distant walkers and the beach grooming tractor, traveling like a monstrous ceratopsian dinosaur back and forth above the tide line. I watched as the tractor came closer and closer and realized that I wasn't the only one keeping an eye on it. Photos © 2014 S. Guldimann

All the time I stood watching I had a small sand-colored companion stationed in plain sight just a few feet away from me. Here's a closer view. Can you see it? It took me almost five minutes to realize it was there. It seemed completely unconcerned by the tractor or the human intruder, but it kept a calm, watchful eye on both. It had nothing to fear from me, at least. As soon as I saw it I walked away quietly, in a different frame of mind than the one I had when I arrived. 

Here's a close-up of my companion. It's a Western snowy plover. This small shorebird has perfected the art of hiding in plain sight. It's tiny and fearless, but it's also increasingly threatened by habitat loss and human activities, despite being a California species of special concern that has special protections and is the subject of an active conservation program. There are only an estimated 2600 of these birds left on the West Coast. Seeing one is a gift. For me, it was a reminder that we may be surrounded by unseen wonders even on the most prosaic and ordinary-seeming days.

Suzanne Guldimann
25 April 2014

Socially Eminent Rabbits

Here is the mild-mannered monarch of our Point Dume garden, Sylvilagus audubonii. Audubon's cottontail rabbit, more commonly known as the desert cottontail, is a small package with a lot of personality and determination. All photos © 2014 S. Guldimann

A Rabbit Parable 

In Wildwood, a socially eminent Rabbit,
Of dignity, substance and girth,
Had chosen a suitable hole to inhabit–
An excellent burrow of earth.

When up came a Woodchuck, a genuine Groundhog,
Who wanted the place for his lair;
The Rabbit, impressed by a seventeen-pound Hog,
Abruptly departed from there.

But shortly thereafter a virtuous Badger
Slid down from the neighbouring shelf;
The Woodchuck he slew as a robber and a cadger,
Bequeathing the hole to himself.

 A Fox who believed in the law of requital
Appeared through the bordering fern;
He questioned the Badger’s Manorial title
Demanding the burrow in turn.

A battle ensued in a terrible smother,
Affrighting the hardiest soul;
The Fox and the Badger abolished each other,
The Rabbit returned to his hole.

So here is appended the mildest of morals,
Accept it for what it is worth:
“When all the Haughty are killed in their quarrels
The Meek shall inherit the earth.”

—Arthur Guiterman


We are blessed with a wide variety of four-footed wildlife on Point Dume. Coyotes, gray foxes, raccoons, skunks, opossums, long-tailed weasels and an assortment of native rodents live here, largely unseen by humans, but the cottontail rabbits seem like neighbors, they live alongside us, as well as in that separate, unseen world that just happens to occupy the same space as the one we inhabit. 

When I needed a photo for the top of the page I knew just where to find the front yard rabbit this evening. She's lived here for years and has no fear of the resident humans or the family dog. However the shadow of a hawk passing overhead or an unfamiliar sound will send her instantly into hiding. It's a tough life at the bottom of the food chain, and any rabbit who lives to be old and wise knows not to take chances. 

The front yard rabbit performs her disappearing act, vanishing instantly when she hears an unfamiliar sound, in this case, the click of my camera. 

Rabbits are on the menu of every native predator and are also the frequent victims of domestic animal attacks, poison, and vehicle strikes—the zigzagging dash at speeds up to 20 mph they've evolved to evade hunters doesn't help them to avoid cars. Every second may be their last, but despite their precarious existence, or perhaps because of it, they give the impression of enjoying life to the fullest. They lounge in the sun like contented house cats and nibble the flowers with evident enthusiasm. They don't dig burrows or form colonies like other rabbit species, but they seem to enjoy each other's company and often congregate in small groups (flocks? herds? pods?) of three or four.  

The front yard rabbit lounges in a sheltered spot, looking for all the world like a contented cat. 

Cottontail courtship involves a cross between tag and country dancing, with elaborate leaps and figure eight patterns. Occasionally, an importuned rabbit becomes annoyed and boxes the aggressor rabbit's ears, but on the whole, rabbit society is remarkably easy-going. 

There are two types of cottontail rabbits in the Santa Monica Mountains, S. audubonii and S. bachmani. S. Audubonii is the more common species. S. bachmani, the brush cottontail, is smaller, shyer, wilder. Brush cottontails stick to the chaparral. Desert cottontails have adapted to urban life and are found wherever there is enough food and shelter. This can be a problem, since the rabbit's idea of dinner includes just about everything humans like to grow for food and many ornamental plant species. 

Desert cottontails have remarkably good climbing skills and have been know to climb up stairs, onto decks, and even into pots to gain access to tender, tasty flowers and vegetables. The best way to prevent misunderstandings is to fence off anything that is off limits. Although we don't always follow our own advice here at The Malibu Post, leading to scenes like this:

"Oh look, a salad bar!"

"Nom nom, nom."

Around here, everyone agrees that the pleasure of having rabbits in the garden is greater than any rabbit-related aggravations, but there was a time when one of the neighbors did mind and poisoned everything in sight. There were no rabbits for many years. It was a reminder that humans recognize property lines but wildlife does not, and that poison can spread to a much wider area than the poison user may realize.

Not long after that individual departed, the rabbits began to return. We see them almost every morning and every evening all year long, eating, resting, playing, dozing in the sun. They may be small and defenseless and meek, but they love life and live it with joy.

Happy Easter!

Suzanne Guldimann
20 April 2014

The front yard rabbit dances by the light of the moon. 

The There That's Here

A panorama of the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains, photographed from above King Gillette Ranch, looking towards Malibu. Last week, the California Coastal Commission approved a land use plan intended to keep the mountains looking like this in perpetuity. Photo © S. Guldimann

Not that long ago, a member of the Malibu City Council stated that some people say that the Malibu Civic Center needs to be developed into a destination for visitors because "there is no there there." Somehow, that doesn't deter the millions of people who come to Malibu each year not for the shopping but for the mountains and the sea. It helps to remember that Malibu is located within a National Park, one that is just as valid as Yosemite or Acadia, for all that it is on the edge of the largest urban landscape in the country.

Developers have always seen the mountains as an opportunity for profit, but the area has been blessed by passionate defenders as well, who have worked for more than a hundred years to protect and preserve this unique mountain range and the Mediterranean ecosystem it encompasses. This week, conservation activists are celebrating what is being hailed as a major victory for the mountains. The California Coastal Commission approval of a Local Coastal Program for the 80-square-mile portion of the mountains that are in unincorporated Los Angeles County.

On his blog, L.A. County 3rd District Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who has championed the land use plan from the beginning, wrote:

In a vote that will resonate for generations, the California Coastal Commission this week cleared the way for the enactment of a wide-ranging plan to protect the Santa Monica Mountains from development that already has scarred portions of one of the region’s most important environmental and recreational resources.

The 12-member commission voted unanimously in favor of a land use plan adopted last month by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, despite strong opposition from real estate development interests. The Coastal Commission vote was mandated by state law and represents a milestone in the years-long effort to preserve the mountains along the coast as a rural escape for tens of thousands of visitors each year.

The plan will, among many other things, ban ridgeline development, save oaks and other native woodlands, outlaw poisons that can harm wildlife, protect water sources, restrict lighting to preserve the night sky and prevent the opening of new vineyards, which take a toll on the land and water.

It's also a validation of the work of generations of activists who worked against the odds to preserve and protect something they recognized as rare and exceptional. 

Here's the poster child for bad planning in the Santa  Monica Mountains. Almost everything about this Kanan Dume Road mega-mansion/vineyard estate would be banned under the new Santa Monica Mountains coastal plan: the vineyards, the ridgeline house site, the mile-long "mansion driveway," and the acres of scorched earth habitat destruction. This glorified spec house probably did more than another other site to raise awareness about the potential negative impact of vineyards in the mountains—you can see those tidy, geometric rows of vines from vantage points all over the mountains. That's Saddle Peak in the foreground—an important Chumash cultural site that used to be the most conspicuous landmark in the area. 

The Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area was created by an Act of Congress in 1978, but the effort to conserve at least part of the mountains and the coast as a park began much earlier. Although it's largely forgotten now, the first advocate for a Santa Monica Mountains park was Frederick Hastings Rindge, who purchased the entire Topanga Malibu Sequit Rancho in 1891. He had plans for development in Malibu but also envisioned parkland. In his book Happy Days in Southern California he expresses the desire to preserve at least part of western Malibu as a park:

It seems best to keep Zuma as a park, and to tell the axe and plough to keep off the sycamore and alfilaria. So you can come, kind reader, and see it as it is, at your convenience. Zuma! to be in thy presence makes one happy ; it makes one feel like singing — nay, it makes one sing: 

God grant that peace may ever be
 In Zumaland beside the sea.

As early as 1902, there were government plans to create a preserve. A formal proposal for a 70,000-acre park was submitted to Washington in 1907. The plan was derailed by an influential developer.

The Olmsted Report, issued by park proponent Frederick Law Olmsted in 1930, recommended a 10,000-acre chain of parks throughout Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains. Sylvia Morrison, an even earlier activist, proposed that a section of the mountains in Pacific Palisades slated to become a cement quarry should be preserved as "Whitestone National Park."

The 1930 Olmsted Report recommended a 10,000-acre "belt park" encompassing the City of Los Angeles. What are now Zuma County Beach and Zuma Canyon Park were part of the plan, which was swiftly torpedoed by (surprise!) development interests.

Activists in the 1960s campaigned for the creation of Toyon National Park. They didn't succeed—Congress turned down the proposal in 1971, but the state of California acquired 6700 acres of the old Broome Ranch in 1967. The Danielson Ranch—an additional 5700 acres—was added in 1972, creating Point Mugu State Park. Topanga, Leo Carrillo, and Malibu Creek state parks came next. Conservation advocates Sue Nelson, Jill Swift, and Malibuite Margo Feuer led the charge for the park in the 1970s. There efforts led to the creation of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in 1978.

Today the SMMNRA encompasses 156,670 acres. Slightly more than half of the total acreage is parkland and the percentage is growing. Instead of a portion of the old Malibu Rancho being set aside for a park, the entire City of Malibu is technically within the boundaries of the park.

However, until Rindge's widow May Knight Rindge, lost her battle with the county over the coastal route right-of-way and the gates of the rancho were opened to the public in 1929, Malibu was as remote and unattainable as the moon.

In those days, the Las Flores Inn—located where Duke's Restaurant is now—was the end of the road for day-trippers. It was an adventure for early motorists to take the precarious coast route to the inn for fish dinners and ice cream. When Topanga and Las Flores Canyon roads were constructed, they offered access to an unimaginable wilderness for adventurous Angelenos.

The Las Flores Inn was as close to Malibu as the public could get in 1915. It was an adventure to motor out for ice cream and a glimpse of the fabled Malibu beaches just out of reach beyond the Rancho gates. 

The Topanga and Las Flores Canyon Stage Coach Co. advertised "Southern California's Prettiest Drive." Coaches left from Santa Monica opposite the P. E. Railroad. According to the comprehensive history of the Topanga area published by the Topanga Historical Society and entitled  The Topanga Story, a pamphlet issued in 1925 by coach promoter Francis Burnett boasted that a trip to Topanga Canyon "will improve poor appetite, get rid of colds in the bracing atmosphere, relax the nerves and provide a sure cure for the 'blues.'""Visit Mohn Springs," another brochure from the 1920s invites. "Drink from the famous mineral springs. The Most Beneficial Water Known."

Campgrounds, cabins, lodges and even spas and baths touting curative mineral water sprang up all over the area.

Here's an image from the Water and Power Associates web archive showing outdoors enthusiasts camping in Santa Monica Canyon as early as 1880.

 A pre-Roosevelt Highway 1920s postcard from "Cooper's Camp Tent City" shows tent cabins and bungalows at Topanga Beach. This stretch of the coast route was paved by the City of Santa Monica in 1916, and was known as the Palisades Beach Road. The image is from the LMU Digital Archive.

In some cases, homesteaders took advantage of the new craze for outdoor activities and transformed existing farms into mountain health resorts. There were plenty of real estate investment schemes, too. An ad for the "Malibu Mar Vista" development boasts, "In development of Malibu Mar Vista we have not followed the usual mountain subdivision plan of selling small lots. Such commercialism always results in congestion and the destruction of the desired privacy. Our average lots are one-quarter of an acre. Roads are built and water installed."

Roads and water. Makes you wonder what the other mountain subdivision plans were like, and it underscores the reason why the mountains aren't entirely carpeted with quarter-acre lots—the terrain, even today, is difficult to access and prone to the same violent geological forces that shaped the mountains in the first place. There's a Malibu Mar Vista Drive off Latigo Canyon Road,  the last reminder of this particular endeavor.

The authors of the Malibu Mar Vista brochure seem to have been holders of a creative license. No. 3 states "Roosevelt Highway looking towards Santa Monica from Malibu Mar Vista. It fails to mention that the tract is miles up a winding mountain road, not on the beach. looks more like the Malibu Colony area. No. 6 is "Malibu Lake and Clubhouse," which is equally far away in the other direction, and number 4 is "the picturesque road from Ventura Blvd to Malibu Mar Vista. "Road" being an insanely optimistic definition for the largely unpaved track from the San Fernando Valley. The men with the lawnmower-sized tractor in no. 2 are allegedly grading Latigo Canyon.

Here's a close-up of another page in the brochure, featuring flappers picnicking and frolicking in the surf. The prose may be purple, but it sums up the enduring romance of the mountains. A "wonderfully interesting drive" isn't hyperbole. Like almost all of the local mountain roads, Latigo is still wonderfully interesting.

Visitors are still arriving in the mountains in search of something wonderful. Advocates for the County's new LCP hope that it will ensure that future generations continue to find the beauty that drew earlier visitors, but all of the main roads into the Santa Monica Mountains begin—or end—on Pacific Coast Highway, in Malibu. Thanks to the efforts of generations of conservationists, there's still plenty of wonderful, interesting and beautiful things to see and do. And just like the old ad says, there's seclusion and privacy and freedom. But it's up to us to ensure that Malibu also continues to protect the things that make it unique. Perhaps those who think there isn't a there here haven't taken time to look around and understand that what people come to Malibu to find is already here, and not there, or anywhere else on earth.

Suzanne Guldimann
14 April 2014