The Heart of Wildcat Canyon

by Tim Gordon

Park Naturalist, 1966 to 2000

 

Wildcat Canyon is both mutable and timeless. At its green heart lies a glorious, living watercourse, a fragile but enduring and superlative refuge for humans as well as wildlife. Not that it is always peaceful and serene. One January night in 1982, for example, a powerful storm caused great boulders to groan and tumble in the creek bed. I listened and watched as the deluge saturated the earth, dissolved the bond between clay molecules, and caused a great mass of soil to slide down-slope. Four lanes of asphalt disappeared to the applause of countless raindrops. In a few hours time, years of
incremental urban development was erased and several acres of wildlife habitat were restored...

​​

Read the entire letter

​