Searching for San Pascual…

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been dialoguing via email with a fellow creekfreak about the location of Arroyo San Pascual, which was/is in the Pasadena/San Marino/Alhambra area.  I thought I’d post the maps that explain this location so that everyone can enjoy the info.  For those wishing to cut to the chase – Arroyo San Pascual is the westernmost of the creeks, joining with Mill Creek to create Mission Creek  (aka, I believe, Alhambra Wash) further downstream.  To the east are smaller creeks, including one that once fed the pond (Kewen Lake) that has since been filled for, um, lawn, at Lacy Park in San Marino.  Jane Tsong covered the topic of the arroyos and fascinating geology of this area in depth (here 1, 2) – so I’m going to stick to the maps.

To the left, a federal survey from 1870 which actually gave us some creek names.  (when I have a moment I’ll scan and post the entire survey so you can see the rest)  To the right, a screen shot of the creek layer I created several years back in GIS, which when imported as kmz files in GoogleEarth has a standing flaw of being offset slightly.  The discerning eye can see echoes of the historical streams in the treelines, shadows of terrain, (in)convenient siting of ball fields… correlation of course not being causation.  The arrows are meant to call that out for you, imagine those blue lines shifted slightly to the left.  Happy creekfreaking, if you get inspired to tour to the topography, let us know what you find out!