Elizabeth Lake, CA

Elizabeth Lake sits on a thin line between two worlds, with the high desert of the Antelope Valley on one side and the Sierra Pelona on the other. This unincorporated Los Angeles County settlement strings along a two-lane mountain road between Lake Hughes and Leona Valley, and the fault that shaped the land runs right under it. Below the hills nearby, the Elizabeth Lake Tunnel has carried Los Angeles Aqueduct water through the mountains since the early 1900s, a piece of city history most passing drivers never notice. Homes come in a loose mix. There are ranch-style houses on big parcels, mountain cabins, and manufactured homes set back on dirt drives, with national forest land rising behind many of them. Lot lines are generous, and neighbors are often a field or a hillside away. Getting outside is the easy part. Forest roads climb into the Sierra Pelona, and San Francisquito Canyon runs south from the lake toward the Santa Clarita Valley, a winding scenic route that follows one of the oldest paths through these mountains. The settlement no longer has a restaurant of its own, since the roadside spots on the main road have closed. Most meals out mean driving a few miles west to The Rock Inn for prime rib in a 1929 stone roadhouse, or east to Jack's Place in Leona Valley for breakfast plates and burgers. That empty storefront is the real tradeoff. What people get instead is open water in a mountain setting, a slow road home, and evenings when the only traffic past the lake is a neighbor waving from a truck.