Tag: San Gabriels (Page 5 of 10)

For the second time in eight days I witnessed, from a trail in the foothills of the front range of the San Gabriels, the chaparral turn ochre then deep amber as the sun inevitably sunk into the ocean beyond the San Rafael and Verdugo hills. The brown crust that hangs over the Los Angeles basin during the daytime faded into the warm magic hour light while simultaneously, in the east, the moon, nearly full, rose over Mt Wilson. I stared directly into the vanishing ball of fire and it vibrated, or danced, though I could have imagined it because I don’t see it in the video. You had to be there, I suppose.

Tip for watching: the money shot, the sunset, plays for about two minutes. Relax, take off your shoes, kick back and enjoy. If it starts to feel long, put on some music, I played “Woman” by the John Carter/Bobby Bradford quartet while viewing the footage, and the effect was kind of cool, but ultimately i suggest taking a few deep breaths and soaking in the live soundtrack; the rumbling suburbs, a truck screaming in low gear as it navigates the windy, hilly foothill roads on its way home after work, a neighborhood dog and a rooster barking and crowing dutifully to awaken the night creatures or signal the passage of prowling joggers, and whatever else your imagination conjures.

SEATING OPTIONS

During the “Great Hiking Era” (roughly 1880–1930), the San Gabriels were visited by throngs of tourists from Los Angeles and beyond. They rode trolleys and trains up to the foothills of Altadena, Sierra Madre, Arcadia and then mounted a burro or hiked into the wilderness of the Angeles National Forest. The wilderness, thanks to enterprising fellas like Robert Sturtevant, was ready to welcome this influx of city folks in camps like Switzer’s, Echo Mountain Resort aka ‘the white city’, Follows, Crystal Lake. Santa Anita canyon alone was home to five such camps. The only one to survive and still operate today is Sturtevant’s, and yes, you can still get your stuff hauled in by burro. On the site you will also find the oldest ranger station still in its original location in the country (though I couldn’t confirm that so perhaps I shouldn’t quote it, but I am going to anyway because it sounds cool, and the cabin does look OLD). Passing through the place midweek on a late fall morning means you get to choose from the many adirondack chairs and wooden benches for place to savor a welcome cuppa and snack, under the shade of grand old oaks and alders. or you might climb a few steps for a moment of serenity at the outdoor chapel courtesy of the boyscout troop who restored the pews, before you’re ready to “hike the historic Sturtevant Trail”.  

The Sturtevant Trail climbs steadily at not-so-gentle a grade from Santa Anita canyon to the summit of another historic locale in the San Gabriel range, the Mt Wilson Observatory. The trail lands you at Echo point, where you can enjoy a sweeping panoramic vista of everything to the north, east and south, including, today, the snowcapped peaks of Baden Powell , Baldy, and Gorgonio in the distance. Good souls typically leave a couple of standard classroom chairs at Echo point but, given its popularity, even on a weekday, a cozier lunch spot, where chairs are also usually found, lies just a couple of minutes away, next to the observatory’s famed 100-inch telescope. Alternately, you can walk west to the “Atomic Cafe”, closed on weekdays but surrounded by picnic tables. You may have to walk through a parking lot occupied by a film crew base camp though. That’s Hollywood for you; you are less than thirty miles from the Burbank studios. The primo lunch table however, hides at the far end of the footbridge leading to the telescope, shielded by a small utility building and the shade of pine trees. It’s first come first served though, and you may find a group who has more thoroughly planned their outing having already laid out their tablecloth, prepared food containers, plates, cups, wine, and this is my favorite, a flask and tiny shot glasses. Whatever fills them will have never tasted better. To your health gentlemen.  

One option to descend from Mt Wilson is the toll road that runs through Heninger Flats, a longish easy tramp mostly on the southern slope of Wilson that ultimately lands in Eaton Canyon, in Altadena, home, and in December afternoon temperatures quite pleasant. Not to mention the views. And the improvised bench, carved out of a tree trunk section, overlooking the San Gabriel valley and beyond, strategically placed a little over halfway to Heninger, under the shade of a large pine tree from whose lower limbs hangs a strange, ominous protuberance resembling a bear. Eventually you pass through the Heninger Flats campground, visitors’ center, and Los Angeles Fire Department nursery. The landscape is turning gold under the setting sun and there are plenty of places to sit  and enjoy an unobstructed sunset, including a couple of newly constructed benches facing southwest, at the southern edge of the picnic area. The prime seats require a short scramble up a use trail to the upper section of the campground, well worth the effort. If you’re not in the mood to wait for the sun to set before walking the last two and half miles, not to worry, there are a series of benches along the way designed to do just that, enjoy the sunset, comfortably. The only disturbance being the tires of the occasional bike loudly crunching the packed dirt, sounding like a large insect buzzing by. I’m guessing the “Watch out for Trucks” signs are meant for them? The bikes that is, not the insects. Not for me, on foot, I’m too slow; I’ll hear a truck coming in plenty of time to pull over and sit somewhere while it passes. And by the way, I’ll gladly sit in the ground.

i likE to climb mountains

Walking Project 142_the E-hike – inspiration point from chris worland on Vimeo.

My favorite time to go tramping in the San Gabriels is the day after a good storm rolls through in the fall or winter. The hills come alive after a good dumping. The chaparral smells like wild sage and damp earth, the trail is soft under your feet, the atmosphere is loaded with tiny droplets of moisture that soon accumulate into clouds that lift off as the ground heats up, scaling the mountain slopes, defying gravity, so that the contours of the mountains play hide and seek with the observer, as do the crows flying by, heard but not seen. Green is the hero in this saga, every leaf sparkles with accumulated raindrops, but the browns and grays and multitude of earth tones also acquire a depth normally washed out by sunlight and contrast and dust, the manzanita and laurel bushes shower the hiker who brushes past. In contrast, the stillness in the air, stirred only occasionally by a slight breeze, conjures peace and quietness, but also mystery. Visually, there is so much happening and changing every minute, it’s giddying, unless you follow this advice of the bard Henri Salvador, a favorite of mine since childhood,

“Les gens rêvent de voyages

de voyages organisés

Ils collectionnent des images

Moi, je préfère voir les fleurs pousser

Je prends mon temps, moi,  je prends mon temps

Je prends mon temps, moi, je prends mon temps”

–first verse of Je prends mon temps, Henri Salvador,

 

“People dream of traveling

organized traveling

they collect pictures

Me, I prefer to watch the flowers grow

I take my time, I take my time

I take my time, I take my time”

–My literal translation

And since you’re now in the mood, slow it down even more with John Coltrane’s After the Rain.

Nuff said.

HOPE–you may wish to interpret this as a double-entendre, given the recent developments in the political circus, but in fact, I am referring to what I witnessed during an excursion–an attempt to get away from the noise of the circus–to Mount Lukens on the old Stone Canyon Trail: the vegetation is reclaiming the landscape, in its own time, following massive and repeated wildfire ravage.

I was first tempted to climb Mt Lukens from the Stone Canyon trail in 2004, after reading John Robinson’s descriptions in his Trails of the Angeles, “it is exceptionally steep” he says, “not regularly maintained but readily passable”, and “not a level stretch until you reach the summit ridge”. Doesn’t that sound like a must-do-hike? I thought so. Robinson also warns to bring plenty water, “you’re on burned slopes most of the way”, because in 1975, twenty-three years before the publication of his trail guide, a wildfire, a holocaust he calls it, raged through the area, leaving the rugged slopes barren, with little to no tree coverage. To make matters worse, in 2002 the very same area, the north-facing slopes of Mt Lukens, suffered another blaze. So by the time I got there, two years later, the recovering chaparral brushes had burned again, leaving an eerie gray and black lunar landscape, streaked with the charred and twisted remains of manzanita, laurel, the occasional valley oak and the rare spruce skeleton, dotted with patches of vibrant green rebirth: hope. Then in 2009, before any significant growth could occur, came the Station fire.

Nine years have passed, houses in the canyon floor are being rebuilt, the Wildwood campground has re-opened–though closed for the season–and the slopes of Stone Canyon, bisected  by the many switchbacks of the old trail, are once again covered with dense chaparral, and I mean dense; the trail is once again hardly maintained which makes for long stretches of bushwhacking through six to eight feet tall thorny brush that want nothing more than to make the passer-by bleed–long sleeves and long pants required. While the going is arduous it serves as a good reminder, all the more pertinent given the unprecedented wildfire damage we’ve experienced this year, that to impose a human timeframe on plant life in wild habitats, where we are visitors, is misleading. I read somewhere that it can take a hundred years for an alpine forest to recover fully from wildfire. A hundred years is a long stretch, by human standards, about twenty years longer than my life expectancy, in California, but in the wider context of life on earth, it’s far less than the proverbial drop in the bucket. It’s easy to adopt an anthropocentric doomsday scenario, amplified by the very visible and catastrophic effects of global climate change, but isn’t it more realistic to imagine that, long after humanoids have self-destructed–as in lost their dominance as a species–the planet will live on, plants will sprout and grow, rivers will swell or dry up, mountains will crumble, coastlines will change, and the statue of Liberty will lie toppled on a beach? In the meantime, it gives me great hope to think that future generations who hike Stone Canyon might describe it as a vibrant, shaded jaunt through a thick oak, spruce and pine forest, where wildlife is plentiful.

Disclaimer: None of this is based on science, just a hunch, more like, or a hopeful imagination prone to slowing things down to walking pace, appropriate for observation. Or maybe the sun beat on my head and finally boiled my brains.

Every outing involves two important choices, variables over which I have some control, questions I need to answer before leaving the house: 1) where am I going? and 2) what book am I taking with me?

1. Today, the destination is another John Robinson-themed ramble, the first itinerary in my dog-eared, heavily-used copy of “Trails of the Angeles”, Hike #1, “County Road N2 via Horse Flat to Liebre Mountain.” Because of its remote location at the northwest tip of the San Gabriels, I have avoided this trip thus far mainly because, in that respect, I am spoiled; within an hour’s drive, I can hit trailheads to pretty much anywhere in the front range or the high country of the Angeles National Forest, I don’t even have to get in the car to hike Wilson or Lowe, and to the south, the Verdugos are a stone’s throw away. It’s also a matter of bang for your buck. Why drive an hour plus to walk a paltry seven miles to a summit that pales in comparison with its more glamorous cousins in the range, Baldy, Baden-Powell, Waterman, Wilson, Strawberry, Cucamonga, Ontario…? Because Mr. Robinson says it’s worth the effort, that’s why. Good enough for me.
2.  As tempting as it is to haul the other enlightening John Robinson tome I’ve been reading at home, “The San Gabriels”, so as to bathe in the history of the place while soaking in its physical atmosphere–my favorite kind of excursion blends adventure, effort and history–I refrain myself. Too heavy and bulky. Alternately, a short paperback collection of poetry should do the trick, especially “Alcools” by Apollinaire. Because it’s random, because it’s not necessarily light, because I like Apollinaire.

Two days later, here’s a quick verdict on my choices. First, Liebre mountain was inspiringly moody, with high northerly winds–the same infuriating winds that are seriously, and tragically, complicating the job of putting out the Woolsey fire to the south–a trail littered with dead leaves, acorns and California Buckeye seed pods, and looming barren oaks dressed with clumps of mistletoe.

We should not omit to mention the great admiration that the Gauls have for it as well. The druids – that is what they call their magicians – hold nothing more sacred than the mistletoe and a tree on which it is growing, provided it is a hard-timbered oak[robur]^[4][5]…. Mistletoe is rare and when found it is gathered with great ceremony, and particularly on the sixth day of the moon…. Hailing the moon in a native word that means ‘healing all things,’ they prepare a ritual sacrifice and banquet beneath a tree and bring up two white bulls, whose horns are bound for the first time on this occasion. A priest arrayed in white vestments climbs the tree and, with a golden sickle, cuts down the mistletoe, which is caught in a white cloak. Then finally they kill the victims, praying to a god to render his gift propitious to those on whom he has bestowed it. They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren and that it is an antidote to all poisons.

from The Natural History, by Pliny the Elder, cited on this wikipedia page

Second, Apollinaire provided this fitting stanza

Et que j’aime ô saison que j’aime tes rumeurs

Les fruits tombant sans qu’on les cueille

Le vent et la forêt qui pleurent

Toutes leurs larmes en automne feuille à feuille

Les feuilles

Qu’on foule

Un train

Qui roule

La vie

Qui s’écoule

last stanza of Automne Malade, Guillaume Apollinaire, Alcools

My (almost) literal translation:

…

And season O season how I like your rumors

The unpicked fruit that falls

The wind and the forest that weep

all their tears in autumn leaf by leaf

The leaves

You tread on

A train

that moves on

Life

that passes by

 

 

ROCK PAPER SCISSOR

Rock: Overlooking Chilao, Bandido and Horse Flats in the San Gabriels is a field of boulders, an ideal lookout for horse thieves and bandidos camping in the forest below. Before them, bands of Tongva indians would come here in the summer to forage for food and materials to sustain them during the cooler months, when they moved to lower elevations. Some of their staples were acorns, pine nuts and manzanita berries which they ground into a meal or juice. This left hollow, spherical bowls on the surfaces of the rocks they used as mortars, still visible today.

ROCK PAPER SCISSOR

Paper: Pine, cedar, fir grow in abundance on the flats, but also amidst the boulders, sometimes so close together they couple. The tree appears to support the giant mass while it thrives on the moisture collected under it. The rock, gentle companion, remains still as a picture, as if aware that any sudden movement would crush the tree into a pulp. The tree must grow, and grow, and grow, until its root structure spreads out widely enough to hold the soil together, prevents erosion, holds the mountain in place. Still, dramas unfold, more often than not unseen, but real. Old  growth trunks that hold up the sky are struck by lightning, burned to their core, or toppled by high winds; boulders the size of trucks split from ice expansion, or slowly but surely erode in the wind and rain.

ROCK PAPER SCISSOR

Scissor: If you’ve ever lost the trail, and scrambled through a chaparral covered hillside you’ll know what I’m talking about. The bright red bark of manzanita bushes doesn’t yield to lost hikers, it shreds their skin and clothes. The same can be said about chamise, sagebrush and especially prickly yuccas. This stuff loves sun-drenched slopes, and blossoms wildly after a wildfires–watch out for poodle dog bush, that one will burn you–smothering charred tree carcasses, climbing all over and around naked boulders, but rarely high enough to provide human shade.

Still, bandits, indians, sheriffs, miners, loggers, surveyors, astrologists, hermits and hikers have perused these parts for centuries, cutting paths through the merciless chaparral, feeding on the nuts and berries, building cabins with the trees they felled, bridges and dams with the cement they extracted from the rock, even dreams on the lure of gold they coveted in the creek beds and mines they dug, sometimes dreams of a better life, but mostly just hopes of surviving the one you got with dignity. It’s like a game of chance; no one likes to lose, but winning too often is weird, like you stacked the deck or something.

No book in my library has been leafed through, consulted, and read more often than John W. Robinson’s “Trails of the Angeles, 100 Hikes in the San Gabriels.” With the logical exception of a 1972 Larousse dictionary my mom gifted me as a schoolboy in the Jura region of Switzerland who couldn’t point to the San Gabriel Mountains on a map if his life depended on it–they don’t appear in the Larousse. The rapid evolution of web resources like Wikipedia has retired my Larousse, but not the “100 hikes”. No author, no human being, has had a more direct influence on my passion for hiking, and no guide has taught me more about our local mountains. So it was with great sadness that I learned, just last week, that he had passed away in April.

R.I.P. John Robinson. This hike is for you.

(Insert “Hike 101, a short story” here).

P.S: Somewhere along the Gabrielino trail above Oakwilde you may or may not find a little note I left for you. I know, I littered, I left a trace, but I guess that was the point, at least it’s bio-degradable, fully-reclycled paper, and I picked up all my trash. Promise. I always do. As a matter of fact, I often pick up other people’s trash.

Walking Project 135_hike 101 – bear-brown-arroyo loop from chris worland on Vimeo.