Tag: San Gabriels (Page 7 of 10)

Storm clouds gathered overnight, darkening the sky over the foothills in the morning. When I set off for a quick jaunt in ‘our backyard’, the air was brisk with a fresh breeze promising to bring in more clouds but, as the day wore on…

No RAIN–you have to capitalize something you need badly–just another beautiful, mostly sunny day. I walked the familiar paths, kicking up a lot of dust, gazing at the amazing palette of grays, browns and yellows that is slowly but surely overtaking this landscape. I could almost hear the chaparral chanting, the dried creek bed pleading, the carcass of old oaks cursing for RAIN, please Rain! Pretty please.

Walking Project 110_winter clouds but… – altadena crest from chris worland on Vimeo.

Even though they blocked off the entry to Dawn mine–to prevent my getting lost?–and because the newly re-worked trail to Tom Sloane saddle is nearly complete, and beautiful, a great shout out to the crews who’ve moved rocks, dirt, boulders, pipes, and hoed, hacked, sawed, dug and re-engineered this fun trail.

By the way, can you spot the trail worker in the video?

I visited these parts a little less than a year ago, and nearly got lost in a dense fog. Today, that deep blue Socal sky is open and bright, an invitation to go beyond the saddle, to Mt Lowe where I knew I’d find more telescopes, like the ones at Inspiration point that help you ‘locate’ a spot in the landscape through a cast iron pipe, which brings me to a truth about much of the ‘tramping’ I do in these and other mountains: nothing like a good view to make you feel like you’re “On top of the world Ma!” That’s what peak-bagging is all about right? the view. But, and this is a big but, it, the view, has to be earned.

Walking Project 109_return to the mine, and beyond from chris worland on Vimeo.

Looking for inspiration? Start on the north side of Rubio Canyon Road, where it becomes East Loma Alta dr., as the road curves around the Rubio Wash Debris Basin. Head north on Camp Huntington road and continue beyond the yellow gate, you’ll see an old cabin on the right, check it out and march on, staying left, on the dirt road.  The road turns into a single use trail right after you pass a flood control structure and a pipe that stretches overhead, across the canyon. Take the first trail that spurs to the right to find yourself above the Rubio reservoir. After a few paces on the trail that follows the chained link fence contouring the reservoir, take the first trail to the left, heading straight up the ridge, on the Lone Tree trail. You’ll know what kind of grade you’re in for right away. It doesn’t really let up after this point, but soon you’ll have one last chance to bail out, when you get to a fork with a sign, pointing left to head down into Rubio Canyon or right to stay on Lone Tree. Go right. Just under three thousand feet of elevation later, you will summit Muir Peak. Enjoy the views of Mt Wilson, Mt Lowe and the whole LA basin on a clear day, and the rest, then head down the trail on the north slope of Muir. Soon it connects with a fire road, Muir Peak road. Go left. Inspiration lurks about a quarter of a mile down the road. To truly immerse in the beauty of the spot, take peaks in some of the telescopes lining the south wall of the interpretive site, but take a long hard look into the one locating “Inspiration Point.”

Walking Project 107_inspiration point from chris worland on Vimeo.

Trekking up the familiar trail that mostly follows the bed of the old funicular that linked Rubio canyon and the Echo Mountain Resort. My mind still visually in Japan, dealing with the slight disappointment with what I filmed there. Time was a factor, the lack of time to really explore on foot, to ramble in totally new surroundings, but also purpose. I probably tried too hard and what I captured was not a tourist guide, not a formal exercise, not even really a home movie. I didn’t find the story, or I didn’t let the story find me. As a remedy for further explorations, the opening scenes of the Wim Wenders film “Tokyo – Ga” came to mind. Wenders begins by laying out his objective, namely pay tribute to one of Japan’s most revered classic filmmakers, Yasujiro Ozu, by traveling to Tokyo, the setting of most of his films, where he hopes to find traces of Ozu’s films, or even people involved with the films. This, twenty years after Ozu’s death. Then Wnedres shows the opening scene from “Tokyo Story”, Ozu’s best known work, where an elderly couple prepares to travel to Tokyo to visit their grown children. And finally we get some of Wenders’ images: a black screen, the movie screening on the plane–this is back in 1983, when there was only one film projected on one central screen per section of the plane–the left wing of the plane as seen through a window, and the shinkansen train pulling into a station–tribute to the Lumière bros?. Over these four shots, he speaks:

“On the flight over they showed a film and like always I tried not to watch it, and like always I found myself watching it. Without the sound the images on the screen seemed that much more empty to me, a hollow form, framing and imitating emotion. It felt good just to look out the window. If only it were possible to film like that, I thought to myself, like when you open your eyes sometimes, just to look without wanting to prove anything.”

Wim Wenders, “Tokyo-Ga”

Walking Project 107_winter half moon – Echo mountain from chris worland on Vimeo.

Amen.

If you’re following this blog a little more seriously than I am, if you’re holding your breath anticipating the next video, you might be dead of asphyxiation by now, or at the very least you will have noticed the three week silence. Rest assured, I’ve been walking, and recording, in exciting places.

“Et pourtant la nature est éternellement belle et généreuse. Elle verse la poésie à tous les êtres, …elle possède le secret du bonheur, et nul n’a su le lui ravir. Le plus heureux des hommes serait celui qui, possédant la science de son labeur, et travaillant de ses mains, puisant le bien-être et la liberté dans l’exercise de sa force intelligente, aurait le temps de vivre par le coeur et par le cerveau, de comprendre son oeuvre et d’aider celle de Dieu.”

Yet nature is eternally beautiful and generous. She pours poetry on all beings,…she possesses the secret for happiness, and no one has succeeded in stealing it from her. The happiest of men is he who, in full mastery of his craft, working with his hands, drawing well-being and freedom from the use of his intelligent power, should have time to live by the heart and the brain, to comprehend his work and assist in God’s.

Extrait de “La Mare au Diable”, George Sand, and my fairly literal translation.

Walking Project 102_twas the season – Altadena from chris worland on Vimeo.

I learned two things on this walk that started with a serenade of roosters guarding the forlorn cabin at the mouth of Rubio canyon. First, when someone has gone through the trouble of posting a ‘Danger’ sign at the beginning of a trail, go through the trouble of reading it, before forging ahead. Second, the Gooseberry motorway, carved in 1923, out of the rugged, steep southern foothills of the San Gabriel mountains, between Rubio and Eaton canyons, to access and maintain the power lines, is abandoned, a dead end, which was stated in plain english on the sign I hadn’t read until I returned from butting into a dead end.

Walking Project 046_dead end – rubio to gooseberry from chris worland on Vimeo.

A quick sunset scramble up to the ruins of the Echo Mountain Resort, following the path of the funicular that used to haul up visitors from the floor of Rubio Canyon, to catch a colorful view of the windswept SoCal basin in winter evening light, six days from winter solstice, ended in drama. The drama of a sunset that was spectacular for all the wrong reasons. To the west, beyond the last visible ridge, an enormous cloud of deep purple fire smoke streaked across the sky, slicing, then filtering, and finally obscuring the blood orange disc of the sun. Less than a hundred miles away, nature is recycling, with such vigor and fury–“it’s a mega-fire” I’m told, the new normal–we are quickly reminded of our fragile existence; “we can’t fight these things, we just got to let them burn” I read in the paper. On the way home, with dusk turning to evening, pin pricks of white, green, amber, red lights piercing the dark expanse of Los Angeles below, I recall with dread all the bushwhacking I did to get to Echo earlier, through very dry chaparral, ideal kindling material, where the only evidence of moisture was the sweat on my back.

WP045_nice view – echo mountain from chris worland on Vimeo.