Tag: San Gabriels (Page 9 of 10)

One of my favorite places in the Angeles Front Country is the eastern edge of Mt Markham. The trail doesn’t appear on a lot of maps, but I’ve been visiting the spot regularly for many years. The easiest way to get there is from the Eaton saddle on the Mt Wilson Red Box road, past the locked gate, taking the Mt Lowe fire road that skirts the south face of San Gabriel Peak going through the Mueller Tunnel. You get a bird’s eye view of the tunnel once you reach the spot, but take a step too many and you will fall to a certain death, down the eastern cliff edge of Markham, to the upper reaches of Eaton Canyon, approximately eight hundred feet below. The south face is just as daunting. It’s a dramatic vista point made all the more special by a convenient large rock that sits like a table or bench inviting the passerby to rest for a moment, and take in the spectacle.

Speaking of spectacle, the Mueller tunnel is also a stage in this performance.

Walking Project 017_tunnel visions from chris worland on Vimeo.

I heard somewhere a piece of trail wisdom. If you lose the trail, just look for the cut trees.

©Copyright 1954 by Bourne Co. Copyright Renewed All Rights Reserved International Copyright Secured

Walking Project 015_smile from chris worland on Vimeo.

“Humans have entered the San Gabriels in almost every conceivable manner. We have come into the mountains for a multitude of reasons. And we have come in great numbers. Few mountain ranges anywhere have been so much viewed, swarmed over, dug into, and built upon by the human species.”

John Robinson, Trail of the Angeles

The southern foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains must have been bustling with activity at the turn of the twentieth century. Tourist attractions like the Echo Mountain resort and the Mt Lowe railway drew weekly crowds, dams were built for flood control, summer cabins cropped up in the canyons, San Gabriel valley cities like Pasadena, Sierra Madre, Monrovia, Azusa, Claremont were experiencing real population explosions, which meant construction, which meant extensive logging, and of course there was mining. Mining for gold.

Today, walking in those mountains is a welcome getaway from the teeming LA metropolis. The mines are abandoned, visited only by curious hikers. The Echo Mountain resort is just ruins, as is the Mt Lowe railway, and other oddities like the Bridge to Nowhere, the Mueller Tunnel are inexorably being reclaimed by the forces of nature. I can’t help imagine that, in due time, whatever that time is, human projects like, say, Los Angeles, will reach a stage where it makes more sense to abandon than continue, because the money runs out, it’s too dang hot, a killer bug decimates ninety percent of humanity, etc..(fill in your own doomsday scenario).

In the meantime, I’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope not to fall into a sixty foot mineshaft filled with icy water.

The ‘B’ story for this walk is that the trail to the Dawn mine is being expertly restored by the USDA Forest Service. Thank you.

History of the Dawn mine and map.

Walking Project 014_lost in a goldmine or two from chris worland on Vimeo.

“The Battle of Copenhagen”

Ten thousand Swedes ran through the weeds,
chased by one norwegian.
Ten thousand more ran to the shore
in the battle of Copenhagen.

Way, way back in history,
back when the world was new,
norwegian searched all over,
to find some snoose to chew.

They fished for Lutefisk and Torsk,
it helped to make them strong,
and you and me, we know a Norsk,
cannot do nothing wrong.

But swedes and danes were envious
of Viking trips and raids.
The Viking shields and helmet horns,
made all those folks afraid.

Throughout the world the Vikings sailed,
to Ireland and to France.
They even found America,
one afternoon by chance.

My grandpa says, and he should know,
the swedes made up the minds.
To beat the Norsky Vikings,
and kick a few behinds.

But history, so grandpa says,
show that the Norskies won.
They clobbered all the swedes and danes,
and made it lots of fun.

Ten thousand swedes ran through the weeds,
chased by one norwegian.

The dust from the weeds,
made snoose for the swedes,
and they called it Copenhagen,

E. C. Stangland

The full version of the ditty Frank, of Norwegian extraction, recited for me, of Swedish extraction, at the summit of Mt Baldy, is the source of much debate. “Chased by” or “chasing”? did it originate ‘back home’ or with immigrants in Minnesota? and most importantly, what was the Battle of Copenhagen? Hemingway wrote his own–expanded and globalized–version

A couple of touching eulogies to Sam, who recently passed away on Mt Baldy, by Edward Kim at Socalhiker.net, and Drew Robinson at Trailtopeak.com

Walking Project 012_ten thousand swedes from chris worland on Vimeo.

“It’s time to get up

and stomp your feet

to this great foot-stomping

Transylvanian beat

Start nice and slow     (chorus): One, two

then speed up more    (chorus): One, two, three, four

’cause we’re about to find out

the number of the day!

(chorus): What’s the number? STOMP, STOMP

What’s the number? STOMP, STOMP

What is the numbeeeer?

The number of the day (chorus) haha!

scheduled to arrive (chorus) haha!

the number of the day is

FIVE!”

Sesame Street: Number 5 song (number of the day)

Listen on YT

It all started on this chilly, windy morning when I set off on the Crescenta View Trail, in Deukmejian Wikderness Park, when I noticed a big “5” spray-painted on a dam where the trail crosses a dry river bed. I had approximately five miles to go to reach my destination, Mt Lukens, and when I got there, amidst the antennas and adjacent structures was this cinder block building with six conveniently numbered doors.

Yes, six, it’s not a mistake, I didn’t film the sixth.

As I climb out of Bailey Canyon looking back at increasingly distant views of the Mater Dolorosa Passionist Retreat Center and the San Gabriel Valley beyond, I imagine how a Tongva indian looking down at the San Gabriel Mission would have had a similar view, minus the suburban sprawl, of course, but a dramatically different perspective.

“Since Southern California was the area of most intensive Mission activity among Indians, it is interesting to note the consequences of Missionization. From a total of 30,000 in 1769, the number of Indians in Southern California declined to approximately 1,250 by 1910. The seeds of this decline were sown by the Franciscans….So far as the Indian was concerned, contact with the Missions meant death.

…

With the best theological intentions in the world, the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps.”

Carey McWilliams, Southern California, An Island on the Land

Combine this trail guide to Jones Peak with this one for the section from Jones to Hastings to Mt Wilson.

Walking Project 005_the bells of bailey from chris worland on Vimeo.

I think it safe to say that, in fifteen plus years of hiking in the San Gabriel Mountains, more bears have seen me than I have seen bears. The bears I’ve encountered lurk in the imagination, like the hip, existentialist jazz saxophone blowing Bear from Rafi Zabor’s “The Bear”

“Something came through for a couple of choruses and floated above the demands of the time and turned slowly on its axis, but then, even before the Bear was aware of it, he had lowered his saxophone and begun to walk offstage. His solo, apparently, was over.”

Or the extraordinary true tale of Wojtek, the bear who served alongside a Polish Artillery unit during WWII, related in “Bear Season” (Bernie Hafeli)

“A lorry driver, a German prisoner-of-war, was so shocked to see the bear out for a stroll that he drove his vehicle off the road, into a pond, and couldn’t get it restarted. When Wojtek went to investigate, the horrified driver took off running. Wojtek lumbered along in curious pursuit until the driver scrambled up a tree. The bear had never treed a human being before; what new game was this? For a minute he watched the man, utterly intrigued, then decided to climb up after him. This evoked a series of blood-curdling screams; the German was certain his time had come. Alerted by the screams of imminent death, Piotr, my uncle, and some others ran to the rescue, coaxing Wojtek down with a bottle of beer.”

And of course there is the grizzly specimen that adorns the California flag, the Ursus arctos californicus “Monarch”.

A useful and detailed guide to the Old Mt Wilson trail from Sierra Madre.

Walking Project 004_ROAR from chris worland on Vimeo.