This one is dedicated to Hiroshige and Brett Harte. And Quincy Troupe, whose “Sonic Fireflies” I read several times times while waiting for a ranger to finish servicing a National Forest privy. The “syncopation of syllables flowing free form” set the perfect beat for the day, even if the mood was quite different. There were no fireflies or prowling black panthers on the yucca covered mountain slope, but you do have to wander what kind of metaphor those decorated eggplants might conjure.
Five sun baked eggplants
on the steep Sunset Peak ridge
enlaced with copper
bracelets, eco-friendly art
secret terroir recipe?
Running in the rain. Smell the chaparral scents suspended in the droplets hanging from the laurel sumac bushes that brush against your thighs, cheeks and forehead as your feet dig into the softened dirt when you pass. Hear the pitter patter, the quenching chatter of upturned manzanita foliage gathering moisture, the excitement of slender sagebrush, the delight of minuscule chamise. Dried silvery tree trunks littered on the hillside, yesterday long dead, now like freely drawn charcoal marks that will rot and fuel the undergrowth of scrub oaks who’ve spread their precious acorns in hope of many futures, and today, because it rained, can imagine their progeny rising from the slope, or the canyon floor to shade a hot, sweaty jogger for just a brief second, on a warm sunny day.
Forested canyon
Heavy oak limbs arched over
the path shield and guide
hikers bikers and horseback
riders from low winter sun
Like parents join hands
at the end of a child's game
to cheer the team
the majestic trees gossip
the sound of saws looms nearby
this sylvan tunnel
flanked by gated and guarded
armed communities
a passage to the mountains
where the cougars roam and feed
Discarded blue purple
black orange surgical gloves
and celeste face masks
alongside blooming jasmine
and california poppies
Spotted two signs during this ramble around West Altadena and Northwest Pasadena: the first, at the taped off trailhead where West Altadena Dr. dead ends, full of fear, anxiety and aggression, threatens to call the sheriff on anyone spotted crossing onto the trail, “stay in your neighborhood”. The second, hangs next to a driveway, appeals to the passer-by to “care for yourself and others”. Two very contrasting attitudes in a health crisis that affects us all, to various degrees for sure, but indiscriminately. I’m tempted to use the contrast as more evidence of the divisions exacerbated by our current political climate, and all the anxieties it has brought forth, but I prefer to walk on, return home and prepare a meal for the family.
Listen: lawnmowers
hedge trimmers and leaf blowers
weed cutters hip hop
rancheras a live drum beat
rattles the windows as I pass
Trails closed, Walk on
asphalt less giving than dirt, Walk on
rainy forecast, Walk on
Nature is getting a rest
While LA deals with the pest, Walk on
(After listening to Neil Young)
It took all my civic-mindedness not to cross the yellow tape restricting access to all the foothill trails. The lure of the wild was strong, but I didn’t want to be that guy. Except I came across one they’d omitted, and I may or may not have treaded past it, for about a quarter mile into the forest. The bears, cougars, bobcats, squirrels, rattlesnakes, even the crows asked as I passed, “Where’d everybody go?”
“There’s a bug goin’ around” I answered, “real nasty, kills people, super contagious. We’ve been told to stay home.”
“Someone’s not a very good listener.” The bear admonished me. A group of curious lookyloos was gathering around me, they all chuckled.
“Well…It’s okay, you know, if you practice social distancing.” I blurted out guiltily, “if we, like, if we stay far enough from each other.” I noticed the bear and the cougar narrowing in on me. “Like six to ten feet apart!” I said louder, with what authority I could muster, and spreading my arms apart to illustrate.
“I ain’t heard nothing of the sort, have you?” The cougar turned to the Bear, then to the others, who were now also closing in on me. They were not openly threatening, just a little hungry, I guessed. The bobcat, for instance, was licking its chops lustily. The rattler slithered to the front of the pack, whisssspering, “I’ll sssssting him first.” Or at least that’s what I heard. I was rooting for the squirrel however, who scampered nervously from one beast to the other, repeating”What are you doing guys? He could be sick.”
“He doesn’t look sick.”
“He could be asymptomatic.”
“A superpreader!”
“So, if the trails are closed,” the cougar persisted, brushing the squirrel to the side, “they won’t come looking for you, right? ’cause you ain’t even supposed to be here.”
That’s when the reliable crow swooped overhead, croaking vigorously, a good indication, if any was needed, that some kind of game was afoot. That’s also when a cool wind gust floated into the canyon, sending a chill down my spine, made all the more chilly by the sweat accumulating on my neck, back and forehead. I shivered and sneezed loudly–into my elbow.
“AAAA – TCHAH!”
Before the sternulation had echoed even once across the canyon, the pack of animals had dispersed, scattered, vanished.
I seized the opportunity and bolted for the nearest trailhead, not the one I had come from, and it was of course blocked by a large plywood board with “COVID19 HEALTH ORDER TRAIL CLOSED” painted on it in large red letters.
I climbed over the board, and emerged into a neighborhood. I walked on, feeling the silent stare of citizens sheltered in their home bubbles, thinking rightfully “Who does he think he is?”
Round yellow blooms a million strong, brighten the arid slopes and floor of Pacoima canyon in late winter, they're named bush poppies (which I didn't know)
The big storm is coming, five consecutive days of rain according to the iphone weather app, and it’s definitely much needed. I am already looking forward to walking in it, and especially after it, when the hills are bursting with scents, the ground is moist, skies dotted with trailing white clouds the sun plays hide and seek with, and the air cleansed. Until then, with dark clouds laden with moisture ready to pounce, a short ramble into Pacoima canyon was in perfect order. Seize the day. And what a day. There was a creek, pretty flowers, a little bit of climbing, total solace, no pesky mozzies, a constant cool breeze, and a great deal of bushwhacking along a largely abandoned trail. It’s number six in the 1999 edition of “Trails of the Angeles”, but I doubt it made the latest edition–note to self, check at the library or bookstore–because it is clearly unmaintained. If this were a guide, this is where I’d warn: map and compass, GPS, mandatory, involves route-finding, and wear long sleeves and pants. On that note, thank you to the considerate souls who erected cairns through the years, without those lovely rockpiles this walk would have been considerably harder. That said, even the cairns were often hidden by rampant vegetation, difficult to spot, and I’m sure I missed a few. However, the trail follows the floor of the canyon, so it’s hard to get lost or make a wrong turn, but it’s considerably easier to follow someone’s previous foray through the dense vegetation that lines the creek, especially in the narrower sections, than to have to carve your own. Whether one is more fun than the other is up for debate. At least, unlike in recent scrambling adventures, I had the presence of mind to capture some of the experience, and even found time to admire the millions of yellow flowers that blanketed the canyon slopes. I learned later they’re called bush poppies or Dendromecon rigida, to be scientific.
The new track of this section of the Pacific Crest Trail is a gently graded, wide cut through the manzanita and chamise fields blanketing the northern slopes of Sierra Pelona, that eventually plunges in and out of an oak grove, before landing on the barren ridge. It’s as good as a trail gets, and very different from some of the bushwhacking I’ve been involved in lately, not necessarily better though, but definitely very pleasant.
A manzanita crown floats over a chamise sea red bark, green leaves silvery in morning sun bright yellow at magic hour
The walk along the broad rounded ridge to McDill follows a dirt service road, I’m told often blasted by strong winds from the seemingly endless desert to the north. On this sunny winter day, the persistent breeze was cool and refreshing, though it did blow my hat off a few times.
Wind battered live oaks line the shaded slope of the Sierra Pelona young and ancient survivors whispering words of wisdom
I lunched under the canopy of a big old oak, whose original trunk was hollowed out by fire, giving room for younger limbs to grow around it, and whose leaves danced to the soothing melody of the softening breeze. Under my feet, a carpet of fallen leaves and acorns covered the soil and grass that will soon turn brown. Exposed roots dug into the dirt like the fingers of an ageless hand, anchoring the tree to the mountain floor and giving it structure and stability at the same time.
On a mission to explore new terrain and faced with the daunting multitude of paths on the Alltrails app, my navigational tool of choice, I resorted to John Robinson’s classic “Trails of the Angeles, 100 hikes in the San Gabriels”, for this outing to the northwest corner of the range. As of its 1999 edition, you could drive all the way past Templin Highway, to Cienaga campground, and hike deep into the canyon, as described in Robinson’s hike #3. That is no longer true. The road through the lower reaches of Fish Canyon is eroded, washed out, or covered with large boulders, and you have to walk it. Not a problem. We like walking.
It’s actually comforting to witness nature reclaiming territory over human asphalt ribbons, and other abandoned concrete structures that lace and dot even our reserved wilderness landscapes–the Mueller tunnel, the bridge to nowhere, several ski lifts, the Echo ‘White City’ resort. To read the dusk of the anthropocene into these ruins would be tempting but pessimistic. I’d rather imagine that, whatever lies next in the history of the planet, may not include that much concrete or asphalt or glass or metal or even humans, since we are so hellbent on self-destruction, but Life will march on.
In the canyon, alive, well and merry swarms of mosquitos partied and drank around my warm-blooded ankles, knees and wrists. To escape them, I took an overgrown, largely abandoned trail leading up a slope thickly covered with chaparral. Again, not a problem; a little dose of bushwhacking adds a dose of excitement to any ramble in the woods. It also serves as a reminder that this habitat is not friendly to lonesome, untooled bipeds in shorts, t-shirts and trail runners.
The untrimmed yuccas rhyme with prickly motherfuckas spill blood on the trail which rhymes with breathe climb exhale beats the mozzie armies below
The northerly was blowing strong again this morning, climbing out of the Deukmejian Wilderness on the trail to Mt Lukens.
A two inch cricket basking in the winter sun chirps just once before hopping away out of sight due to unsafe conditions
The roar of a child carried by a winter breeze floats to the ocean people smile as it passes let the inner demons out
By the time I reached the summit it had calmed considerably though it still made a door slam repeatedly on one of the relay tower bases, while another tower whined incessantly. And then the breeze stopped. And I ventured onto a trail that was faint at first, then severely overgrown, and finally disappeared, just late enough in the game that I was committed to not turning back though I probably should have. The next mile or so was a sever bushwhack through some of the densest chaparral I have ever crossed. The effort of finding an acceptable path, without loosing footing, and scraping, pushing, crawling at times, shoving, tripping, through an endless field of branches, thorns, rocks bent on NOT letting me pass, prevented me from recording any of it–so much for my multi-tasking skills.
Lesson: when the Alltrails app fails to guide you to a passable trail, turn around, retrace your steps, or start filming and go ahead, bleed for your fun.
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