The plan was simple, straightforward. Up Tanoble to link up with the Altadena Crest Trail (ACT), go east then ascend the ridge, the one that looks like it might connect with the abandoned Gooseberry Motorway–a dirt road carved into the mountain when the power lines were installed but abandoned since, leaving barely a walkable trail that dead ends above Eaton canyon and that you “enter at your own risk of serious injury or death”. I’d cased the area from above a couple of years ago, and while I wasn’t then able to trace a continuous visible path, no section of the ridge appeared impassable and I promised myself that I would one day attempt to pass it. Many of the outings documented in this blog are first inspired by a similar desire to find new paths, trails I haven’t treaded, and then fueled by the discoveries, large and small, made along the way. Put another way: I am curious, to the point of being stubborn, and walking enhances that particular character trait. Why hike ‘out and back’ if you can loop it? Seeing more is living more, right?
The black dotted track on the Alltrails app confirmed what I suspected; the ridge was passable. More accurately, it had been walked by somebody at some point in time. A bit of bushwhacking is a plus on any hike, a minor adrenaline rush, but I tend to follow existing trails. I’m no kamikaze; in the face of granite cliffs, snow storms, exhaustion, I’m quite happy to turn around, accept defeat and return home for a warm shower and a beer. As I veered north from the ACT onto the steep firebreak it was instantly clear that I would have to earn the shower and beer with at least a fair dose of sweat. The mid-afternoon sun was baking the hillside, with little to no sign of a breeze for relief, and for shade, nothing. Until, about three quarters of the way up the first incline, I found an improvised awning. Someone–the Alltrails tracker?–had tied an elephant-themed blanket–a republican?–to a laurel bush overhanging the trail, leaving just enough room for a weary, sun-struck passer-by to hide under. Things were looking good, even though the views of the sprawling San Gabriel Valley below were hazy and uninteresting. I caught my breath and trudged on.
Shortly thereafter, I reached the first plateau, approximately the halfway mark, and, to my surprise, the first of many dead ends; a wall of thick chaparral covered the backside of the promontory and the small saddle connecting it to the continuation of the ridge. For the next fifteen minutes, I followed every possible insinuation of a previous track to no avail. Do not underestimate the ability of thorny, rugged, Yucca infested brushes to deter human passage. A machete would have made the task easy, but I typically don’t carry one, and besides, I wasn’t looking to blaze a trail, finding one would be more than fun enough. Go back? It seemed inevitable. What a shame though. The saddle was a mere fifty meters long, if that. After that the ridge climbed steeply towards the electrical towers, and the vegetation thinned; from there there had to be a way to reach the ‘Motorway’. What if I advance thirty, forty meters and can’t go any further, or worse, disrupt a cougar or a bear during a midday nap, step on a rattler, slice a wrist on a manzanita branch? I chased these pleasant thoughts away with a smile and dove into the least obstructed opening I could find.
It was slow going, and scratchy, and precarious, and fun, I’ll admit. I pushed, dug, crawled, doggedly scrambled my way through the next fifty meters, trying to guess where a trail should be, if it ever existed. I came across a yellow tee shirt, half buried under fallen leaves and dead branches, which helped me feel less alone; it was physical proof that someone had done this before, in the past five years. When I reached the end of the saddle, things got easier, and quite a lot steeper. Carving my own switchbacks in the sandy soil, using abundant sagebrush as a rope to pull myself up the hill, checking my foothold at every step, I eventually reached the electrical towers, and then easily enough the coveted Motorway. I looked down, through a grid of metal power towers at the road I’d traveled and felt like I often felt as a kid after getting away with some forbidden deed, like a million francs. I smiled and carried on.
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