Photo Essay: Descanso Gardens & Trail

I think in order to spend any time out here, you have to realize that "LA" is more than just Hollywood and West Hollywood, that it's a huge, sprawling metropolis consisting of smaller, unique neighborhoods jammed together in a puzzle where the pieces don't always quite fit together.

It's like how NYC isn't just Manhattan. But there are still lots of people who don't know that either.

Yesterday I spent some time northeast of LA in the Pasadena area. Sitting in his backyard by the pool, sipping champagne and watching a Doberman and a poodle get to know each other, my friend David said, "I love this. I love inviting neighbors over. I have a great life. I sound very suburban, don't I?" And I suppose he did. But you can't argue with happiness.

Even though David's dinner party in the 'burbs wasn't until later in the day, I took the opportunity to spend the entire day "out there," meeting up with a college friend at Descanso Gardens and then taking a challenging solo hike in the surrounding trails.



Descanso Gardens isn't huge, but it has a nice rose garden...



...a lovely fountain...



...other water features...



...and paved paths, arbors, gazebos, nature trails, and a historic home / art gallery all ripe for exploring.

Outside the gardens entrance, you can find the Descanso Trail (not maintained by the gardens but by La Cañada Flintridge Trails Council) marked by a wooden fence and three yellow posts.



After a slight wooded area, the trail almost immediately becomes vertical, with lots of switchbacks.



You get pretty high, pretty fast.





The trail turns into a fire road towards Cherry Canyon...



...past a police firing range...



...up more hills to a ridge with the freeway, a water tank, power lines and radio towers all looming in the distance.



You can even see a bit of skyline...



...and a splash of color.



The trails were mostly deserted. I saw a few brave souls rolling their bikes down the steep switchbacks as I was on my way up, and met a couple bicyclists taking a break from their exploration at the top, but otherwise, I was alone, and peaceful. It was the first time I really felt like I did when I was in Joshua Tree, and it was a welcome return of serenity, survival, and the peaceful coexistence of certainty and uncertainty.

The Cherry Canyon fire road ends at a gate and meets up with some other trails that look pretty tantalizing.



To complete the 90-minute loop, you then have to walk along the town streets (no sidewalks), past gated estates and landscaped lawns back to the Descanso Gardens parking lot.

With the nearby Angeles National Forest, there are actually lots of opportunities to hike in the area, as well as other gardens at Huntington Library and the Los Angeles Aboretum. However, Descanso Gardens provided a nice one-stop shop for both (and a lovely beet salad for lunch).

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Photo Essay: Wilacre Park to Coldwater Canyon

I'm still not used to the fact that, unlike Manhattan, there are real hikes you can do out here in LA that are really centrally located. Although during my last trip I did get to hike up to the observatory in Griffith Park, it was really crowded and didn't provide the feeling of wilderness that I've been seeking since returning from Joshua Tree last summer. During this trip, as soon as I had a break in my meeting schedule, I took a detour into Wilacre Park, part of Fryman Canyon, on my way to the Valley.

The parking lot was full and I was greeted by an excited hiking group of well-toned, tanned men and their dogs getting ready to set off as I changed into my sneakers. I was worried that this popular park would also be too populated for my taste, but the steep climb dissipates the crowd from the get-go, everyone taking the wide, old paved road at their own (in my case, relatively leisurely) pace.







There were lots of signs of former habitation in the park, from the paved road to fences and other rusted, graffitied metal scraps. Wilacre reportedly housed the estate of a silent film star.



There was definitely a building here once.



But the winding road increasingly losing its pavement, takes you quickly out of the city, with gentle reminders along the way when a clearing reveals the skyline below.





The map made it look like there was a big loop that I could take though the park that would return me to the parking lot, but the only trail marker I ever saw was at the Betty B. Dearing trailhead, and never again. I did spot some diversions off the trail, including this steep climb to a scenic overlook, whose rope-assisted climb proved to be visited less, yet extremely gratifying.



On the way to the top, I passed by a giant beaver cactus that had been carved within an inch of its life by hikers before me.







Soon after returning from the diversion, Wilacre Park just ends, and leads into Coldwater Canyon and its pervasive propaganda from the Tree People. The color of the ground below actually changes to show the boundary between the two parks.



Having expected a loop, and not having a map with me, I retraced my steps through Wilacre to try to find a turn I may have missed. I only found unmarked, narrow clearings through thick brush that appeared to be more like washes than trails and, so, defeated, revised my hike into an out-and-back and went back the same way I came.

The wildflowers in Griffith Park had been stunning two months ago, but with the incipient summer and the rising temperatures, Wilacre Park was mostly just green (which, in LA, is better than the very flammable brown). There were a few splashes of color along the way...







Hiking Wilacre Park wasn't the most obvious choice, or the most difficult, but it was on the way to my afternoon pool party, just off Laurel Canyon (another one of my favorite drives), and so it fit the bill. Next time I'll explore some of the surrounding canyons...and will bring a map.

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Scenes from LA: Mulholland Drive

Universal City Scenic Overlook
 
During my last visit to LA, I kept trying to convince Edith to take the rental car down Mulholland Drive when she had some time to kill, waiting for me to finish up meetings. It's one of my favorite drives, anywhere.

She didn't brave the winding road that might just take you into another reality, but when I was driving from North Hollywood to Beverly Hills for a meeting this week, and the GPS told me to take Sunset, I said, "Screw you, I'm taking Mulholland."

Of course, its hairpin turns and customary stop at the scenic overlook probably made me much later than the traffic on Sunset would have.

But it was worth it to see the low-hanging mist on the distant mountains, so very different from the pervasive smog and June gloom that often plagues the LA area this time of year.

I was only 10 minutes late for my meeting. In LA traffic terms, that means I was actually 20 minutes early.

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Aren't We All LOST?

I watch less and less TV since my return from a television-free month in the desert last summer.

Sure, I've traded Guiding Light for General Hospital, but otherwise I've been reticent to schedule in any more appointment TV, choosing to live instead of watching others live.

One holdout has been LOST, partially because I knew that this sixth and final season would release me soon from its bewildering shackles.

As of this morning, I am free.

Granted, I didn't spend six years trying to figure the show out, dissecting the Easter egg clues and philosophical references. When the characters started traveling through time, I was in for the ride. I enjoyed the high-stakes tale of survival, the incredible sense of adventure that the setting, characters, and plotline created, taking me to places and showing me things that I have not (yet) experienced.

And even though I had accepted that certain things about the show would never be resolved, I was hoping it would at least, finally, make sense.

I can't say that it did.

I'm glad I didn't spend a lot of time reading internet theories about the show, my only time investment being when I actually watched an episode, or maybe some morning-after chitchat with fellow viewers at work. I'm glad I didn't imagine all sorts of crazy explanations for where they were and why.

When it comes down to it, sometimes it doesn't matter.

I must admit, in fact, that I have little patience with imagination.

Then again, I do imagine things all the time.

I imagine conversations and bits of dialogue, many of which I end up actually uttering. I imagine sensations, exhilarations, intoxications and heartbreaks as much as I did as a captive child, relishing each and every opportunity I get to actually experience them, be they good or bad.

And as much as I love imagining new ideas, new places, new technology, and new flavor combinations, the most frustrating thing of all is not being able to actually experience them.

What’s the point of imagining something you can or will never encounter? What happens when the events in your imagination never actually happen, and can never happen? Are you then cursed to lead a life of disappointment?

I think that trying to figure life out as you live through it is somewhat of a losing game. Even if you figure out its secrets, its mythologies, and its character motivations, like LOST or The Sixth Sense or any other "big secret" / "big reveal" story, you don't actually know you're right until the story is over. And then what do you have? Were you able to enjoy the experience any better, just because you'd "figured it out" halfway through?

And what if you're wrong? What if your theory is so much better than ... reality? What happens when you figure that out?

There is a certain pleasure in not knowing, in taking life's clues as they are revealed to you, and building the story as you go along. In reality, people's motivations change. Circumstances change. People make unlikely, unwise and sometimes completely unpredictable decisions.

Despite the prevalence of wacky iconography, far-fetched storylines and incongruous, anti-linear plot devices, as far as I can tell, the "secret" of LOST has something to do with having a purpose in life, helping others, not dying alone, and letting go. It ended on a purely emotional, interpersonal note and, like in a bad dream, ignored all the crazy shit that happened that can't be explained.

So maybe to move on in life (and after, or whatever), we must stop trying to find meaning in every little detail, and focus on what really matters: the people we love.

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Photo Essay: The Glass House

The Philip Johnson Glass House site is a sprawling campus of nearly 50 acres tucked away in New Canaan, CT, featuring the namesake glass house, as well as several other buildings and landscape features.

It opened to the public in 2007, two years after the death of modern architect Philip Johnson, whose work includes the New York State Pavilion in Flushing-Meadows Corona Park.

In the years since it's opened, it has required a real hustle to get tickets to the limited tours, but thanks to some swift action by Edith this year, we managed to nab three tickets.


gate

 
one of The Glass House's four side doors


interior Glass House bedroom and bathroom


exterior Glass House pool, whose conical design makes it impossible to stand up anywhere in it except one spot


The Brick House, facing the Glass House (currently closed for renovations and repairs)


The Brick House rear w/porthole windows and skylights visible




Painting Gallery


Sculpture Gallery


Sculpture Gallery interiors


Sculpture Gallery interior


Interior "Da Monsta" (visitor pavilion)

There's a lot to see on the huge property, and even though we spent hours meandering on a docent-led tour, we didn't get to see everything. I would have loved to climb down to the pond and explore its pavilion, and to see the Glass House from below. But as it was, I feel like we got a treat with our visit, and a rare glimpse into the very personal life of an architect whose work I admire, and whose home was a living, evolving example of his own work - and still looks modern today.



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