Mounting Whitney 2: Mounting Liebre's Sunny Hell

Yes, time to kick it up a notch. Echo Mountain was a warmup, a crowded trail that just barely stretched above Altadena. It’s time to Mount Liebre via a trail in the NorthWest of the Angeles Forest, rising to about 5k, yes, with endless views of desert. According to my guidebook it was a nice shady trail, lined with thick trees, yes, very beautiful and scenic.

Goddamn these guidebooks. The problem with such a book is that it provides great reference doesn’t automatically get updated when the hillside is ravaged by fire and the shady trail becomes a scorching windy death march, as happened all the way back in 2005, so we start among the chaparral and brush and burnt trees of the desert and it didn't get much shadier.

But still, go back, before that, yes, when Bec and Andy and I get there and can’t tell which trail to go down. Some old grit sitting in her pickup truck, nice enough, sure, also doesn’t know in spite of her Pacific Crest Trail shirt and her presence with the crews working on the trail above. We’re confused with the terms northbound and southbound but soon we figure out that southbound means the north trail or, in layman’s terms, the ONE TO THE RIGHT. Why these trailbooks refuse to refer to things in standard English I don’t know but I suspect there’s a feeling of superiority inherent in the hearts of such writers. I see a couple hiking it and ask them the same question and the woman says she doesn’t know, she’s just come here all her life but doesn’t know what it’s called. Nobody is helpful, it appears, and I'm feeling truly out of my element.

And before that, while driving down unmarked backcountry roads, the land that time forgot, yes, we didn’t start until a good hour after we’d originally planned.

Anyway we slowly switchback up as the sun burns down on us, Bec and I didn’t bring any sun lotion, checklist stupidity. We begin to see the expanse of the horizon unfurling, to see lakes below us, hills and plateaus and mountains off to the North. 

Partway up a crew of men are working in the blazing sun with hardhats and chainsaws keeping it clear for all of us weekenders. We thank them, I want to be them, throw off the shackles of my job to sweat and cut down trees and enjoy nature away from computers. 

We push on as the trail straightens, up some steps the trailfolk made, into a first thicket of trees and everybody collapses. The dogs lap the water with the thirst of demons, Bronco near-dead and Stevie wide-eyed and little Ceci struggling to get a lick but nervous and jittery. Ceci's a new addition and seemingly does the best here, even if she's smaller than the massive pine cones that line the trail.

Up a bit further we catch regular patches of pine tree shade but those are sparse. Bronco throws up. Steve starts refusing to go out of the shady patches. Eventually Bronco is wobbling, looks horrible, and Bec volunteers to wait with him in some shade as Andy and Stevie and I go for the summit. We break through the trees, into a long strip without any shade that becomes a fire road. Stevie refuses to walk in the sun and I carry him out of the shaded parts, carry him 50 yards at a time. We pass a patch of snow and I pack it around Stevie’s feet, give him some to lick before forcing him the rest of the way.

Finally Andy and I see the couple from the start, say it’s just around the bend. There's occasional shade, mostly just dead trees, Smokey the Bear's nemesis and then a fence and old worn trail signs and a last run down a dirt fire road, getting close, about to peer beyond the edge, into the void, the money shot. Finally. God bless.

We arrive sunburnt, dirty, tired, Andy and me, take some pictures and head down, getting back to the snowpatch just around the time Bec gets there. We let the dogs rest on the snow and I pack some in my Camelback and we take a brief break for waters and Clif bars as Becca pushes forward to see the view by herself. Then a fast descent.

Stevie explodes out of his ass, a foul orange concoction like an epic Quentin Tarantino diarrhea scene.

All the dogs are fighting now, they just want to rest in the shade. We’re 2 hours later than I’d thought we’d be. The trail crew said they hoped the dogs were carrying their own weight but in fact the damn mutts were holding us back. So it goes. 

I let Stevie off leash and he runs up into a thick wooded area and I have to run after him, Stage III shoulder sprain and all. 

By the time we’re back to the car we’re dehydrated, red from sun, our dogs are near death, and we’re out of water. The views were so-so and the nature was all but gone, sacrificed in the 2005 fire. This hike left me disheartened and nearly killed my malamute. Still, at least it was training. And the legs felt strong, like I could’ve gone on forever. We’ll see.

L.A. NUTRITIONAL VALUES: BERLIN CURRYWURST

In L.A. we’re so goddamn proud of our food trucks. Koji. Grilled cheese. Just drive down Miracle Mile around noon and eat your heart out, everything from sushi to ribs to the good old roach coach burrito. But in L.A.’s sister city, Berlin (so says a sign in Griffith Park) their street food is a brilliant mouth orgy of curry-based sauce and sausages. Husband and wife owners Lena and Hardeep Manak were visiting their friend Haike Buentemeyer in Los Angeles and were shocked to find one of the world’s biggest cities sans Currywurst. Which brought me here, to Berlin Currywurst, just 3 weeks after opening, behind the 5 shoe store in hipster Silverlake, donning my finest eastside fedora for a veal and pork kielbasa, all cut up and drenched with their hottest curry sauce and fresh bread. 

It’s a pile of meat-eaters spicy heaven, perfect portions served with a side of homemade fries and onions and old-fashioned Jones soda like you drank before beer-drinking started ruining your life. It was hot, spicy, burning the tongue and the throat, opening the senses, the perfect blend of hot and tangy and meaty. The wife got beef with the #2 sauce (they’re ranked 1-4, 4 being the hottest) and ate beyond capacity, the perfect size lunch, especially once I finished the girl’s and dipped the fries in the extra sauce. A taste of Berlin in the heart of hipster country. Check it out now before it becomes the next line-out-the door skinny-jeans and too-cool for you L.A. eatery.

Mounting Whitney 1: White City

Time for adventure, folks, there’s no denying it. I’ve lived in L.A. almost 3 years and the city has began to weigh down my soul, like a dripping bag of offal clipped on the 4th lumbar. Such is a casualty when surrounded by so many egotists tweaking their nipples as they imagine what ostentation will make them look better in the eyes of others, where the entitled confuse a charmed life for artistic vision and the confused cling desperately to the unfulfillment that comes from pursuing something they’ve been told they should want without any thought to what would actually make them happy or Bentham’s hedonistic paradox.

Yes, it can be disheartening. But in the end, Los Angeles is one of the most beautiful, most dynamic, and most inspiring cities in the world. The most relevant American export right now, pop culture, is brewed in this stretch spanning from the Santa Monica mountains to the Pacific. Dreams are still cultivated, proffered, supported, even if such support might be misdirected to prop up the delusional. There’s history here, around the corner you’ll find century and 200 year old buildings and streets and what’s more, there’s a very real sense that this city is still alive, still growing, still making history and if you’re lucky you can still be a part of. But the thing most overlooked when you watch Quentin Tarantino movies or episodes of THE HILLS or ENTOURAGE is the endless collection of world-class wilderness within a short drive. On June 11th and 12th myself and 6 world-class adventurers will be Mounting Mount Whitney, a fair broad who stabs 14 and a half thousand feet into the sky above Lone Pine California, the tallest mountain in the Continental US and Hawaii.

Still, I live at sea level, give or take. I sit at a desk all day plugging busywork into a black box that offers no exercise to anything but the head or the forearms, much like masturbating from one’s own imagination but not nearly as satisfying. No, if I’m going to climb this lady, and in June with a layer of snow crowning the top no less, I’m going to need to get hiking legs under me. Which brings me to this thread.

Every weekend me and the wife and an assorted cast of characters from within and around this city will be hiking all through the Angeles and Bernardino forests, mountains climbing to 5 and even 10 thousand feet within an hour and a half of my home in Hollywood.

To start it off, we decided to climb up Echo Mountain, to the ruins of White City.

First off, let’s talk about White City. Around the last turn of the century it was a collection of a few hotels, a zoo, a machinery shop, an observatory and a spotlight, all painted white, standing as a beacon above the city of Pasadena as a vacation spot for the richers who wanted to ride a train up to the top and scream out echograms and play tennis in high alpine courts.

Bec and I and Bronco the wolf and Steve the weasel set out on this trail with backpacks leaded with water and snacks and water bowls and for me a handweight. The trail started in a quiet L.A. suburb, parking in front of a house behind rows of SUV’s with passengers laden with water bottles and yuppie hiking gears and dogs, everybody had dogs. We started the trail walking along back fences as a workout fanatic ran past us breathing heavy and clicking his watch.

We pushed down into a small arroyo, crossing a stream, then back up the hill into rocky and sandy switchbacks and such would be the rest of the hike. The trail was thin and busy, too many people all having the same idea as us, having to dodge their dogs and co-eds and runners and Mexican families and Asian students. A few older hardcore hikers showed up, women eeking into their 70’s, everybody pushing for the summit, sweating as it weft back and forth through the hill. It went from low scrub brush to thicker trees. Sections with heavy wood and steel girders holding up the hillside like thunder mountain railroad. We passed a line of demarcation as Altadena grew into a small carless grid below and the sun gave way to higher altitude thermocline.

Bronco was dying as we told him it was just a bit further, as we stopped to give them water and hydrate ourselves and take pictures and catch our breath. We were a long ways from a 22 mile, 6500-foot-rise expedition to the Whitney summit.

Still, eventually we got to a crossroads where I had to look up which direction we needed to complete the hike and turned right, towards Echo Mountain. I’d expected an old crumbling house. All that remained were a few foundations, some old rail and massive winch gears which had pulled the train up the summit and the steps up to the front of the hotel. A fake echogram was still mounted at the top but it was impossible to get it to say anything and an old cylinder, perhaps the observatory, was full of graffiti of things such as the word vagina and swollen penises.

We drank some water and ate bars under pine trees as we stared off at the echo canyon reaching out into misty cloud below us. Once we began getting cold we stood back up and packed our packs and took off for the bottom, passing much quicker. Bronco limped back into the car. We weren’t much better. Jesus, this Whitney thing could be trouble if we don’t kick it into high gear soon.

L.A. NUTRITIONAL VALUES – HOAGIE STEAKOUT

There are few foods in this life or the next to rival a good steak. Until now one of the my biggest disappointments with my life in California, aside from the poor air, the roads packed like rats fleeing a flooded subway tunnel, and the baseless egos, yes, can’t forget those, has been the lack of anything resembling a respectable cheese steak sub.

HOAGIE STEAKOUT opened on Highland in Hollywood, a block south of Sunset. Hoagie is an East Coast term, not to be thrown around lightly, and anyplace to include that in its title deserves a look. But the sandwich itself is the finest I’ve had in the West (eat that Papa Jake’s). The meat is just thin enough to melt but not so thin that it falls apart, spiced to perfection; the cheese is melted perfectly. And the grease, god bless, a true cheese steak should be dripping meat grease into its heavy roll and the hoagies they sling at the Steakout make your hands feel like the hair of that used car salesman your mom met online.

My man Bobby rolled over here 4 times, getting fries and a sandwich, the first day he ate one of their hoagies. They're that good.

The subs lack some of the flavor of the East Coast cheese steaks and the bread could be stiffer to hold up against the onslaught of meat, onions, peppers, and juices and sometimes you get a guy behind the counter who doesn't inspire faith in the quality of the steak. But you’ll never find a better cheese steak in L.A. than Hoagie Steakout. Epic for the stumbling late-night and they even deliver, bike messengers and whatnot at your call. A sign that maybe, just maybe, L.A. is starting to catch on to what the average Jersey fat-ass calls "food". 

SCENES ABOUT TOWN: Don't Speak Americano, Silver Edition

A man just the other side of middle-age with a gut just this side of obese, cruising down the alley between Canon and Crescent in Beverly Hills in a 90’s Buick, cranking “Don’t Speak Americano” on the car’s factory system and pointing to the valet of an adjacent parking lot as he pumps the breaks to make his white-man hoopdie “bounce”.

L.A. MAN: Richie the Barber

For a man to be truly a man, that is a classy grown mench full of poise and character, yes, a physical specimen radiating with the strength and air of his masculine soul he must pay attention to his appearance. Not vanity, no sir, and certainly there are toiletries and surgeries, hairplugs and calf implants, whatnot, that should make a man pause and retreat before he begins down the road to obsession with physical appearance. But once we give up all semblance of coiffedness we reduce ourselves to mere beasts, Bonobo monkeys in ill-fitting costumes looking for a fresh turd to throw.

In L.A. the appearance is more importance than elsewhere because it’s a city of illusions and first impressions and like it or not everybody in the Angeles river basin is judged to a certain extent on the outside persona he presents to the world. At the least, a man needs a good barber. But where? Go to some salon where some German with frosted tips can sell you hundreds of dollars of hair treatments after already making you pay a c-note for a buzzcut? And then there are those overpriced shave parlors charging a day’s wages for a straight shave and half a jigger of watered-down scotch catering to bloated fatbacks (THE SHAVE). No, a man needs a barber possessed of true grit and daring, of class and persona, of dependability and appreciation for the working man, the real man, and throw in some motley charm to cement the figure, yes, yes.

There is one such man I know of in Los Angeles. His name is Richie the Barber and he is a true American hero of artistry, individuality, and male grooming.

A 3^rd generation barber, Richie’s covered in tattoos, always sporting a waxed handlebar and a fedora or a bowler or a homburg. When I showed up at his chair in the back of the 264 Customs tattoo parlor the first time, I was told Richie wasn’t available - some crazy bastards were shooting a reality show about him and he had been drinking and he refused to give a man a shave or a cut with booze in his system.

When I returned the next day he greeted with shots of Jack while I waited for him to finish with the man in the chair before me. Richie was shaving the man’s chin into a proper Dickensian mustache/muttonchops combo (some call it a “lemmie”). I talked to a member of the shop crowd, a photographer from Chattanooga, Atlanta, and Africa with stoney red-eyes and a portfolio spanning celebrities and mountain scenics which adorned the walls of the parlor. We discussed artistry, the Dirty South, rock climbing in Chattanooga, struggling in Los Angeles, being a white boy in Africa, and Richie’s growing status among coolies and entertainers, hell the bastard might even have his own reality show soon enough, joining the ranks of grooming and body accoutrement celebrities like Kat Von D. and that hot lesbian personal trainer.

4 shots later I was in the chair. I had 3 months of beard growth about to disappear. On a whim I asked Richie to leave handlebars on mine too, why not ? When in Rome, sure enough. I had another shot before he buzzed up my beard. Then he covered my face in the hot towels and I laid back, meditating, letting my pores open and my hairs push further to the surface. Then he got out the straight razor and meticulously worked my face over, leaving the towel on my eyes as I ignored the feeling of a sharp blade kissing the flesh of my face.  It’s a moment of surreal trust for a stranger, no doubt abetted by the shots of whiskey and Richie’s banter. Hell, the man had a Bill the Butcher tattoo on his calf so there was a level of bloodthirsty decorum which would have already landed him in the big house if he ever felt a rising desire to slice flesh.

After it was over he poured a final shot for me and, since he was off, he poured one for himself too. With my 6^th shot and a perfect cut I left in complete gentlemanly confidence, ready to tackle the world, a true man about town and just classy and dapper enough to seize whatever possibilities life beheld for me. 

Richie the Barber, thank you for being a drop of hope in this city's classlessly overgentrified and under-individualized personal care artisans.  Thank you.

L.A. Illiterations: x ["thanks", for the uber-busy] by Steve John

Working at an agency, everybody thinks time is money and apparently so are letters. The other day, after having received some information important to the job of one his clients and therefore certainly his own employment, an agent replied with a simple "x".

So today's word is x.  

x?

Have we really arrived at that? Thank you became thanks in what, the 19^th century? With the advent of rapid typed communication of late, even “thanks” is oft preempted by “thx” and now, as the sun sets on the first decade of the third millennium of what history has decided is the modern era, we have only “X” to express our gratitude? Oh, how heavy hangs the mantle of memory… glimpses of a time when children gathered before gnarled fingers wrapped over aged knees and looked up with awe into eyes framed by thick-rimmed glasses behind which lurked a million memories and the wisdom absorbed by the sounds and sights and smells of years, the feel of cool night air or soft flesh or eh… eh…

You’re welcome

SJ