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.