DARIN HAYTON

Tag: San Gabriel Mountains

  • Pancakes

    Pancakes

    The runner slows to a walk each time the trail pitches up. He walks rather slowly, perhaps winded from the running. I nearly catch him, but just before I do he glances back and sets off again at a jog. Under the leaden sky we yo-yo like this for about 20 minutes as the trail climbs up the canyon. A century ago this trail would have been crowded with people hiking to the camp halfway up the mountain. Today, only the two of us. I wonder why he’s here. Why am I here?

    Landscape #220909.3

    Despite the drought and heatwave, the hills are alive and vibrant if not exactly verdant. Native plants, which have been banished from yards and parks below us, thrive up here in the foothills and mountains: sagebrush, buckwheat, mugwort, miner’s lettuce, occasionally yucca. They grow thick over the steep slopes. Higher up oak and manzanita, dark red trunks and branches contrasting sharply with bright green leaves.

    On a short steep section about a mile up the trail I catch the runner. He nods, says nothing, turns and heads back down the trail. Alone, I continue up the trail. The sky is still heavy thanks to a storm off the coast of Mexico. Ozone, sharp in my nostrils. It will rain soon. And with that rain will come the musky petrichor, mixing with the smells of damp brush.

    Landscape #220909.2

    John McPhee claims that the San Gabriels are the steepest mountains in the U.S., a claim that seems both indefensible and, if you’ve ever hiked in these mountains, unassailably true. Fortunately, the trail leads at a more gentle slope up into the trees, toward the ridge, and on to the summit. I pause for a minute to appreciate the silence and the view out over the valley. As I do, I begin to hear the soft drizzle falling on the ground and the brush. There it is. Earthy. Comfortable. Somehow always familiar. That smell immediately takes me back to roaming these mountains as a kid, often alone just as I am now. What, I wonder, did that smell remind me of when I was just a child, too young to be reminded of being a child?

    Landscape #220909.1

    It is still drizzling as I turn to continue up the trail. I’ve got another hour or so before I reach the summit. Last time I hiked this trail I set out in the dark well before dawn. I was alone then too. Today I’ll probably get back after sunset. Last time I had a pancake breakfast when I got back. Maybe this time I should have a pancake dinner.

  • Preservation, Nostalgia, Loss

    Preservation, Nostalgia, Loss

    Photography seems always to imagine a different world. Photographers don’t record the reality they see, they consecrate a reality they wish to see. In this way, photographs are always about a world that no longer exists. The lure of dilapidated buildings, of abandoned places, and of weed-choked roads testify to the photographer’s urge to record and celebrate lost scenes. Photography teeters between preservation and nostalgia.

    Looking up toward Chantry Flats.

    It is difficult to preserve without the taint of nostalgia, as is the case now as I look over some photographs taken before the Bobcat Fire devastated so much of the San Gabriel mountains and Santa Anita Canyon. Loss and destruction had always lurked along the trail up Santa Anita Canyon in the remnants of previous structures scattered through the trees.

    Stairs recall a former structure.

    But now the various photographs intended, for the most part, to preserve what I saw as I hiked up the canyon have become a poignant reminder of how much more we have already lost. These photos are also a warning for what will likely be lost when the mud and debris slides down into the canyon and chokes the creek.

    A small waterfall along Santa Anita Creek, just above Sturtevant Falls.
    Santa Anita Creek tumbles over some rocks just below Spruce Grove campground.

    Along with the mud and debris will come the dead trees. Many will fall, blocking the trail and clogging the creek. Others will never leaf out again. Their canopy of leaves that shades the trail through the canyon has certainly been lost.

    The canopy had not yet leafed out this cool grey March afternoon.

    And then there are the camps, Spruce Grove Campground and Sturtevant Camp. Whether or not they have been destroyed, they are closed for the foreseeable future, as is the trail leading to them.

    A chair waits patiently for an occupant on the badminton court at Sturtevant Camp.
    Nobody was around to ring the dinner bell that Tuesday afternoon.

    Now, in light of the recent fires, these photographs do more than just preserve moments. They evoke a powerful nostalgia, reminding me not only of the hike that produced these images but also all the hikes over the years as friends and I squandered our youth in these mountains.