Stan’s Obligatory Blog

It rained all day Wednesday, and I’m still a bit sore from the hike up Baldy on Tuesday, so today was a day to do something easy. I rode my bike up to Rubio Canyon and walked up the trail to the site of the old Rubio Pavilion. I’d been up there before, but that was back in 1996. That time, I got a nice picture of one of the waterfalls up there. But since then, the waterfalls were buried by a rockslide in 1998, and subsequently uncovered by a flash flood in 2004. So I was curious to see what the place looked like now.

The ride up to the trailhead was up some steep hills. Oddly enough, when we’re looking down on that neighborhood from up on Echo Mountain, it looks pretty flat. But it’s all on a pretty steep slope. When I got to the trail, I found a post and locked my bike up. Then I headed up the canyon.

The walk up the canyon is pretty easy. It’s only about a mile or so to the foundations of the old pavilion at the base of the former funicular up to Echo Mountain. Not a lot remains. Continuing up the canyon, I climbed over the rocks that had come down a few years ago until I saw the waterfall that I’d photographed back in 1996. There was no water today, even though it rained all day yesterday.

This was a nice little walk, and now I’m ready for the hike to the Bridge to Nowhere tomorrow.

Well, I’m still on furlough-cation this week. I’ve recovered from last Thursday’s hike, so it’s time for another. I wanted to go and climb Mt San Antonio, colloquially known as Baldy, since I haven’t been up there since 1996. I’d only been up there three times ever, so I figured it was time. So I made plans to do this with Karina from my office.

We got an early start, and hit the trail from Manker Flat up to San Antonio Falls at 8AM. After a short walk up the fire road, we turned off onto the trail up the Bowl on the south slope of Baldy. The sign at the bottom mentioned that there were Jeffrey Pines in the forest above, and those are the ones with the bark that smells like vanilla. So I had to stop and smell the trees on the way up. We stopped for a break at the Sierra Club Ski Hut.

From the hut, the trail turned and went across the slope for a bit before it started a very steep climb up to the top of the ridge that comes off the summit on the south side. When we got to the top of the ridge, we had to take a rest. I checked my GPS, and it said we were close to 9,000 feet, so that meant the summit wasn’t too far away.

The final climb up to the summit was hard. It was steep, and there wasn’t enough air to breathe. When the GPS said 9,800 feet, I knew it wasn’t far, and that and the magnificent scenery were the only things between me and the crushing wave of “What the HELL are you trying to prove here?!?” that I always get while doing stair-climbing races. So this wasn’t so bad. And of course, we made it to the summit all right.

We had lunch on the summit, while trying to get away from all the bees. (Why are there bees living on top of a 10,000 foot mountain, anyway?) Then we headed down by way of the Devil’s Backbone Trail. This trail is famous for the section where it’s on a knife-edge ridge, with steep drops on both sides of the trail. And yes, that kind of gave me the willies. But we made it down all right, walking down into the ski area, and then down the very long fire road from the ski area back to where we started. That fire road was a long walk, but at least it was something where we could pretty much walk normally, rather than having to climb over boulders or anything like that. So it was pleasant enough. In the end, we made it back to the start in just a bit more than 8 hours. Not bad for 11 miles and about 4,000 feet of climbing. So yes, this was a fun day.

The Los Angeles Public Library has been having a month-long series of events to encourage people to revisit Herman Melville’s classic novel, Moby Dick. On Thursday night, Kathleen and I went downtown to one of the ALOUD events, Moby Dick: How Scientists Came to Love the Whale. In the introduction to that talk, they talked about how all the branches of the library were doing whale-themed events all month, and they mentioned that the Hollywood branch had held an Origami Whale Fold a Thon to make 162 little paper whales for the 162nd anniversary of the publication of Moby Dick. And the whales were on display in the front window the library. So that was our destination for today.

The ride to Hollywood is pretty straightforward, and we do it a lot. So there wasn’t much remarkable about it. The only thing that was difficult is that the library is on Ivar St, which is where they hold the Hollywood Farmer’s Market on Sunday mornings. So we had to wade through the crowds to see the whales.

After that, we headed north, and we noticed that Bela Lugosi’s star is right at the corner of Hollywood and Ivar. It’s October now, and almost time for our annual “Down for the Count” ride out to Culver City to visit Bela Lugosi’s grave.

We rode up to the Lake Hollywood dam, and then around the lake and over the hill to get to Burbank, where we stopped for snacks at Priscilla’s. Then we headed home by the usual direct route across Glendale and Eagle Rock. Overall, it was a pleasant ride.

40 miles.

Today, I’d made plans to go hiking with my friend Karina from work. Since our office has turned into a pumpkin, we don’t have anything to do. She hikes a fair amount, but I haven’t been up in the mountains since 4th of July last year. So we arranged to meet up a the trailhead a the top of Lake Ave. We figured we’d start out by going up Echo Mountain, and then just see what we had time for after that.

The trail up to Echo Mountain is about 2 1/2 miles, and it’s not hard. At the top, we turned left and headed up the old Mt. Lowe Railway roadbed. Most of it is still passable. The bridges have all been taken out, and there are signs along the way, indicating points of interest, and with photos showing how it looked when it was still operating. We ended up walking the entire length of the former railroad, all the way to the Mt. Lowe Trail Camp, which is at the location for the former Alpine Tavern that was at the end of the line. We stopped there for lunch, since they have some picnic tables there.

After lunch, we continued on up the trail to Inspiration Point, which is on top of the ridge behind Echo Mountain. There is a little shelter built up there, along with a sign telling the story of the One Man and a Mule Railroad, which used to bring people up to Inspiration Point from the Alpine Tavern. After that, we headed back by way of the Upper Sam Merrill Trail, which took us back to Echo Mountain. Then we headed back down the way we’d started. All together, it was about 12 1/2 miles, which is easily the longest hike I’ve done in many years. But it was a good time, and a good thing to do on a day when we have nothing else useful to do.

For the first full day of government furlough, Kathleen and I had planned on going to Disneyland. But first, I’d gotten a call last night from Rebecca, the organizer of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation’s charity stair-climb. She said that we had a chance to change the race this year and run it all the way to the helipad on the roof of the building, and she wanted to see if I could meet with her at the building in the morning to survey the final few floors up to the roof. And since I’m on indefinite furlough, of course I could do that.

I rode the train downtown with all the morning commuters, and when I got to the building, I went up to the main office so we could meet with the guy in charge of building security. I’d brought along a batch of my award-winning blueberry muffins. I asked them to give them to the evening shift guards, since they were very nice to us the last two months when we were training on the staircase there for the YMCA stair climb.

We took the freight elevator up to 51, which is where the race traditionally ended. After climbing that staircase 68 times over the last two months, there was no need to survey anything below 51. Then I got out my camera and notepad and we checked out the stairs up to the roof. The final count came to 1,245 steps from the ground-level door on 6th St up to the roof. That’s the equivalent of a bit over 54 normal floors in that building.

After surveying the stairs, I got back on the train, and I took Metro Rail to the Norwalk station on the Green Line. That’s right off the 605 freeway, which is how we get to Disneyland, so I met up with Kathleen there, and we headed on to Disneyland.

We did all the usual things there. We even rode the new Radiator Springs Racers ride for the first time. The line for that thing has been insanely long ever since it opened. But today, the line was only a bit over an hour, and the single-rider line was very short. So we went in as two single riders, and we were on it in under 10 minutes. It was entertaining, but I’m not sure it’s an-hour-in-line entertaining.

On the way over to Disneyland, I saw that there’s a commemorative paving stone with my name on it. Even spelled the ‘right’ way. I wonder who it is, since I’ve never met anyone with my same name, spelled the same way.

Disneyland was decorated for Halloween. And the Haunted Mansion was decorated for Christmas. Saves them a lot of work that way. I was able to pretty much forget about the government shutdown. And we ended with the traditional dinner at Ralph Brennan’s Jazz Kitchen in Downtown Disney. We had a nice day.

Back in 1995, the first year I was at my job, we had two government shutdowns that lasted a total of almost four weeks. And now, here we go again. So I’m at home, sitting on the back porch, reading. While I was sitting there, I noticed the hummingbirds coming and going around the feeder, so I got my camera and set it up on a tripod with the remote shutter release. I held the control while I was reading, and whenever I heard a hummingbird come by, I snapped a few pictures. And 118 pictures later, I got a good one.

I recently rediscovered my old favorite restaurant from the late ’80s in Hollywood. Off Vine is in a little house on Leland Way, just – wait for it – off Vine St. When I saw that they have regular half-off special on Mondays, we made plans to go.

This was my first time there since 1996 or so. And it was every bit as good as it ever was. So now that we’re well-fed and had a nice evening out, I’m ready for the government and my job to turn into a pumpkin.

About a week ago, I saw an article and photo set where a photographer had climbed down into Fryman Canyon, below Mulholland Drive, and photographed the rusting hulks of cars that had crashed there and never recovered. The article made it sound like these are not visible from up on the road, but I wanted to go see anyway.

It was a nice day for rriding. We headed out by the usual route through Eagle Rock to get to Hollywood. We rode almost the full length of Hollywood Blvd, and then headed up Nichols Canyon. This is a nice, quiet little canyon road with very little traffic. That took us up to Mulholland, where we headed west. We passed Wonderland Center, which was the subject of another sightseeing ride some years ago. Then we got to the Fryman Canyon Overlook. Looking over at the terrain below the infamous curve in the road, I could see how things could go bad there. We couldn’t see anything down below on that side, so we headed on over to the actual spot in the road to have a closer look. On the west side of the curve, there was very dense brush growing just down the hillside from the road. And I could see how that could easily hide all manner of things. I supposed maybe some day I’ll have to put on my hiking shoes and go down into the canyon for a look.

Our stop was at the gelato place in Studio City. They have apparently gotten on the ‘gluten-free’ bandwagon. Sheesh. And on the way home, we saw what was apparently a despondent plush stuffed monkey who hung himself from a truck bumper. Well, at least that’s more tasteful than the ‘truck nuts‘ that we thankfully don’t see much here in L.A.

50 miles.

So it’s the end of September, and time to climb the U.S. Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles again. And oddly enough, it never gets any easier. After all the practice sessions, climbing the Wilshire-Figueroa building 68 times, I was as ready as I was going to ever be. I’d worked out split times based on a pace of 5 1/2 floors per minute, which felt reasonable in practice. I thought I had a chance of being able to maintain that pace all the way up the 75 floors.

I got a phone call in the afternoon from George. He had run early, with the elite group, and he’d turned in a very respectable 13:49. That’s about seven seconds faster than my best time in that building. He also told me that I’d made a couple of errors in my stair chart. George has a great eye for detail. So based on what he told me, I went back and adjusted my split times.

I rode the train downtown just like every other time, and I walked over the YMCA to get changed and ready to climb. And when 4:00 rolled around, I was in line and ready to go.

The first 30 or so floors were fine. I kept to my pace, and I didn’t have trouble passing people. For the most part, the message is finally getting out to allow faster climbers to pass on the inside. But the hardest part was still to come. About the 55th floor or so, I was suddenly overcome by a crippling wave of “What the HELL am I trying to prove here?!?!?” And that’s something that makes it very hard to go on. I managed to keep moving, but I must have slowed down quite a bit. My schedule was to get to the top in about 13:45, and it ended up being 14:47. That’s my second-slowest time ever for this building. Still, I can’t complain too much. I’m still quite a bit faster than the Average Bear. I was something like 120th out of about 2,900 people. But I know that if I could just maintain focus, I’m sure I could go a lot faster.

After hanging around the bottom, visiting with everyone and handing out samples of my award-winning blueberry muffins, I saw Morgan from my office. I’d told her I’d walk up with her when she got there, so we went down and got in line. I told the people at the starting line that I was going to walk up with her, since I felt sort of responsible for the fact that she got talked into doing this crazy sport in the first place. So we walked up, making it to the top in just under 18 minutes. That was a new best time for her, and I thought it was reasonably leisurely. I stopped for water a few times, and I talked a lot. She later told me that telling her, “This is the floor where I lost the will to live” wasn’t particularly motivating. Oh well. Still, it was a good time, and it was interesting to see the stairway at a moderate pace.

So all told, it wasn’t one of my better outings on the stairs, but it was still a fun evening.

Full results are here: http://www.hallucinationsports.com/event/show/39511880#/results::1380915635626

Tonight was the last practice session before the U.S. Bank Tower stair race on Friday. And I went with a plan in mind. When I did the 51-story practice staircase in about 9:15, it was a pace I described as “brisk, but not punishing”. So I’m thinking that that will be my pace for the 75-story bank tower race, since it’s a pace I can do for 50 floors and still be able to go on some more. That works out to about 5 1/2 floors per minute.

I rode the train downtown and got ready to climb. I didn’t stand around at the bottom much. As I always say, the stairs don’t get any easier if we wait around. And my first climb up was right on schedule, getting to the top in 9:21. And for the second climb, my plan was to maintain the same pace for at least the first half of the climb. That was kind of difficult, but I made it that far before slowing down. And I still did a reasonable time the second time.

The third time, I was slowing down some. But that was all right. And the fourth time I didn’t bother to time. So I guess I’m as ready as I’m going to be for the race this Friday.