When it’s open, that is.

A view of Angeles Crest Highway. Photo by Laura Randall.

The California Department of Transportation shut down a prominent stretch of State Route 2, as it is also known, for three weeks this September after the U.S. Forest Service closed all California national forests due to high wildfire risk. The Bobcat Fire, which threatened Mount Wilson and blanketed the city with hazardous air, kept part of the road closed for months in 2020. In the 20 years I have been traversing it, the road has also seen its share of fatal accidents, massive rock slides, heavy snow drifts, and flooding.

So, at this point, I know to be patient and trust that Angeles Crest will eventually reopen again like always and let me and everyone else who cherishes it back in to revel in its views, coast around its curves and switchbacks, and witness the slow recovery of its fire-scarred landscape.

I came to a better understanding of the road a few years ago, when I section-hiked the Southern California portion of the Pacific Crest Trail. The PCT, as the 2,650-mile Mexico-to-Canada trail is known, crosses Angeles Crest Highway seven times before veering northeast toward the desert climes of Agua Dulce and the Antelope Valley.

During spring thru-hiking season, when thousands of Canada-or-bust hikers hit the trail, it is not unusual to encounter dusty backpackers emerging next to the highway like deer in headlights and flagging down a car to take them to civilization for food or emergency supplies. Nonetheless, many of them view this part of the PCT, known as Section D, as a necessary evil to slog through. Water and amenities, like cell-phone service, are scarce, and it also features a miserably exposed and steep detour—or alternatively, a dangerous road-walk—around the habitat of the endangered mountain yellow-legged frog.

But for local day hikers like myself, this is one of the most accessible portions of the entire PCT. From my home in Altadena, I could be on the trail by 7 a.m. with a 3-liter hydration bladder and backpack full of chia bars, hike 15 to 20 miles, and make it home not long after sundown. On some hikes, like the one between Cloudburst Summit and Three Points, there was no one on the trail but me to admire pine cones the size of baby’s heads. On others, like Vincent Gap to Mount Baden-Powell, I couldn’t round a corner without running into Meetup groups and peak baggers who never met a viewpoint they didn’t think was worth a selfie.

A Pacific Crest Trail marker not too far from the road. Photo by Laura Randall.

Hiking the PCT in sections can be as rewarding as making it all the way to Canada—with much less worrying about the weather. I tackled a typically hot and dry hike into the western arm of the Mojave Desert on cool January weekends, then backtracked to the San Gabriel Mountains on summer weekends, when temperatures there were at least 10 degrees cooler than the L.A. Basin.

On those summer weekends, my early-morning drives on Angeles Crest lifted me high above the fog that still blanketed the metropolis. I got to know every hairpin turn, every pullout, and the exact point where the temperature starts to drop and brittle chaparral gives way to pine and fir forests before the two-lane highway ends outside Wrightwood.

Speeding-related collisions involving both cars and motorcycles are common year-round thanks to the highway’s steep grades and narrow shoulders. I got better at navigating the curves over time, but I still veer into a pullout anytime a Porsche or motorcycle comes up fast behind me. Seeing roadside shrines in the days and weeks following an especially bad accident, I often slowed down and wondered what exactly happened—did the car crash into a tree or jump a berm and plunge into the canyon below?

The front door of Newcomb’s Ranch, the roadhouse on the Angeles Crest Highway built in 1939. Photo by Laura Randall.

On the drive back—as long as it was a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday—I sometimes stopped at Newcomb’s Ranch to fuel up on iced tea and zucchini fries and use the Wi-Fi. There were always scads of motorcycles in the lot and people snapping photos of the vintage sign out front, but I usually managed to find a seat on the shaded patio or at the long bar. My time at Newcomb’s Ranch always helped ease the transition back to city life after hours spent cocooned in silence and one-foot-in-front-of-the-other concentration.

The roadhouse opened in 1939, 10 years after construction of Angeles Crest started and 17 years before it completed in 1956. As the story goes, Louie Newcomb, a trailblazer and early forest ranger, sold the land to his cousin Lynn Newcomb Sr. after concluding that construction of the highway was ruining his beloved high country. Over the years, Newcomb’s has lived through various incarnations, including hotel, general store, gas station, and brothel (or so the web site implies). A fire destroyed much of the original structure in 1976, but the building was rebuilt and eventually opened as a restaurant by Lynn’s son.

Fred Rundall, a La Cañada-Flintridge oncologist who bought the restaurant in 2001, often threatened to close it as rockslides, wildfires, heavy rains, and septic emergencies took a toll on his weekend-only business, but only after his death in 2019 did his family act on his threat. The 10-acre property was put up for sale this June, after a 15-month closure due to the pandemic. The real estate posting touts the landmark property as a potential “boutique hotel or glamping destination.” It doesn’t mention the property’s dependence on a single road that closes at the fickle, nature-driven blink of an eye.

Maybe it would be better if no one bought Newcomb’s—or if it took years to find an owner who would treat it with the same kind of don’t-mess-with-a-good-thing respect as Rundall and the Newcombs.

Then again, perhaps it’s best to let Angeles Crest and its surroundings take regular breaks from human activity and the spoliation that goes with it. Let the parking lots and trash cans stay empty for a while; let the trees resprout and the bears and frogs have the creeks to themselves. Louie Newcomb had a point way back in 1939 when he said the highway “ruined” the area.

My time away from the road only tends to strengthen my awareness and understanding of its fragility and flaws, and to make me realize anew how lucky we are to have it in our backyard.

The post Where I Go<span class="colon">:</span> The ‘Meandering, Beautiful, Dangerous’ Angeles Crest Highway appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.

I was born in Irvine and moved to Apple Valley in the High Desert of the Inland Empire in the year 2000, when I was two. My dad was working for CalTrans and my mother was a stay-at-home-mom for a year, and later on she became the Director of Patient Access at St. Mary Medical Center. They wanted to live in a place that was safe to raise a family, with fresh air, and lots of room for my dad to walk.

While it’s true that the air is fresher in the high desert, that doesn’t always mean people are healthier. A recent study found that 71 percent of adults and 31 percent of children in the high desert are overweight or obese, and San Bernardino County as a whole ranks as one of the most overweight counties in the country. Our rates of heart disease and diabetes are among the highest in California. More than two-thirds of children don’t meet basic fitness standards.

 
Fortunately for me, my parents always encouraged me to be active as a child—from little league soccer, to daily walks. When I was little my father would take my hand and we would walk and walk and walk. It never occurred to me to question all of my father’s walking—I never asked. But a couple of years ago, when he felt I was old enough to understand, he told me why.

In 1978 my dad fled his native Ethiopia during Qey Shibir, the Red Terror that mounted during Mengistu Mariam’s brutal communist takeover of the country. Fled isn’t the right word, exactly. He walked. He was 20—just a couple of years older than I am now—and a college student at the time, but my grandfather arranged for him and one of his brothers to escape with a group disguised as merchants, guided by a star-reading shaman.

My last name, Gessesse, comes from a long line of religious warriors—kings and queens defending the faith, fighting for the spirituality of Ethiopia. It was one of the earliest countries to embrace Christianity. But my grandfather could see that this was not the time to fight. It was the time to walk away. And so he sent my father and my uncle and the shaman and the rest of the group into the Ogaden Desert, and they walked, for two and half months, until they reached Djibouti.

My dad was able to make it to the U.S., win political asylum, and put his life together in America. He and my mom knew each other in Ethiopia—she is half Greek and had a Greek passport so she was able to get out on her own—and they reunited in the U.S., got married and made a life for themselves in California.

In this new life, my father kept walking. He walked, of course, to stay healthy. But also, I think, to remember that long desert journey, feeling heartbroken to leave, but grateful to survive when family and friends were dying, horribly, at the hands of the new regime, not knowing if at any moment they would be found out and punished or killed.

As early as I can remember—long before I learned the painful details of my father’s life-changing journey—my parents, especially my mother, taught me about love and generosity and helping the community. For the people who live in the high desert, life can be hard. Some people don’t have enough money to buy food. Or they may have grocery money but no car, no way to get to the market.

Every weekend when I was little we joined a group that would make care packages for the hungry and the homeless people who lived in our community. We would meet them at the local park and talk with them and give them lunch. Not like, “here take this food and go away,” but like “hi, how are you, what’s going on with you today?” When I was very small I remember trying to get them to come join me on the swings. Sometimes they would.

As a kid I struggled sometimes to fit in. I was Ethiopian, but “only” half, so not truly habesha. I wasn’t white either. I struggled with the image of the white, skinny ideal, with long, straight hair and blue eyes. I’m melanin-blessed. I have a bigger bottom and a small chest and curly, frizzy hair. My mother taught me to appreciate myself and see my self-worth and self-value. I struggled to strike a balance between a face at home, and a face at school. Volunteering—community service—was an environment that fostered a safe space. I loved it, I felt a purpose, and I felt appreciated, not judged.

Fast-forward to me as a high school student, outgoing and restless. I was such a “do-gooder” that my friends would sometimes laugh at me, but then I would say, come along and see for yourself, and many times they would wind up joining me. Everyone knew about me, and so a teacher told me about the Apple Valley Legacy Trail and how a small group was trying to save it.

The trail runs through the center of town and leads right up one of the highest points in Apple Valley. But it wasn’t what I’d really call a “trail.” I’m a runner, and the path is near my house, so I’d explored it on my runs. It was overgrown, covered in trash and graffiti. It was so neglected most people my age didn’t even know it existed. Which was a shame, because even with all the mess, I felt it was a spiritual place. Up there you cannot hear a car horn and there are no billboards in sight. The view is beautiful, the air is fresh, and it’s free to anyone who wants to go.

 
Sometimes Apple Valley has a reputation, either as very boring because we are so far from the city, or very bad, because people hear about the part of town near the trails called “felony flats.” But this was a chance to clean up blight, to change people’s perceptions by creating something special that you could only find here.

My mind was in full motion: a local project that needed help, to restore something beautiful, that would get people outside and bring them together. What could be better? There’s a historic house there, the Hilltop House, which was privately owned, and a bunch of volunteers worked very hard to raise the money to get the city to buy the house to turn it into a museum.

I got together with some of my classmates and we sacrificed sleep and some study time and organized an old-fashioned steak fry, in conjunction to the Hilltop Legacy Project Team/Town Council to help with the fundraising. We got dressed up in old-timey costumes and decorated with hay bales to give the night a vintage feel. People loved it.

There’s a lot of community support for the trail and it’s working its way through the city approval process. I spoke before the city council to explain why this trail is so important. Sometimes I go up there and just imagine what it’s going to be like, a smooth, easy trail that kids can run up and down, that will become such a part of the life here that everyone will know about it and use it.

This fall I started college, away from home for the first time. I imagine how one of these days, once the trail is ready, my mother and father will walk out of our front door, and up the trail. They will stand at the top and see the all of the valley, with a feeling of nostalgia, but this time, with pride and hope as a reminder of their new beginning.

The post Walking Runs in My Blood appeared first on Zócalo Public Square.