A grand and hollow peace settles upon the father when left without wife and child, much like a king without crown. In possession of a weekend as empty as my home, I allowed my mind and body to wander to the wildlands which encircle the great valley of Fernando, and the secrets they contain.
I’ve had further business to attend to in Pacoima Canyon for quite some time - having roamed the lands to the north to grab Garfield, or straddled the great ridge to its south in not one but two ambitious forays - and or traced the preternatural path of the water downstream to its enigmatic reservoir,
I now felt compelled to travel further up this winding path of water and rock, deeper than I had yet dared.
I set off from Dillon Divide, the last road navigable by car or pony, at 7:30am, as a blinding midsummer sun already was burning an empty sky. The Mendehall Ridge road I am quite familiar with, being the experienced ranger of these rugged lands, and made quick progress of the rising well-worn road, newly graded a twelvemonth past. Across the canyon to the north I could glimpse the dastardly cleft of upper sand canyon, a cursed route I have no intention of repeating.
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Before long, I could lay eyes upon my intended route down into the canyon below - a great serrated ridge projecting west, the morning sun sharpening its rugged edges menacingly. A bit intimidated, I re-examined the slope angle shading, and attempted to assure my weary mind it would provide safe passage.
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Passing the grand vista of Highline Saddle, I reached my drop-in point, adorned as it was with a rusted skeletal colossus of a transmission tower.
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Readying myself for battle with rose gardening gloves and thick nylon chausses, I plunged into the Magic Mountain wilderness. Ten long summers ago this land had been scorched by the merciless wrath of the sand fire, leaving the slopes barren and black. But from that ash a new fire, this one of life, has slowly but steadily awoken. I was reminded how relatively forgiving these ridge lines of the western reaches of the San Gabriels can be in comparison to the tangled, treacherous nightmare of the front range - this was no Mt Maxon, and my going was steady and rather pleasant. I can push through even tall stands of Yerba Santa all day long and be ready for more, ever so friendly are its hairy leather leaves and spacious growth pattern.
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I eventually reached one of my targets for the day, Point 3376 - a number that invokes no matches when searched even in the great libraries of Eispiraten. I am gladdened with the opportunity now to add its ancient shattered gneiss of humble prominence to the shared archives of our great library here. And behold - it was even adorned with a windblown traveler from afar!
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The sun now getting higher and angrier, I did not dawdle on this exposed prominence and hastened my pace further down the gravely spine. It was along here that crumbling cliffs dropped to both my left and right, allowing my boots only a few precious feet of broken stone to cling to as I made my way across with great care. But undoubtedly, this was considerably milder terrain than this roaming ranger has had to navigate on far more abominable routes of his past.
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Making the final descent into the canyon, I glimpsed wasted ruins - the unmistakable tunneling through solid crystalline rock that could only be the work of the ancient race of miners which once inhabited this canyon, bringing with them their iron tools and lust for fortune. Yet alas they brought about their own undoing when they delved too greedily and too deep, awakening the darkness that has always dwelt beneath these mountains. But we need not speak now of their regrettable fate, as shadows still cling to the thresholds of those ominous old mining shafts on even the sunniest of days.
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And what fell beast is this that those arrogant miners once rode upon so boldly into these rugged ravines! That formerly proud empire is now reduced to a lowly few scattered ruins, slowly oxidizing in the suffocating embrace of the riparian undergrowth.
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It was here that I came upon a great thicket of blood-red Hollyberry, impossibly sweet flesh ripe in the midsummer, a treat of which I gladly had my fill.
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The great Pacoima Stream is a delightful bubbling freshet in the winter months, but now in late July is little more than a path of dark boulders between sorry shrinking pools.
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I came upon one of these sorry pools, little more expansive than a bathtub, that miraculously gave home to 5 terrified sunfish of varying size. They were spooked by my unexpected presence, but if these long days of unabated sun continue for much longer, I fear their fate may be far graver than any threat I could pose.
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Above the water, clinging with ethereal calm to a perfectly shear cliffside, were these inexplicable flowers, appearing as delicate fondant decorations upon the stone cake of the Santa Clara divide. What whimsy one can stumble upon in the most unexpected places!
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The sun climbing ever higher, I came upon a grand old Sycamore that produced an inviting spread of shade around its base. I decided to take an extended lunch break, a bit of inspirational literature pairing with my lemon-pepper tuna.
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Lost in the pages, the calming sounds of a light early afternoon breeze through the old Sycamore’s leaves tickling my ears, or the bassy thrum of a cranky passing hummingbird whose little domain I had invaded, put me in into a state of the most peaceful reverie, and I haplessly succumbed to an irresistible sleep.
I awoke with a start some time later, and realized with much horror that a great root of the old Sycamore was now wrapped tightly around my midsection! This majestic tree who had so graciously offered me shelter from the sun, and whom I’d erstwhile considered a friend, had taken advantage of my dozing and I now found myself helpless in its clutches. My body pinned to the soil, the grand plant revealing its mischievous intent it must have been harboring all along. Now in a state of confused panic, I yelled out for assistance to any man or creature that might be within earshot and interested in getting one over on a wicked old Sycamore. As far up this long and winding canyon as I was, the hope was impossibly slight, and I felt desperate, lost and witless.
Suddenly I stopped. There was an answer, further down the canyon. I turned and listened, and soon there could be no doubt. A deep glad voice was singing carelessly and happily, but it was singing nonsense.
Hey dol! Merry dol! Ring a dong dillo!
cut that whitethorn back some more!
Heave a hoe, work the tread,
Weave path ‘round the Sycamore!
Half hopeful and half afraid of some peculiar new danger, I waited in silence as the root tightened its grip until suddenly appeared from down the wash an elderly man, one who defied his age with spritely skipping over broken terrain. I asked him if he might assist me in my strange predicament, and he looked upon me with much surprise, not just at discovering that anyone would be found in Pacoima Canyon well above Dagger Flat, but even moreso that the person was being held captive by the roots of a sycamore tree. He took the large hoe he carried with him and knocked the old sycamore a few times on its smooth trunk, reciting another song while doing so, and I felt the pressure release across my chest and I was able to squirm out from under the wooden tendril, no worse for wear beyond some sand and silt covering my polyester sun hoodie.
Now clear of danger, the cheerful old man ushered me past the expanse of dagger flat to his little worksite, and invited me to sit with him by the cliff-side. Very much in his debt, I gladly obeyed and he began telling me many a tale of not just the mischievous old Sycamore, but all manner of the history of the stone ridges and canyons of the Magic Mountain wilderness and surrounds. His name was Garen Chalkbird, 85 years young and in the middle of a work day in the 90-degree heat to rehabilitate the trail to Dagger Flat. He said he had been maintaining this trail through fires and floods since the 1950s when he first moved to the shire of San Fernando. He had been an engineer by trade and now cheerfully filled his days swinging his hoe out here in Pacoima Canyon. He was quite happy to have come across a ranger such as myself, and impressed when I explained to him the route I had taken to get there, Garen believing he was the only one who would dare (or bother to!) traverse these innumerable wearisome ridge lines. He referenced many out of the way places in these wildlands that not even the old songs are apt to mention, and was even more impressed when I told him I in fact knew of most all of them, and many had even visited. Garen Chalkbird knew every story the old Pacoima miners ever told, including the tallest of tales about the miner in 1849 who first ventured up Pacoima canyon from the valley of Saint Fernando below, and where the Pacoima Reservoir sits now came across a nugget of gold and quartz the size of his palm, before experiencing the sad misfortune of losing it that same year on a trip to his brother in Colorado.
Garen’s knowledge stretched back through the ages to the very forging of the stone itself, telling me he was with the first geologist to come up into these canyons and radiometrically measure the age of the crumbling rock to 1.9 Billion years old. He was then only more impressed with me, this sycamore victim who had dropped down an untrodden ridge line into his canyon, when without skipping a beat I responded that this ancient stone was that of the Mendenhall Gneiss. “This roaming ranger is a geologist too!” Garen exclaimed.
“Only one of amateur status whose enthusiasm greatly outpaces his education.” I responded with modest propriety.
He was unfamiliar with The Order of Eispiraten and most of the rangers who contribute, but when I mentioned the name Matt Maxon his face instantly lit up in recognition and said with much joy in his heart that he had worked trails with him along those treacherous slopes of the Tujunga to the east. I was then under the somber obligation to share with him the sad tidings that Matt Maxon had regrettably sailed to the undying lands in the west not a couple months ago, to which Galen expressed visible regret to learn a fellow man of the trails had now left us for the celestial mountain paths beyond the sundering seas.
I knew his tales could last all afternoon, but I told him I must be on my way, as rangers are wont to be, and bid Galen Chalkbird and his canyon a warm farewell. He told me when the AI robots take my job I could join him working the trail here in Pacoima canyon, and I responded that was just the sort of early retirement plan I could get behind. As I left him to continue my journey, he cheerfully yelled out “You are only 40 - your life is just beginning!” and I could hear the iron of his hoe once more scraping the rough gravels of the canyon floor as he began singing a new song of nonsense, one I felt certain was as old as the gneiss itself.
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Galen’s trail was marvelous, his decades of work apparent in the wide width and carefully managed tread that lovingly lead me down the canyon through even the thickest stands of willow reeds and whitethorn. Attention was put into every bend and water crossing.
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This allowed me to make quick work of it, stopping only to fill my water bladder where a cascade of water emerged from another accursed old miner’ s tunnel, and a black serpent startled me as it writhed away violently in alarm at my presence at this unholy threshold where darkness confronts light.
I soon reached where Chalkbird’s trail left the streambed. I had journeyed to this point a couple years prior with wife and child, an adventure titled “G’Guk” by my 4 year old son and detailed here.
I now began the ascent out of this little reach of the wildlands, my visit nearly arrived at its conclusion. Garen’s work was apparent here as well along the slope - this was in considerably better condition than a couple years ago.
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In the pernicious heat of early afternoon even this simple mile of modest gain presented challenges no matter the condition of the trail, and I was much grateful for coming upon a couple arrangements of boulders formed into perfect chairs in a shady bend that gave respite to the weary traveller. Chalkbird’s hospitality to those who visit his canyon extends to all possible points.
Reaching my loyal little silver pony Chevrolet Spark, still waiting patiently in the heat for me of the turnout at Dillon Divide, I encountered a gaggle of road bicyclists completing their own journey. One of them asked where I had ventured on this hot day, and I explained to him I had bushwhacked a ridge down into Pacoima canyon. He responded with a somewhat puzzled expression and wondered why someone would choose such a peculiar route through a nondescript corner of the wildlands.
I gave him only a wry little smile, knowing all that is gold does not glitter, and not all who wander are lost.
8.74 miles, 2155 feet of gain
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Point 3376 and In the Canyon of Garen Chalkbird
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Nate U
- Posts: 693
- Joined: Wed Apr 05, 2023 7:38 pm
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Sean
- Cucamonga
- Posts: 4458
- Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:32 pm
Never been raped by a sycamore, but it sounds like fun. I think I met Garen years ago with maybe his son. He was still working on the road down from Mendenhall and tried to recruit me, but I don't have time for that trail. Glad to see he's made a lot of progress. Reminds me of that one dude who worked alone for years on the Crazy Horse monument in South Dakota. Thanks for the florid, whimsical report!
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Matthew
- Supercaff
- Posts: 658
- Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 8:25 am
- Location: Pasadena
The one and only time I hiked in pacoima canyon, I met Galen. Didn't have much of a conversation with him but he did share that he worked on the trail for decades. What kind of magical tinned fish did you eat? Is it legal? How much per gram?
stoke is high