May 29

A half day today, hiking out of Wrightwood. Due to excessive snows along the Baden-Powell ridgeline we had a 12 mile detour along the vacant Angeles Crest Highway a road that begins in the city of Los Angeles and twists high up into the San Gabriel mountains. There is no traffic along this highway right now on account of impassable conditions: rockslides, avalanches, missing sections of road, etc. I scrambled along the many obstacles of the two lane highway, parts of the road sunken down and wasting away back to the mountainside, other parts of the road had been reclaimed by massive piles of scree, boulders, soil, and chunks of ice. Lone trees lying on the pavement, their torn roots like a head of hair sprawling across the yellow lines. Meltwater from the above snowfields cascading off the edge of pavement, driving downward into the mountainside below. Not a single car, two lanes to myself, an eery tone of apocalyptic vacancy accompanied by a sense of peace. Above me, the snowed in ridgeline, the peaks circumvented by this road, my chosen alternate route. Walking along the road, I was able to recognize the quality of a closed road. What a gift to the mother Big Horn sheep, to have this road closed, for the violence of 60 mph traffic to be absent, to be free to cross the road with her kids. To wander along a whole new side of the hills, no longer divided by the cruelty of motors. Without traffic the road becomes a benign strip of pavement. The snow like lace on the mountain.