Mt. Wilson Week: Solar Telescope

I haven't described the Mt. Wilson Observatory landscape to you.

On a mountain top, wooded paths lead you amid the pines, and occasionally there looms a tower like something from a 1950's "Mars attacks" movie. You're not scared because it's sunny out, everything's in color and you can see the paint is peeling on the props.

If I have my notes right (I might not, this is why I'm not an astronomer)*, this is the 1904 Snow solar, the first telescope built at Mt. Wilson. I believe it still works. Mt. Wilson is an important, fully operational observatory even now, 107 years after its founding. So much so that when the Station Fire singed the crackly edges of its environs in 2009, many firefighters risked their lives to save it.

*I've gotten a note from Bellis, who knows: this is not the 1904 Snow telescope but the 1912, 150-foot solar tower/telescope. It's all for the best that I didn't pursue a career in astronomy--you may not believe this but I did once consider it.

From inside the dome at the top of this tower, the Mt. Wilson live towercam brings news and joy to the lowlanders. If you check out the towercam during the day (and you're not reading this twenty years from now) you'll detect green mountains in the foreground and brown ones not far in the distance, showing you some of the 250 square miles of Station Fire burn from 2009. There's some green on those hills, but they've got years 'til full recovery.

The Mt. Wilson website's history page is temptation to keep reading. George Ellery Hale founded Mt. Wilson. Edwin Hubble made historical discoveries there. Albert Einstein paid a visit. Talk about stars.

Not On Their Watch

I've had my head in the proverbial sand for some time now. We unplugged our TV a while back and I've turned off my car radio so as not to hear about politics because I want to enjoy life.

Today I drove John's car. The radio was on when I turned the key in the ignition and I heard "brush fire near JPL." I forgot my errand, turned west and took Oak Grove Drive above Devil's Gate Dam.

The radio said the flames were moving slowly uphill, away from the Jet Propulsion Lab. I could see that, yet I had to pull over when I saw the smoke. My reaction was physical, a loss of breath, an almost-sob. Look--a 5 acre brush fire is nothing compared to the Station Fire of 2009, but of course that's what I thought of. I've seen flames on these hills before. I've stood on the dam and watched the mountain burn because I couldn't take my eyes away.

I'm not the only one who remembered. 115 firefighters shut this baby down in fewer than ninety minutes. I may have watched an inferno from atop the dam, but they've seen it from within.

Hilltop Life

"Solid life has a capillary connection with the air," says J. "You can burn it, but it won't die."

He speaks metaphorically, of course. Many living things died in the Station Fire a year and a half ago. But you can't defeat life itself. Thus the new growth in the lower part of the photo.

I took the shot a few yards above The Meadows, a hilltop neighborhood in Altadena. You have to be dedicated to live in The Meadows. Every time there's a brush fire or a heavy rain, you get evacuated. The fire came so close to those homes I could have thrown a baseball from a back yard into the flames--and I've got a sissy throw.

But the mountains are at your doorstep. The trail head is in the middle of your block. The trails are beautiful and the temptation is great. People get up there, fall in love with the life, get their capillary connection to the air and neither flood nor fire will move them off that hill.

Aerial

I took this photo last year at about this time, then forgot about it. I ran across it last night, messed with the color and contrast, and came up with this.

I'm not sure what to say about it except I like it.

Yes, I took it in Pasadena. It's not an aerial shot. I was gazing out over the Devil's Gate Dam, looking north. This area is all overgrown now, but a year ago after the Station Fire and before the winter rains, the land was bare and a little stream trickled through it. We had ceased to take the dogs down there because of the color of the water. It was orange, though not this bright, from the fire retardant run-off from the Station Fire, according to Bellis. Dogs just don't care. They'll splash about in liquid plutonium if it looks like fun.

I detect footprints in this photo. They could belong to me, and to a certain canid I know.

The Weather is Here

Yesterday's thunderheads over the San Gabriel Mountains were an anniversary reminder of the pyrocumulus clouds that resulted from the Station Fire It began on August 26th of 2009 and is still under investigation.

The Station Fire was at last fully contained on October 16th, 2009. The largest fire in the history of the Angeles National Forest, it destroyed homes, burned over 160,000 acres of forest (250 square miles) and killed two firefighters. The spring rains that followed flooded catch basins with tons of ash. Officials say we'll be digging out of it for years. The cause of the Station Fire was arson.

Those of us who hike the mountains and canyons will probably always look back at the Station Fire as the the one that changed everything, the worst one ever. Let's hope so.

We've had a cool--well--cold summer, by Pasadena standards. Some of us complained of having to wear sweaters even during the day, unheard of in southern California in July. But our heat wave has finally come. Brush fires have popped up in Kern County, the Grapevine and the San Bernardino National Forest, to name a few. John and I got caught in traffic the other day while firefighters put out a brush fire along the 210 freeway in Glendora. With rain in the mountains and flash floods in the desert, you could say things are getting back to normal.

Sunset Fire Road

The Sunset Fire Road was closed to hikers after last autumn's Station Fire, which killed two firefighters and burned 251 square miles of forest. Not to be confused with the Sunset Trail, which remains off limits, the Sunset Fire Road is open again.

In Altadena, turn north off of Loma Alta Road at the flashing yellow light, onto Chaney Trail. Drive uphill until you reach the chain link fence. Park there. (Make sure your car displays an Adventure Pass--you can get one in the post office section at Webster's.) Then walk and enjoy. I think those firefighters would want you to.

Be sure you're back out on Loma Alta Road by 8pm, by the way. The Fire Road is open, but not around the clock. My friends and I almost didn't make it the other evening before the gates were locked. I might have been able to climb the fence but I'd have had to leave the car overnight and Boz would have had to camp out.

The mountains in the photo were once forested with trees resembling the survivors in the foreground. Last fall, after the fire, miles of mountains were covered with gray ash. It'll be years before a forest covers them again, but at least now they're colored a hopeful green.

I posted about the Sunset Fire Road once before, about two years ago. That, too, was in the aftermath of a fire. It strikes me that no matter what befalls it, this is compelling terrain.

A Scratch on the Scientific Record

Sometimes I post a photo because it's pretty. Sometimes I post a shot of what's happening in town. This one's educational: illustrative of a natural process that's hard to describe any other way.

After the Station Fire came heavy rains, which brought a flood of muddy ash into the lowlands. The landscape of Hahamongna Watershed Park was completely changed and, for a time at least, we have these crackly (technical term) mud flats. They're still soft. I wouldn't walk on them, though tinier creatures have done so.

We're about to have more rains. Who knows what changes nature will bring this time?

If anyone needs a photographic record of what's been going on at Hahamongna for the last two years, I've got so many pictures it's ridiculous. Just putting that out there, you know, for science.

Die Hard

At 3pm, wisps were blowing up from the mountaintops. By 4pm, if you were in the car you were driving with your headlights on. If you were walking you might have had a mouth full of grit.

It's what's left on the ground in the mountains from the Station Fire, now known to be "the largest fire in the recorded history of the Angeles National Forest." There's no vegetation to hold down the thick layer of ash when the Santa Ana winds pick up. The winds were expected to get up to 70mph in the mountains last night.

For some people this is a plus. If you don't mind a bit of eye sting you can have a golf course to yourself. For our part, we enjoyed a lawn furniture ballet as dinner entertainment, and our back yard has been nicely landscaped where it wasn't before.

Blog Action Day 2009

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab hunkers down in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Enlarge the photo (or, as the Altadena Hiker says, "enbiggen" it) and you can see patchy scrub growing on the low hill behind the campus. The higher mountains beyond are barren. Every bit of vegetation that once grew on them burned in the Station Fire, which began on August 26th. Amazingly, the Station Fire continues to burn in small "nuisance smokes" today. The fire's been at 98% containment for a couple of weeks now.

These empty, gray mountains go on for miles in either direction. As you drive through the towns below them it shocks you how far the fire went. And you see what the firefighters had to do: they beat the flames back and protected towns and structures. Beyond that, they had no choice but to let the fire go. 250 square miles of it. They saved the people. They couldn't save the forest.

In time, the forest will renew itself.

What if there had been no water available to fight that fire?

As of last count, 9975 blogs in 151 countries (and counting) are participating in today's Blog Action Day, expecting to reach over 13 million readers in a global discussion of climate change.

At the Copenhagen Climate Summit in December it will finally be time for America to step up. From Here to a Global Climate Treaty, a recent blog post at Avaaz.org, gives an idea of where the United States stands. There's a link to the Senate Finance Committee so you can see just which individuals it comes down to, besides you and me. We are a top emitter of greenhouse gases. We can urge our senators to help us take responsibility for our emissions. We can do something.

I think we can all agree climate change is happening. I'll leave it to the scientists to figure out how and why. Other crucial issues exist, but if there's not enough food because the earth can no longer grow it--if there's not enough water left on the planet to drink, let alone protect us from the inevitable fires brought on by global drought--then nothing else matters, does it?

Theme Day: Contrast

This is not a scene from the Station Fire. It's the remains of a small brush fire that occurred within the Cobb Estate in Altadena within the last year. I thought it appropriate for today's City Daily Photo blog theme day because it shows the contrast of the burned forest in the foreground and the living forest behind it.

The Cobb Estate is a natural, wild area that belongs to the U.S. Forest Service. It didn't burn in the Station Fire but it remains closed (see the closed gates here) in order to aid the USFS in limiting access to the burn area. The station fire burned more than 250 square miles of forest and is still burning in some spots after more than five weeks.

We look forward to the reopening of our forests, although we know what we'll see when we get back up in the mountains will be in stark contrast with what we remember.

Check out the other blogs participating in today's theme.

Aztec Fire Crew 63

When I met John Belushi I said, "Nice to meet you." When I saw Brad Pitt in an empty diner, all I did was smile.

But last Wednesday, when J. and I met a bunch of firefighters fresh off the mountain, I said, "You guys are amazing! There's no way to thank you, but thank you!" Then I proceeded to take photo after photo, which they tolerated and even smiled for.

I think they liked the "you guys are amazing" part. I know they liked the "thank you" part, because when we arrived at the gates of the Cobb Estate we'd just missed them posing for photos in front of a hand-made, "Thank You Firefighters" sign hanging on the fence.

The top photo here is a little blurry but I like its haphazardness. Look how young, how tired and how tough they are. And how dirty. They've been through it.

Not to disparage Belushi or Pitt, but movie heroes are heroes of fiction. Firefighters are the real thing. They're not Batman or Spiderman or Transformers. These guys can't fly. When you contemplate the 250 square miles of mountainside that burned in the Station Fire, then think of how tiny even a brave firefighter is against voracious and towering flames, these mere humans are mighty small. But as a team their powers are great.

(Plus Brad Pitt's got nothin' on some, I must say.)
(Aw, cheer up.)
Very nice, thanks.

Smokey? Bear?

Where was I?

Ah, yes. So we met these men last Wednesday. They'd been putting out hotspots on steep terrain, just over halfway through a two-week deployment during which they were headquartered at Hansen Dam. That deployment ends today. Welcome home, guys!

Friday, when I saw pyrocumulus clouds above Altadena, I thought about "the guys." Now the firefighters had faces. I started nosing around about Aztec Fire Crew 63 online. Now I'm even more impressed than I was before. These young men have had to fight more than fires. You can read more about Aztec Fire Crews, or watch a video starring a different Aztec Crew.

I'm awed by all firefighters and Aztec Fire Crew 63 is no exception. They're gentlemen, they were all exceedingly nice and we loved talking to them. As we left, my husband, who can lift a sofa by himself, said, "We sit at our desks and deal with ideas. These guys go into the mountains and deal with the forces of nature." I can't say it better. They are men of the elements.

Admittedly, there's plenty of hero worship going on around here. But I think the reason we're so impressed with these heroes is that they are, after all, humans.

Damn fine humans.

Revisiting an Old Flame

While firefighters continue to target hotspots in the Station Fire, I thought it might be interesting to revisit a small brush fire area I've photographed before to check in on the progress of regrowth. I took this photo on August 13th before the Station Fire began. Though this area (viewed across Las Flores Canyon from the Sam Merrill Trail) was unscathed in the recent fires, it remains closed to hikers.

This small area burned almost exactly two years ago in August of 2007. The fire was very quickly put out by our local firefighting heroes. Click on my March, 2008 post to see how the burn area looked this past February, then again a month later, after some rain.

In today's photo you can see much more growth. I don't know if the burnished brown scrub is dried from lack of water, or if that's the color of the healthy plant. Maybe one of you can tell us.

One of the hotspots the firefighters have been working on the last couple of days is almost directly north of this area. John and I met some of the guys as they came off the mountain Wednesday night. They were tired and dirty and gorgeous and sweet. I'm saving those pictures to post Tuesday, 9/22. That's when they said they'd be coming to the end of their deployment and have a chance to check the web.

I know we can never thank them enough, but if you get the chance, give it a try. They like it.

Looking Up

You recognize this, don't you?

I think what I'll do here is make a link for those who don't know what it is. Some folks are so familiar with it they don't need a link. Either they're looking at the picture saying, "Don't tell me, don't tell me!" or it's a complete no-brainer.

It's not a contest. It was just fun to take a picture of a cloudy sky today. We have clouds so rarely. The moisture comes in handy when we've still got fire in them thar hills after 17 days. The Station Fire is 81% contained at this writing. A week ago it felt like we'd never see that. Today, things are looking up.

Mourning

My friend took me out for coffee and a sandwich yesterday. We both feel like we're mourning for the landscape. It's going to take a while to learn to live with the changes wrought by the Station Fire. Bad things happen and sometimes they're so bad you can't get over them. But you learn to live with them.

We talked about other things, too--things we enjoy, projects we're working on, ideas we have--there are other things, good things. My friend cheered me up and I still feel good today.

I thought about posting something cute and happy, but I'll wait one more day. Today it's appropriate to mourn about those things we will not get over, but are still learning to live with.

Somewhere There is Always Beauty

To those who participated in yesterday's rant, thanks for helping me get it off my chest. Everyone gets angry sometimes and there are healthy ways to express anger other than defacing property or burning things down.

The Station Fire symbolizes too much loss in too short a time.

Boz and I took a walk today. We didn't go to Hahamongna or the Cobb Estate or the Arroyo. We just went around the block. It took forever. I let Boz stop at every bush that beckoned him, every titillating telephone pole, every come-on curb. It was a chance for me to relax, look around and realize there is beauty. No matter what happens, somewhere there is always beauty.

The Litterin' Low Life

The Sam Merrill Trail gets a lot of weekend trash. So does the west end of the Gabrielino Trail, north of JPL. These spots also get a lot of graffiti, especially on the lower reaches. The preponderance of litter and graffiti on the low paths is because getting up high on the mountain requires effort and agility, and these are activities of the lazy.

Here's a sampling of what Boz and I found on a short walk Sunday from the west end of Altadena Drive to the ranger station, a 30 minute walk if you're not in a hurry. As you can see, our litterers are athletic (Gatorade), watch their weight (light beer), care about their skin (Neutrogena lotion) and occasionally indulge in candy. I notice one wrapper got out of my little arrangement. Perhaps litterers like to follow their Bliss.

The litterers might disagree with my low opinion of them. Obviously, they have a high opinion of themselves. But I'm right and they're wrong. They're lazy, slothful and stupid. How do I know this? Slothful: self-evident. Lazy: I found a good deal of this trash within about thirty feet of a garbage can. Stupid: See the cigar wrapper in that pile? And I didn't even pick up the cigarette butts. CIGARETTE BUTTS. WHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING? (At first I thought, oh gee, maybe it was the coyotes, but wait, no, coyotes are too smart to smoke cigarettes in the middle of a forest full of dry tinder, which is more than I can say for some people.)

There's no sense complaining to you, you don't litter. You don't paint meaningless code words on rocks where only lizards can read them. Yet I want to vilify these trash-dropping mofos. Do they decorate their homes in early twenty-first century Garbage Dump? (Yes.) I'd like to scream and swear at the halfwits who think their spray-painted gangspeak--the secret language of morons--actually enhances a rock or a bridge or even so much as a pile of dung.

But I also call myself a writer and writers are supposed to be inventive with language. Supposedly we don't need to swear to express ourselves (though The Seven Words come in handy).

Let's see what we can do. Today I invite you to invent incendiary invective in the comments. Rail! Accuse! Vituperate! Tell the litterers how big a pile of offal you'd like to force them to sort, by hand, at gunpoint. Let the taggers in on your plans for their edification in a federal facility. Or perhaps you'd have them clean, under the hot sun, with a toothbrush, every inch of wall they've ever defaced. See how vicious you can be--without using The Seven Words. In fact, if you use one (or a variation of one) I'll delete your comment. But anything else goes. And I do mean anything.

And while you're at it: tell the Station Fire arsonist what painful punishment you have in mind for him (or her?). Heated words are welcome, my friends. Go ahead and get mad. But please: no swearing.

Zen Monday: #62

Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and give us your thoughts rather than me telling you what the photo's about. I look for something provocative or, failing that, at least something odd.

As I post each new Zen Monday photo, I'll add a label to last week's to identify it if necessary (if I know what it is).

Stress

The Station Fire has seriously stressed me out. The smoky air, the online discussions about bad (or nonexistent) news coverage, the talk of costs in money, not to mention lives. And now that we know it was arson my mind is completely blown.

It's all relative. I live in Pasadena. My home has not, at any point, been threatened by the fire. Yet I'm stressed to the point of near-illness because of the effects this thing has on my community. My stress is nothing compared to that of the people who live up the hill in Altadena, or over the hill in Acton, or across the valley in Sierra Madre and Monrovia--the people whose bags are still packed in case they have to evacuate.

And the animals. It's too horrible to contemplate.

Then I think of the people who did have to evacuate. That's stress. But those who lost their homes are going through worse. Real people. I don't know them but I can put myself in their place, or lack of a place. It's devastating.

Real lives have been lost, too. Two lives, two firefighters. My heart goes out to their families. I'm so glad I married a guy who works at his computer. Having him here, now, is a great stress-reducer.

We talked about the firefighters last night. I imagine you have to love fire to be a firefighter. You have to love the challenge, the teamwork, the danger, the heat. The kudos, too, when you get them. You have to be able to deal with some major stress on that job, I would think. Maybe you even have to relish that stress.

We can never give them kudos enough, but we can try.

Olive

It has been a very tough week thanks to the Station Fire. I wanted to post a picture of something beautiful and sweet. Yesterday at dusk we sat on our front curb and visited with our neighbor, Olive. She let me snap photo after photo and I got my wish.

Here she is in color.

Excellent information on the wildfires may be found at
inciweb
altadenablog
altadenahiker
kpcc, our fab local public radio station

Altered Arts

Besides interfering with vision, the Station Fire is altering vision as well. I keep finding strange light, and I've heard of unusual sunsets all along the coast.

The smoke is doing stuff to my throat and nose, too, but I haven't figured out how to make art out of that. At least nothing I'd want to share with you.