Vertical L.A.: mountainous metropolis - mountains of Los Angeles metropolitan area

Sierra, Nov-Dec, 1992 by Reed McManus

The Los Angeles metropolitan area is not simply the smoggiest, most car-choked region in the United States, an endless grid of boulevards interrupted by elevated freeways and lined with palms nourished by imported water. It's also surrounded by a phalanx of rugged mountain ranges that include peaks leaping from near sea level to more than 11,000 feet in what seems like a single bound. * While freeways have snaked through mountain passes to spread suburbia into every buildable basin, the steep mountains have provided 14 million Angelenos with sanctuaries close at hand. But the mountains are mixed blessing: They keep out the sweltering heat of the Mojave Desert, but also lock in the fumes from automobiles, refineries, and factories. Besides putting on good walking shoes and filling their water bottles, hiking Angelenos must check the daily newspaper for air-quality predictions before heading out. When the ozone concentration in the atmosphere reaches .12 parts per million (as it does 80 days a year in some foothill communities), the air is unhealthy to breathe, particularly for anyone laboring up a canyon trail.

The only mountain range in the United States that bisects a major city, the Santa Monica Mountains extend 50 miles from the Hollywood Hills west to the Pacific, and are within an hour's drive of 6 million people. The Santa Monicas have suffered from decades of development: Entire hilltops have been scraped and bulldozed into terraces to accommodate homes, and residential roads course through the range to houses perched on slopes as steep as 45 degrees. This unbridled building and paving gave birth to a fervent preservation movement, starting with a 1971 "Save the Santa Monicas" march down Mulholland Drive led by Sierra Club members. Today some 155,000 acres of the range are part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Much of the "park" is actually still in private hands; it's up to the National Park Service and groups like the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy to piece together parcels of open space while keeping one step ahead of the ever-present subdividers. * The Santa Monicas' chaparral-covered parkland would look familiar to many Americans: The range has long provided conveniently rugged settings for Hollywood westerns and Tarzan movies as well as the television series M*A*S*H. Snatches of Hollywood history can be found in the names of ranches acquired for the national recreation area: Wilacre Park, the former estate of silent-movie cowboy Will Acres; Will Rogers State Park, once owned by the "cowboy philosopher." Malibu Creek State Park is composed of ranches that used to belong to 20th-Century Fox, Paramount Studios, Bob Hope, and noted public-lands enthusiast Ronald Reagan.

When John Muir visited the San Gabriel Mountains in the 1870s, he found chaparral so thick he had to explore on hands and knees. Today the roads that crisscross 693,000-acre Angeles National Forest in the heart of the San Gabriels create different problems: millions of visitors and a host of urban ills, including subdivisions being built up against forest borders. The Angeles, which offers 800 miles of hiking trails among peaks that reach heights of more than 10,000 feet, is the second most-visited national forest in the United States. Overuse has become such a concern that the Forest Service is considering severe restrictions on recreation in its two wilderness areas - one of which, the 36,000-acre San Gabriel, is only 18 miles from downtown L.A. * The lower reaches of the San Gabriels are an "urban-wildland interface," where split-levels and minivans meet bobcats, mountain lions, and coyotes. Communities there must also contend with nature's fury, as wildfires and mudslides regularly take their toll.

Where the San Gabriels meet Cajon Pass 50 miles east of L.A.'s City Hall, the San Bernardino Mountains begin. This range includes San Gorgonio Mountain, at 11,490 feet the highest peak in Southern California. It was here that the Sierra Club's Angeles Chapter, the Club's largest, cut its political teeth. Until the 1940s the chapter had been predominantly a social organization, sponsoring hikes and outings throughout the San Gabriels and San Bernardinos (and looked down upon by the Club's more political San Francisco Bay Area members). But in 1946 it began a successful struggle to establish the San Gorgonio Wilderness, at more than 58,000 acres one of the largest wilderness preserves in Southern California. Instead of a ski resort, it's now home to free-roaming bighorn sheep and 2,000-year-old limber pines.

The southern border of the L.A. metropolitan area is framed by two formidable boundaries, one geographical and one military. The Santa Ana Mountains, most of which are within 420,000-acre Cleveland National Forest, arc 135 miles from Orange County almost to the Mexican border. Though lower than either the San Gabriels or San Bernardinos, the Santa Anas are much less accessible. Mountain lions, bighorn sheep, golden eagles, and bobcats still roam their wild corners. The national forest adjoins 125,000-acre Camp Pendleton Marine Base, which has become a major ecological preserve, home to the endangered California least tern (in addition to a host of toxic-waste sites). Together, the two jurisdictions keep the Los Angeles area's ceaselessly spreading suburbs from bumping up against those marching north from San Diego. *