US Tour 2015: America the Pulchritudinous

Old Glory a-flappin’ away in the breeze on the 9,406-foot peak of Mt Baden-Powell on Labor Day.

I’ve said it before: One of my favorite aspects of my occasional visits to the United States is hiking its protected forests and parklands. Genuine wilderness experiences are not something that every country can easily offer. Take, for example, Myanmar, where the national parks and animal reserves are in dreadful shape. Despite all the optimistic talk in recent years of developing ecotourism in the country, at the moment these parks are protected more in name than in deed. At best they offer landscapes whose unique beauty is sullied by trash-strewn trails – as I have found during several visits to Mount Popa National Park – and at worst the government is using the “protected” land to enrich themselves by selling concessions for logging, sugarcane cultivation and other dodgy activities, as occurs in Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve. Visit remote Mount Victoria in Chin State and you might spot a few small birds fluttering about the trees, but otherwise wildlife is scarce to nonexistent.

So, my fellow Americans: Get out and enjoy your protected natural areas, and appreciate what you’ve got. Following are brief notes and photos covering the hikes I’ve done since arriving in the US last week:

Mount Wilson Trail

Distance: 7 miles

Trailhead: Mira Monte Street, Sierra Madre

This is a steep trail that climbs for 7 miles all the way to the 5,715-foot peak of Mount Wilson, making for a 14-mile return trip. Despite my dawn start, there were already plenty of people on the trail, including a few trail runners. Everyone was exceedingly polite, and the number of hikers who asked if I was walking all the way to the top nearly guilt-tripped me into abandoning my plan to turn around at shady Orchard Camp at the halfway point. But I had a long, hilly bike ride on the agenda for the following day, so I kept it relatively short (7 miles return) in order to save my legs.

The signboard at the start of the Mt Wilson Trail shows distances and elevations.

Dawn on the lower slopes of the Mt Wilson Trail.

The view over Sierra Madre about a mile up the trail.

A rare shady patch along the Mt Wilson Trail.

Low bridge near Orchard Camp.

Mount Baden-Powell

Distance: 8 miles

Trailhead: Islip Saddle along the Angeles Crest Highway, 50 miles from La Canada

This 4-mile trail climbs to the 9,406-foot peak of Mount Baden-Powell – named after the founder of the Boy Scouts – but never gets too steep, making it quite a bit easier than the Mount Wilson Trail despite the altitude. I had another early start, and the cold air was perfect for hiking; I never broke a sweat. The only people I saw on the way up were two backpackers who had camped just below the summit, while at the peak I met a guy named Jason who had driven three hours from San Diego to tackle the hike. On the way down, though, I passed dozens of people coming up: It being Labor Day and all, there were lots of people out enjoying Angeles National Forest. Overheard conversation (one man relating a harrowing tale of survival on the high seas to his hiking buddy): “I said to myself, ‘I ain’t fuckin’ doin’ it. I ain’t dying out here in the ocean today’.”

Near the start of the climb to Mt Baden-Powell.

Through the whispering pine trees.

The morning sun shines through the pines.

The view north toward the Mojave Desert.

Just below the summit of Mt Baden-Powell.

Mountaintop monument to Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts.

Kearsarge Pass Trail

Distance: Not far

Trailhead: End of Onion Valley Road, 13 miles west of Independence

This is a beautiful area that provides access to several long trails in the high Sierra Nevada. While staying in Independence for a couple of nights, I ran into a number of backpackers who were in town on resupply runs in the midst of two- or three-week hikes. My walk on the other hand, was very short – maybe 2 miles in 30 minutes – because earlier in the day I had ridden my bike up the brutal 13-mile Onion Valley Road climb, considered one of the toughest road climbs in the US. I didn’t have much left in my legs for hiking, but I did want to get out and smell the pine trees and take some photos. Later in the evening the wind shifted, carrying smoke from distant wildfires over the mountains and prompting an otherworldly sunset.

Along Kearsarge Pass Trail.

The view west toward Independence.

More pulchritude on Kearsarge Pass Trail.

Trail junction – just about where I turned around and headed back down to the parking lot.

Martian sunset over the Sierra Nevada, complements of smoky haze from distant wildfires.

US Tour 2015: Welcome to Fortress America

Eaton Canyon, Pasadena.

After more than 24 hours of travel with very little in the way of quality sleep, arriving at Los Angeles International Airport could never be anything other than mildly annoying – from the officious guardians of Fortress America at immigration, whose prodding interrogations always make me feel like I’m committing a felony by returning to my own country for a visit, to the interminable wait for my suitcase to round the bend at the creaky luggage carousel.

I can only begin to relax when I step outside the terminal, and suddenly find myself in Southern California. It’s always fun to eavesdrop on conversations while riding the shuttle bus to the car rental office – it’s how I start tuning into the current zeitgeist of the USA. This time, my favorite comment came from a burly male passenger who, spotting a billboard for Turkish Airlines, declared loudly to his female travel companion, “Turkish Airlines! That’s one of them airlines where you’re still allowed to smoke!” Um, no. No it isn’t. But a little thing called reality wasn’t going to stop this guy from declaiming his ignorance of the world with great authority, as is the American Way.

There was another long line at the car rental office, and then I was in my red Chevy Cruze, merging onto the 405 south and then the 105 east. My car is not fire-engine red but blood red, because it’s just another cell on LA’s convoluted freeways, which are like a vast circulatory system, dontcha know? (I just made that up.) I turn on the radio and what’s the first song I hear upon my return to the US? An 80s classic – “The Safety Dance” by Men Without Hats (last year it was Sir Mix-a-Lot’s “Baby Got Back”). I need to buy some new CDs.

So I’m back in the City of Angels, but I bypass downtown on the 110 north and head for Pasadena. My first destination is Eaton Canyon for a short hike. I need to free my brain of the fog of travelling across 11-and-a-half time zones. Eaton Canyon is easy to access – only a few minutes from the 210 freeway on North Altadena Drive – but in the middle of the week it’s pretty quiet. I see only a few other hikers: a girl shading herself under a silver umbrella, a Thai couple chatting in their native language as they walk, and of course the guy with the big hiking boots and backpack who speed-strides past everyone as he heads for Parts Unknown.

I walk for a few minutes on the main path along a dry creek bed, then take a random path off to the right, and after 10 more minutes take another turn to follow a trail into “Coyote Canyon”. The path starts climbing gently into the semi-arid landscape of the San Gabriel Mountains. The afternoon is hot, and the smell of sage like a potent, head-clearing balm. I keep walking toward the hills, not knowing where I’m going and not really caring.

US Tour 2015: From Yangon to Los Angeles

“Above the Clouds,” a Buddha head made from stacks of canned seafood on view at Honk Kong International Airport.

It’s time for another trip to the United States – I’d like to be able to say that I’m swooping back in to save my country from the horrors of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, but unfortunately that’s currently beyond my limited superpowers. The Trump campaign will just have to die a natural death, after more Donald-dazzled voters realize that his primary “skill” – dispensing grade-school insults – is not particularly conducive to domestic or global leadership.

My journey consisted of a three-hour flight from Yangon to Hong Kong, which departed at 1:10am; a seven-hour layover at Hong Kong International Airport; and finally a 13-hour flight to Los Angeles.

I shared the first leg of the flight with the Globe to Globe Hamlet troupe, which is travelling the world with the aim of presenting Shakespeare’s play in more than 100 countries over the course of two years. They had just performed in Yangon – I didn’t attend, my dislike for Shakespeare being one the reasons I majored in comparative literature rather than English literature as an undergraduate. Aside from being stuck behind the troupe at the check-in counter for a very long time as their crated Shakespearean effects were sorted and weighed, my only other regret was overhearing the occasional outburst of show-tune vocalizing among certain of the actors. Other than that, they seemed a fairly amiable crew.

We landed before 5:30am, and then I faced my long layover in Hong Kong. I had been to the city several times before, so I wasn’t keen to leave the airport for hit-and-run dim sum. Instead, I found a place in the airport to eat breakfast; spent some time contemplating a sculpture of the Buddha’s head made from stacks of canned seafood titled “Above the Clouds”; browsed the bookstores; and did a lot of aimless walking around the large terminal.

I also dipped into the first chapter of a new book. I had wanted to read something about America during my trip, so I brought along William T. Vollman’s Riding Toward Everywhere (2009) – the author’s account of his adventures in illegal train-hopping. The Legal Disclaimer at the beginning sets the tone: “Please consider yourself warned that the activities described in this book are criminally American.” In the first chapter Vollmann writes, “My critique of American society remains fundamentally incoherent. Would I really have preferred my grandfather’s time, when Pinkertons were cracking Wobblies over the head, or my father’s when Joe McCarthy could ruin anyone by calling him Red? All I know is that although I live a freer life than many people, I want to be freer still; I’m sometimes positively dazzled with longing for a better way of being. What is it that I need?”

Aside from all that, I had plenty of time to soak in the atmosphere of Hong Kong International. Travel writer Pico Iyer once described airports as “an anthology of generic spaces – the shopping mall, the food court, the hotel lobby – which bear the same relation to life, perhaps, that Muzak does to music.” I’m afraid that I can’t really argue with Iyer’s assessment. Seven hours is a long time to spend inside an architecturally dehumanizing bubble, although I didn’t feel completely cut off from the world. While inside the airport, masses of people were processed through an electronically controlled and scrutinized environment, outside, the weather did its own thing, as always: Rain poured down, and mist obscured the nearby mountain peaks. I could watch it through the giant glass walls that stretched from the floor all the way up to the soaring, cathedral-like ceiling.

And then it was time for the long flight to Los Angeles, always a blur of drowsy reading, half-watched movies intertwined with half-remembered dreams, boxed meals, and more-or-less frightening patches of northern Pacific turbulence. And then, 13 hours later but, magically, one hour before the Hong Kong departure time, touchdown in sunny Southern California.

From rainy Hong Kong to sunny LA.