Today I had a strong urge to drive out West Hills to try and locate a trailhead or entry point for Bell Canyon Park. I woke up thinking about it, and I figured my sudden interest was subconsciously generated by the recent Woolsey fire. The community of Bell Canyon, home to many celebrities, had been ravaged by the fire and had been in the news a lot last week. But as I sat down at my computer this morn, I wasn't thinking about the fire as I Googled directions for Bell Canyon Park. I was really only following my urge to find the trailhead, because I have been hiking the same places over and over and I simply wanted to find a new one. I had tried to locate Bell Canyon Park once before, about two years ago. I Googled the directions that time, too, and I followed the route I was given : Valley Circle past Roscoe to Bell Canyon Road, then up that road to the supposed entrance to the park, which - all told - would be about 11 miles from my apartment. Driving Valley Circle Boulevard is the Valley's version of being out in the country, if not the Boondocks. You are way out in some open space below Chatsworth, but when you get down to the intersection with Roscoe, you start to see some regular development. Then you turn right on Bell Canyon Road, which leads you up into the mountains.
The sun was in my eyes as I drove up the canyon road. Even with the driver's side windshield shade pulled down, it was hard to see. I drove slow and craned my neck, looking for any sign of a trailhead leading to Bell Canyon Park. Sometimes, neighborhoods like to keep these trails a secret and I understand why. I am an unobtrusive hiker however. All I wanted to do was find a new trail. Finally at about a mile in, I came upon the large security guard shack that marks the entrance to the wealthy enclave of Bell Canyon itself. Now I remembered exactly what had happened the last time I tried to find the park trail : I'd reached the same high security guard shack, with gate, and had made a u-turn before reaching same, so as to avoid an embarrassing situation. The gate is opened for residents only.
So now I was turned around and heading back down Bell Canyon Road. I figured I would just go back to Valley Circle and drive another mile or so to El Escorpion Park, one of my favorite hikes, home to the Cave of Munitz, with an entrance on a familiar street. That was my thought as I turned around.
But now I was facing away from the sun and I could see real well, and what I saw as I drove down Bell Canyon Road shocked me. The entire hillside was blackened from the fire, for almost the whole way down to Valley Circle. Immediately I thought of the news reports of what had happened in the community of Bell Canyon, past the guard shack. Many people lost their homes and everything that belonged to them.
I thought that had happened much further in, because the majority of the 20 mile long fire had burned closer to the canyons leading to the ocean. Bell Canyon is on the western edge of all of that. I knew the interior had burned, but I didn't realise it had come so close to the Valley floor, nor that it had burned entire hillsides.
I continued on to El Escorpion Park, not knowing what to expect, but figuring it would be okay as I had heard nothing on the news to indicate otherwise. As I began my hike, however, I very quickly saw that it was not okay. Just a hundred yards past the entrance, several acres of grassland had been burned flat, not far from a residential street. As I continued on, the damage got worse and by the time I reached the Cave of Munitz, 3/4s of a mile in, I could see that most of the back area of the park had been heavily burned. El Escorpion Park lies in a canyon as well, a "sister" canyon to Bell, just on the other side of the Castle Peak mountain that separates it from Bell Canyon Road. The fire had jumped Bell Canyon and gotten into El Escorpion, setting much of the vast acreage ablaze. An area of about a half mile square, formerly so thick with vegetation that you could not see between trails, was now charred to the ground and almost barren. You could walk across the blackened soil without regard for trails. I hiked all the way to the back of the park, to where it runs up against another set of mountains, one and a quarter miles in. I was trying to recognize former landmarks : "This is where all the bee bushes were.....this is where my favorite oak trees were, where the sun would come through the branches in late afternoon and cast amazing shadows.....".
Beginning with my drive back down Bell Canyon Road, where I experienced my first visual shock, and continuing through my hike to the back of El Escorpion Park, I was really affected not just by what I saw, but by the emotional power of what I saw. On my hike I thought, "how in the world do you get a handle on this much fire"? And I was just looking at a few hundred acres of it. The whole of the Woolsey fire, last I heard, was somewhere around 140,000 acres.
I can't even imagine how they put it out, just seeing the damage to one small part of it, which even so was pretty extensive.
Being there, and feeling the power of it in the aftermath, blew me away. I cannot even begin to fathom what the folks in the Bell Canyon community experienced.
All I could think was "God Bless them all". Sounds trite, maybe, but that was the only thing I could offer upon the shock seeing it in person, my own small prayer. The feeling, though, was genuine.
I drove home after my hike and stopped at Trader Joes and Super King for supplies. Both stores were jam packed pre-Thanksgiving. The checkout at Super King took more than twenty minutes. Normally I'd have said "screw it" and bailed. But I was in a bit of a trance.
At home this eve, I watched another movie in my own personal Cinematheque Retrospective of director Kenji Mizoguchi. You will recall that I was watching several of his films before taking a break to concentrate on Horror for Halloweentime. Only eight Mizoguchis are available from the Libe, tonight I watched my seventh : "The Life Of Oharu", a full scale Masterpiece almost on the level of "Sansho The Baliff" (reviewed in September, and considered one of the ten greatest films ever made).
Very briefly, "Oharu" is a middle aged woman who has suffered nothing but misfortune in her life. Once, she was a Lady In Waiting to the court of a local Lord. Her family was part of the nobility. But she was in love with one of her servants (played by a young Toshiro Mifune). They were discovered and she and her family were cast out, exiled to the working class of 17th century Japan, which meant poverty and struggle, and extreme shame and punishment for a woman who broke the rules of a male dominated society.
Be prepared to suffer along with Oharu as you watch the movie. It is long, 135 minutes, and it feels longer because it is slow, so have patience. You will be rewarded with one of the most deeply emotional films you will ever see. Cinematically it is brilliant. I am thinking more and more that Mizoguchi has got to be considered with the greatest directors of all time. Consider "Sansho The Baliff" and now this film. Two # 10s, as great as films get.
No amount of superlatives nor Thumbs Up can accurately describe my recommendation.
Just see it, when you are in the mood.
That's all for tonight. See you in the morning. Much Love and God Bless. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo :):)
No comments:
Post a Comment