Without any chance to tour the Angeles National Forest, the hand crew has put it on themselves to at least take a look around the foothills that surround the Dalton Fire Station. A trail up from the fire station led to a winding road, with a pull-out full of bicyclists, trailrunners and hikers ready to go up the “Poop Out” trail, one which has been used by the Dalton Hotshots as a training hike over the years. 

Apparently, the trails are comprised of many knobs connected by saddles, which results in a consistent up-and-down journey, eventually climbing higher and higher over the urban sprawl.  Any part of the trail with a definite slope is washed out by rain and human movement; large trenches in the ground make both trekking and biking a near-calamitous event at times; a crew member already fell and scraped his knee on the ground, cutting his nomex pants and skin. Loose, sandy material over smooth rock never lead to a quick, jaunty hike.

The “Upper Colby” trail seemed suited only the most hardcore and professional mountain bikers. Downhill sections were filled with boulders and rocks sticking out of the ground, ready to launch anyone into the intensely prickly bushes at each side of the trail, or at least face plant the biker. I regretted having run up this trail, for it became as fast as a slow hike and fraught with the chance of a biker going downhill without much control to not blast into me. I don’t think I could jump into those bushes, even under threat of bicyclic injury.

But no matter which trail I was on, the view of Los Angeles was stunning: Closer to the summit of Upper Colby, I could see a thin line of golden white in the horizon, beyond the tall buildings of downtown LA. I could only guess it was the sea. That’s a lot of city before getting to the coast.

We might be leaving this station for another soon, since the hotshots will be back. So long as we’re here, I’ll keep finding new angles on the city, from another, higher knob in the Angeles National Forest.