Feeling a profound sense of ennui, I decided to get off my butt and make a late afternoon ride up into the nearby Santa Monica mountains. A light cover of marine moisture, sucked inland from the Pacific by high pressure to the east, covered Los Angeles like a damp, transparent blanket. The air was already a bit chilly, at least by southern California standards. On this November afternoon, the thermometer read 65 degrees, and was heading rapidly south.

So I tucked a jacket into my 'Bak and headed north, toward Runyon Canyon Park. Runyon Canyon cuts, like a deep gash, through a steep gorge, running more than 1,000 feet from just above Franklin Ave., in Hollywood, up to Mulholland Drive. Since much of my route would be over pavement, even in the park, I switched out my fat tires on my mountain bike for a much more narrow pair (Specialized Fatboys), better suited for the road, but good enough for a little dirt. I had looked at an old map of the city before I left. I saw what looked like a few unpaved fire roads branching off from Runyon Canyon. I thought I might try to find them and worry about having road tires later.

Pedaling briskly across the flatlands from my home in the city's historic South Carthay neighborhood, I crossed broad Olympic Blvd., and then I stayed where possible on residential streets, away from fast moving cars. I'd quickly build up a little speed riding the skinny tires - they made the bike feel so fast! - on these quiet streets, only to have to slow down at intersections and stop lights.

After 20 minutes the mountains loomed larger. Just across a somewhat decrepit portion of Santa Monica Blvd., I reached little Plummer Park, once part of an enormous Spanish land grant that is now part of West Hollywood. As I rolled slowly through the heart of the park on a dirt path, I listened to snippets of conversation, none of it in Spanish, and most of it unintelligible to me. The speakers were for the most part Russian immigrants who live in the neighborhood; only their children and grandchildren spoke English.

Not much beyond the little park I crossed Sunset Blvd. and then Hollywood Blvd., the latter a bit west of the more famous stretch that is rife with theaters and tourists. I was, though, in the very bosom of the slightly seedy section of Hollywood that mystery writer Raymond Chandler liked to write about. Now on Gardner St., the route became decidedly more vertical and gravity raised its ugly head as I approached Franklin Avenue. Now I had to keep an eye out for SUVs whose drivers were apt to hold a Jamba Juice in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Beyond Franklin a couple of turns and a few minutes' climbing, past little bungalows and and magnificent Spanish style mansions, brought me to the entrance of Runyon Canyon. (Note: bike riders need to take the trail on the west side of the canyon - it's hike-'n-bike on dirt, on the east side of the canyon.)

Runyon Canyon has been described as one of the city's best kept secrets and a jewel of the municipal park system. While it is a splendid park, it's hardly undiscovered, particularly on late, sunny afternoons. That's when people come out to walk - many with their dogs - along the main, steep trail. There are few people on bikes to be seen - not because of the people or the dogs, many off-leash, but because the way up Runyon is so darn vertical. Even so, as I started up the trail, I could not believe how good I felt on my road tires - narrow as the were, their sure grip on this roughly paved portion of the trail made me feel like I was riding a proverbial mountain goat! (Be sure, if you're on your bike, to take the trail on the west side of the park, or you'll end up with some extensive hiking as well as biking).

But, if the reasons for challenging Runyon Canyon include its unrelenting uphill climb, and the fantastic, ever expanding view of the flatter realms of the city below, then surely another reason is the opportunity to gawk at the collection of gorgeous people making their way up and down the trail.

As at Plummer Park, I was once more privy to snippets of conversation. No one spoke Russian in these airy heights. I think the chief language must be Angst. "There is something," I overheard one woman say "that no man has even been able to give me, and that's..." and then I was out of earshot before I could hear just what she was missing. Sometimes, this being Hollywood, I pick up a line about or from a script. (On another ride up Runyon, on an overcast day that kept most people home, I rode with the excellent actor David Conrad. He had passed me and then let me catch up and we talked. When I asked him what he did, he said he was an actor - "Return to Paradise, Men of Honor, some t.v. roles." I didn't recognize him or his name at the time - we don't see a lot of movies at my house. I'm fairly certain there are a lot of actors - and would be actors - who enjoy hiking up Runyon Canyon, who know they probably won't be bothered by fans, but I feel a bit sorry I wasn't a bit more "star struck" with Mr. Conrad - oh, well, living in L.A will do that to you.)

I know mountain biking should transport a rider, as if on a magic carpet, away from the cares of the modern world. And Runyon Canyon, early in the morning, or during the middle portion of the day - when hikers are mostly absent - can do just that, transporting one to another time, a time even before the Gabrielano Indians explored the canyon, a time when mountain lions roamed the canyon and hawks wheeled overhead.

This is chaparral country - the odd tree here and there, but mostly a thick blanket of manzanita-covered the hillsides. These mountains, mostly sedimentary rock, have been 30 million years in the making. The mountain lions are (mostly) gone, but there are still hawks. Bobcats, rattlesnakes, deer, raccoons and skunks inhabit the canyon, too. Except for the hawks, these animals are more apt to put in an appearance when the humans and their dogs have gone home for the evening.

In fact, as I slowed to a crawl to avoid hitting a Lassie look-alike, I watched a Redtail hawk from the corner of my eye float to a landing on the upper branches of a tree at the edge of the trail; something was in the raptor's talons. Weaving past the dog, I looked more carefully and saw the hawk begin to tear into a lizard that was serving as its dinner.

Beyond the grisly scene, the trail began to include loose dirt. With my skinny tires I had to pay attention to the people and dogs, the dirt, and even stretches of soft sand, which my tires seemed to want to sink into. (Where did that sand come from? For that matter, what are fossilized sea creatures doing here, 1,000 feet above sea level? The answer to both questions is that these mountains were once under the sea, and have been lifted by monumentally slow forces beneath the surface of the earth.)

A very steep stretch of trail, 16% or more - luckily free of sand - had me shifting down into my lower gears for a few hundred yards. Then I reached a little plateau at the top of the canyon. A junction offered a bench, a spectacular view of the city, as well as a loop trail back down to the bottom of the canyon on a ridge to the east, featuring steep, nonstop dirt, lots of steps, and - for me - way too many people and dogs. I could have hike 'n biked it, but I kept faith instead with the main trail, much flatter now, more sandy and running just below the top of another ridge to the west. Two or three homes were located along the trail itself, a short distance from the park entrance. One of the homes included a little corral with a couple of horses. Like the hawk and the lizard, the horses and the corral seemed, in the middle of a city, oddly out join with space and time. Hollywood, downtown L.A. and half the county were on view behind the corral and the house.

Click on image for full view

A couple of minutes past the houses and horses I reached Mulholland Drive, a twisting aerial artery bisecting much of Los Angeles, running on top of the Santa Monica mountains. The temperature had dropped significantly and I started to cool down as I rested at trail's end. I pulled my jacket - from Showers Pass - out and put it on. I could have returned the way I'd come, probably the prudent course given the lateness of the day. Another still prudent choice included following a spur trail that would have taken me up a bit farther and then dropped me down to rejoin the main trail. Or I could have ridden east or west along Mulholland Drive, until I reached a paved road cutting back down the mountain.

However, I'd 'scoped out that old L.A. road map a few days earlier. I knew a dirt track began near the top of Runyon Canyon, next to the spur trail, land ed toward a street called Astral Drive. From Astral I could coast down to Nichols Canyon, a paved, albeit twisting route that would quickly drop me back down to Hollywood. Or I could look for what on the map seemed to be a fire road that would offer another route to Nichols Canyon.

I wanted to find the dirt paths. I turned south on a paved street and quickly hit the first dirt trail where the street ended. I slowly pedaled along the almost flat path that contoured around a hillside, with a major drop-off on my right. I quickly came up on a young woman writing in what looked like a journal. She sat facing Nichols Canyon and a higher ridge line to the west, with the sun close to the horizon. When she heard me coming, the woman looked up at me with a Mona Lisa smile. I said hello and asked if the path ahead hit pavement. "Yes, just keep going."

For a little bit, the way offered what Runyon Canyon did not: total solitude. The setting was also more rugged. However, I wasn't the first to ride this trail, for I was following another set of bike tracks. Soon enough, too soon, civilization began to intrude - there was a row of houses atop the hillside above me. Then, as I rounded a bend, dogs started to bark somewhere in front of me. I rolled onto very narrow pavement under a canopy of trees as a house hove into view on my right, just down slope, where the dogs were barking. One of the canines, a good sized tan brute, with is hackles up, was advancing towards me. "Good dog!" I tried. Then, "Stay!"

I edged by him on the narrow road, while his companion, a bit less vicious, fell in beside the first dog. I picked up a good sized chunk of concrete I found at my feet just in case the curs decided to charge me, but they finally dropped back. To my chagrin, I found I'd been on a private driveway, as I exited the property through open gates. Curiously, there wasn't a "No Trespassing" sign from either direction. But I felt lucky the gates were open, because I wouldn't have wanted to pass by those dogs, again. (Later, I learned that the gates are almost always open.)

At least I was on Astral. But instead of turning downhill, I decided to explore the highest reaches of the paved road. Astral ended perhaps a quarter mile farther, and along the way I reached Solar Drive, which led me back to the spur trail that reconnected with the main Runyon Canyon Trail. Then I retraced my way and finished off Astral, quickly reaching the top, and finding, to my surprise, another dirt "road." This one lay behind a locked chain link fence. It would have been easy to walk my bike around it. This fence had a sign, but instead of saying "No Trespassing," it said "Warning, Rattlesnake area." There was also a fine view down into Nichols Canyon, serpentining its way up towards Mulholland, high priced homes clinging to the steep hillside like barnacles on a whale.

View into Nichols Canyon (Click on image for larger view)

Peering the other direction, down the dirt road, I knew it would be the better part of valor to back off, because this looked like too rough a route back down into Nichols Canyon with my road tires. I suppose that's why I decided to take the road less traveled, anyway, and squeezed through a small opening between the fence and a locked gate. I was immediately rewarded with hard packed singletrack - something a bit wider than a foot trail, and more narrow than a fire road. Several hundred yards down the hillside, the road suddenly switchbacked to the right, and dropped me quickly - all too quickly - into the upper reaches of Nichols Canyon and the paved road. From there, it was a quick ride back down to the flatlands and home.