Southern California has never seen a Christmas like this. With COVID-19 infections rampant here and elsewhere in the state, far fewer families traveling and no room at any inn for nonessential vacationers (by governor’s order), millions of us will look to our own households, backyards, neighborhoods and parks to connect, renew, mourn and be grateful.
Maybe this is the year you play an early round of golf instead of tearing into gifts under the tree. The Wilson and Harding golf courses in Griffith Park are open Christmas Day for those who want to play 18 holes. It costs $17 to $28 per person, depending on what time you go (mornings are more expensive). The Roosevelt Golf Course, 9 holes, also is open, charging $13 to $20.50 per person. Make a reservation at
Nissan
Roll over, Gallileo, tell Copernicus the news. The Christmas Star was going to appear in the western sky and I had to go see it. Sure, you could probably see it from anywhere down in the dank, light-polluted metropolis of Los Angeles, but who wants to fight it out with mercury azide street lights and crazy neon billboards when pure “seeing” is available just a short drive away?
And what a drive it would be, straight up Angeles Crest Highway, surely one of the greatest roads in the galaxy. Even better, it just so happened that I had the last of the Nissan 370Z NISMOs parked in the driveway, and all I had to do was cram my Orion StarBlast 6 Intelliscope Reflector 6 into it.
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Welcome to The Wild. Winter is an ideal time to explore the close-to-home front range of the Angeles National Forest. Josephine Peak would be a good place to start. It’s not particularly high, at 5,558 feet, but it offers spectacular views of Los Angeles, which can look like the Emerald City of Oz rising in the distance. Turning north toward the forest, you’ll see a vast quilt of canyons and high points in the San Gabriels, most prominent Strawberry Peak.
One of the oddest items on top: Open-air green shelves where hikers have left mementos such as a Yosemite cap, sunscreen, notes, rocks and even a dollar or two. It’s a remnant of a fire lookout that stood from 1937 until it burned down in the Big Tujunga Canyon fire in 1975. I always wondered who Josephine was. The local Sierra Club’s Hundred Peaks Section says a U.S. Geological Survey surveyor named the peak after his wife, Josephine Lippencott. No word on whether