French Ghosts, Russian Nights, and American Outlaws: Souvenirs of a Professional Vagabond
rich lust to live, home building continues apace—real estate crunch and all—much to the dismay of the conservationists who are trying to preserve the scenic integrity of the road. Bulldozers eat away whole hillsides in a procedure known as mountain cropping, which provides level space for foundations. Still, there is green up ahead at Coldwater Canyon and Franklin Canyon Parks, which together provide a walking route all the way over the mountains from the Valley to Beverly Hills.
Coldwater Canyon is the enclave of a group of nature-loving volunteers called TreePeople, dedicated to making the world more arborous. I sat in on a session during which an instructor explained planting techniques to a group of school-children, each clutching his or her own sapling. “Don’t put them under a telephone pole,” she told them, “or next to your swimming pool.”
Minutes down the road is the entrance to Franklin Canyon Park, surrounding what was a reservoir, until the earthquake of 1971 convinced the Department of Water and Power that it didn’t want to be blamed if a dam busted above Beverly Hills. Now the upper section is the domain of the William O. Douglas Outdoor Classroom, which offers nature appreciation classes for kids and stress relief walks for adults. You can drive all the way down Franklin Canyon, passing through a section of greenbelt where Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable tested their hitchhiking skills in It Happened One Night. At the time, the area was owned by oilman Edward L. Doheny, who used to ride up the canyon on horseback from Greystone, his mock Tudor palace below.
Actually, it makes sense to come down off Mulholland at this point for a little replenishment. Coldwater and Franklin Canyon Drives, and Beverly Glen Boulevard a bit farther on, dump you out of the mountains within striking distance of the Beverly Hills Hotel and the equally ritzy, if somewhat more retiring, Hotel Bel Air. But those with a macabre bent should take Benedict Canyon Drive, winding past hedge-shrouded homes that do not want to make your acquaintance; signs on the fences outside proclaim the virtues of their security systems and guard dogs. A little more than halfway down on the right is Cielo Drive, where one August morning in 1969, a cleaning woman discovered the grisly remains of the Manson family killing spree at #10050.
If you still have an appetite after that, and prefer picnics to power lunches, stop for provisions at the little shopping center just south of where Mulholland crosses Beverly Glen. There’s another overlook on Mulholland a mile west of this intersection with a bench placed high up like a throne, where you can break into lunch, contemplate Stone Canyon Reservoir, and possibly catch your first sight of the Pacific.
You have now covered only a third of Mulholland—the dense, civilized section. But just as the Santa Monicas widen and rise and you prepare to step on the gas, the pavement stops at Encino Hills Drive about a mile beyond the San Diego Freeway. Happily, even without four-wheel drive, you can rumble on across dirt Mulholland, because it’s navigable, except in foul weather. And you should, because here the mountains begin to reveal their wild side, as well as their controversial nature. For years, community groups and the Santa Monica Mountains conservancy have worked to head off development at every pass with the ultimate goal of creating a national park.
One of the parcels of land the Conservancy bought lies about a mile past the end of the concrete, on San Vicente Mountain. There, perched high above Mandeville, Rustic, and Sullivan Canyons, is an old lookout station for the Nike Missile System, boldly commanding a view of the Pacific. The lookout hasn’t been restored and is off limits, but even from its stanchions, the sights are terrific in all directions, including backwards along the winding course of Mulholland. From this point, mountain bikers and walkers take off on a network of paths and fire roads that lead down into Topanga Canyon Park. On the other side of the road is the bright blue surface of Encino Reservoir, looking very much like the one in which the water-logged body of the fictional William Mulholland was found in Chinatown.
Dirt Mulholland rambles on, passing a number of dusty new subdivisions, to emerge in concrete near Topanga Canyon Road. There, you must watch the signs closely to make sure that you stay on Mulholland Highway, as opposed to Mulholland Drive, which strikes off toward the Ventura Freeway. It’s about 10 miles to 6,000-acre Malibu Creek State Park. It runs all the way down to the Pacific, with a network of trails that take hikers to Castro Crest, manmade Century Lake, and through a meadow that was once part of a ranch owned by Ronald Reagan. Pink and white mountain lilacs and peregrine falcons were out when I passed that way. Hunter House, the park’s information center, is the source for trail maps, but serious hikers will have to return to the Santa Monicas another day, for Mulholland awaits.
In many ways, the eight miles between Las Virgenes and Kanan Dume Roads is the most scenic stretch of Mulholland, and over the years moviemakers have agreed, coming to this vicinity to film movies from Ruggles of Red Gap to Mr. Blanding’s Dream House. What is so remarkable about this countryside is its versatility—parts of it look like Australia’s Outback, parts like Tuscany and the English moors. Three miles past Las Virgenes is Cornell Road, the turnoff for the Paramount Ranch, now a park complete with a western town set where Borax’s Death Valley Days was shot. Just beyond Cornell, Sugarloaf Mountain rises. To the left is the entrance for a diminutive private enclave called Malibu Lake, developed as a weekend retreat for movie folk by Cecil B. De Mille. The lake and cabins that surround it are surprisingly humble, but one can imagine the mogul leaning against the clubhouse gate in his jodhpurs.
Between Cornell and Kanan Dume Roads, a large tribe of motorcyclists rule Mulholland—as many slumming lawyers as Hell’s Angels. Their favorite watering hole is the Rock Store and Vern’s Deli, where you can sip a soda as you observe their rituals.
If by now the sun is setting, you’d be well advised to turn left down Kanan Dume Road to the safer, saner pleasures of the coast. On the other hand, there are still 15 death-defying miles of Mulholland to go before Arroyo Sequit Canyon funnels you out on the beach at Leo Carrillo State Park like a piece of mountain jetsam. Honk before rounding all hairpin turns. Watch for the random dumped corpse and rock slides that routinely narrow this stretch of Mulholland to one lane. Ignore the smashing views of the Pacific and the weird satellite dishes that stick out of the canyon like Mickey Mouse ears.
You may be somewhat wired when you reach the Pacific Coast Highway. By now, it might be Magic Hour, that crepuscular time the movies love. Up on Mulholland, the mountain lions and backseat smoochers are coming out, and the lights in the valley and basin are beginning to bloom. You could go back to see night-side Mulholland. After all, the road runs right to L.A., not straight, but true.
Somewhere around the 22,834-foot Aconcagua Peak, I decided that my highway map of Argentina hadn’t been a good buy; it was huge and unwieldy, with a tendency to antagonize bystanders when I unfolded it. Also, it showed the whole country—2,300 miles long from the Paraguayan border to Tierra del Fuego in the south—when I needed only a three-inch strip in the middle.
My 1,000-mile route began in Santiago, Chile, and took me over the Andes and across Argentina to Buenos Aires. I left Santiago on a Saturday morning in late February, with little more than a backpack and a bag, that map, and the certainty, gleaned from guidebooks, that it’s possible to go almost anywhere in Argentina by bus. Driving the whole way didn’t appeal to me. I could have flown, but I wanted to spot a gaucho on the pampas. And although a train does cross from Buenos Aires to Mendoza on the eastern flank of the Andes, there you’re stuck (though the disused tracks wind up the wild, lonely canyon of the Mendoza River and over the mountains at the 12,6000-foot Uspallata Pass).
However, Argentine bus companies ply routes that make a spider web