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29 November 2004
Hiking in the San Rafael Wilderness
Abhishek, Tejaswi and I went hiking last Friday and Saturday in the San Rafael Wilderness close to Santa Barbara as part of a two-day trip organised by Tejaswi and Eva on behalf of the Caltech Y. The first day's hike was not all that enjoyable while the second day's on the Manzana Narrows trail was comparatively more exciting. Rain was predicted in Southern California for the weekend. As we ascended the trail, the clouds gathered and added much-needed richness to the lacklustre desert green scenery. All of a sudden, with mounds of rock and cliff all around us partly screened by mist and rain it looked like a bleached verisimile of Munnar. We gained as much as 1300 feet by noon when we were forced to turn back because of the increasingly inclement conditions and bleak prospects of finding a good place to break for lunch any higher. We retreated in the rain and the brambles that lacerated skin on our way to the top had their tips softened with dew and cooling vapour. This was my second hiking experience in the rain and though it was not as enjoyable as the first one in Muir Woods, it made up for the previous day's disappointment. But far more exciting things were in store for us later that day.As a result of the rain, which Abhishek tells me has a curious way of unsettling Southern California drivers since they do not see enough of it to acquaint themselves with it, traffic on the 101 between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles was heavily congested. We had been stuck in traffic all through 30 miles south of Santa Barbara and intermittently in the subsequent parts. So there was some sense of urgency to get back home especially since we were stark ravenous. We were on 134E heading into Pasadena after flitting past Burbank. A red pick-up three cars ahead of us on the leftmost-but-one lane stopped with other traffic for no reason whatsoever and the car behind it rear-ended it. Soon afterwards, the second car lost all battery power and went totally dead and a third car, a brand new steel-grey Lexus nearly rammed into it but managed to stop shy. All this was unbeknownst to Tejaswi who was doing a comfortable 65mph when all of a sudden realisation dawned on him that the Lexus in front was not just slowing but had completely stopped. The brakes were applied to and although we did not skid under the rain we did rear-end into the Lexus which in turn rear-ended into the second car. For a brief moment, we were the cynosure and surely the lightning rod of all the wrath of drivers behind us as they were brought to a careful halt.
We were lucky in that the highway patrol was already on its way to respond to the second car rear-ending into the pickup and so no more cars added to the rear-ending melee. Within minutes we were all corralled into the service lane and subsequently onto the surface in Glendale. The California Highway Patrol officers in yellow windcheaters calmly went about their procedure taking down notes and recording the event in chronological order interrogating the drivers. Finally, Tejaswi was only asked what speed he was driving at and what happened and then handed a complaint notification or some card similarly named. We were on our way immediately after that.
