Encino Nike Base

A week or so ago, after looking at a bunch of things that I had written here, ranting about stuff that really had me PO’d (“gremlin” issues, the cable war thing, politics, and so on) I had decided to make a conscious decision to be less negative and more positive. I was going to look for the good, not dwell on the bad.

Then this whole Congressional epic fail thing happened and my Twitter feed is full of NASA sites and scientists shutting down for the duration and I see and hear all of the BS from both sides and it just puts my head back into a very negative place. (Wow, how 70’s!)

But I’m learning (slowly) that I can have a choice to NOT be a victim in these events. That’s leading to some very mixed up and far reaching thought processes about the whole thing, which I’m hoping will lead to some really interesting posts here once it all gets distilled down into rational thoughts. (Plus there are time-consuming and hopefully positive things going on this week on the job hunt mess, as well as my beloved Chiefs to follow, and hockey started today! But I digress…)

The process of distilling the raw “ARAGGGGHH!!” reaction to the world into actual English is going to take a few days at least, so for now, y’all may just get a bunch of pictures every day for the next few. (I take a LOT of pictures!)

A few years ago a good friend from work let me in on a little known, special place up in the Santa Monica Mountains. For those of you not familiar with Los Angeles, the Santa Monicas run east-west from the Pacific coast, through the middle of the city, to Griffith Park. At the west end you have Malibu to the south and the western San Fernando Valley to the north of the mountains. At the east end you have downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood, and Dodger Stadium to the south and the eastern San Fernando Valley (Burbank & Glendale) to the north.

Back in the 1950’s when we all thought that we were going to get fried by Russian Commie Nukes at any second, the government went up into those mountains and found a perfect spot to put a Nike missile base. From the top of one of the mountains you could see all of the San Fernando Valley, downtown LA, almost all of the LA Basin and the coastline from Malibu to Palos Verdes. For a long time, there were anti-missile missiles up in them thar hills.

The missiles are gone, but the base got turned over to the folks who are making almost all of that mountain range a public park. The base has been partially restored as a historical site and it’s open to the public – if you know where it is and how to get there.

There aren’t any signs and as far as I can tell it’s only publicized by word of mouth. You have to know where to turn off of Mulholland Drive (which is pretty narrow and twisty turny to begin with) onto an unmarked road, then park in this dirt lot. From there it’s about a mile hike up a dirt fire road to the top of the hill. Lots of hikers know about it (the fire roads get hiked a lot, as well as the many hiking trails up in the park) and the dirt bikers know about it. But since you can’t drive up there, and would really need a four-wheel-drive vehicle if you did, most folks have no idea it’s there.

But oh, the views you can get on a clear day! (This particular clear day was April 29, 2010.)

(Previewing this post I realize that there’s something that I assume you all know, but maybe I shouldn’t assume. If you click on any of these pictures, you’ll get the full-sized picture, not just the tiny one in the post. You knew that, right?)

A wide shot showing downtown Los Angeles about eighteen miles away. On the right, just over the foreground hills, you can see the skyscrapers of Century City. In the far distance on the right you can see Saddleback Mountain rising up over eastern Orange County, over fifty miles away.

A telephoto shot of the view of downtown LA. The houses on the hill in the foreground are in Sherman Oaks, Westwood, and Bel Aire. Very, VERY pricey housing.

A wide shot looking down toward the coastline. You can see the beach over the hill on the far right, with the Palos Verdes Peninsula rising up in the distance. Just over the hills you can clearly see a large white area running from left to right just inland from the coast – that’s LAX.

A telephoto shot of the tip of the Palos Verdes Peninsula sticking out from the left in the distance (twenty-five miles away). Just visible sticking up though the marine haze on the horizon that big grey thing is Santa Catalina Island. It might be “twenty-six miles across the sea” in the song, but it’s about fifty miles from here.

Out in the central San Fernando Valley is Van Nuys airport. Just in front of it is Lake Balboa, a huge man-made lake and park which uses totally recycled waste water. A great place to play, stroll, chill, run, and picnic.

Way off in the distance, at the base of the San Bernardino Mountains, you can see Whiteman Airport, my home base when I fly. The big, white, curved area in the center is Hansen Dam and Recreation Center. Just to the right of it you can see four red and white striped smoke stacks, known to pilots as the “four towers”. Whiteman is just in front of the dam and the normal takeoff on Runway 12 aims you straight at the four towers. They mark the boundary between Whiteman’s airspace and Burbank’s, so if you’re not talking to Burbank’s tower real quick after takeoff, you had better be peeling off another direction or be planning on a long, uncomfortable talk with the FAA.

The wide shot of the central San Fernando Valley, with Whiteman Airport, Hansen Dam, and the four towers way up at the top and the office buildings of Encino in the foreground. A couple of those office buildings are where I worked for well over twenty years.

From the Nike Base tower you’re looking down into the Encino Reservoir. Running right to left along the base of these hills you can see a lot of bigger buildings – that’s Ventura Boulevard. The major street running perpendicular to it from the mid-upper right is White Oak Boulevard. Reseda Boulevard is cutting north-south across a piece of the top, left corner.

The west San Fernando Valley, with the skyscrapers of Warner Ranch in the center. Ventura County starts at the top of those hills at the far end of the SFV as seen from here. Our house is out there to the left of Warner Center, right near the base of those hills.

The central San Fernando Valley, with Tarzana in the foreground and Chatsworth (porn production capital of the world!) in the distance. The Santa Suzanna Mountains are at the northwest edge of the SFV in the background, with Simi Valley on the other side.

The eastern San Fernando Valley, with the San Bernardino Mountains rising up in the distance. In the center middle distance you can see the skyscrapers of Glendale, and the infamous Universal City “black tower” is at the middle near the right edge. Griffith Park is in the hills behind the black tower. That gap you see between Griffith Park and the San Bernardinos will take you off to Pasadena, the Rose Bowl, and into the San Gabriel Valley.

Here there be many red-tail hawks, riding the thermals and looking for lunch.

(See, wasn’t that much more relaxing and soothing than ranting about things that we have no power to change? Yes, I thought so, too.)