This weekend, I headed back to SoCal to celebrate the life of my dad Bob Cornelius. After enjoying an aborted takeoff from Redmond, Oregon, with an overheating engine, I rebooked and rerouted. My brother John scooped me up in Ontario, and we made a pilgrimage up to Wrightwood to pay a last tribute to Bob in the place where my family found its peace — and where my moccasins were put on the trail of the Frontier Partisans.
Grassy Hollow has been ravaged by fire, but I had no problem rolling back years and decades to the days when I pushed my little sister’s wheelchair out a paved utility road, sometimes off-roading out onto the Pacific Crest Trail. I ran her over speed bumps and we’d catch air and she would laugh and laugh…
We would gaze out from a saddle that offered vistas of the San Gabriels on one side and the Mojave Desert on the other, and never grew jaded with the view.
This here is Mt. Baden-Powell, named for the British officer who weathered the Siege of Mafeking during the Anglo Boer War of 1899-1902, and founded the Boy Scouts. Over its shoulder is Mt. Burnham, named for none other than the great Frontier Partisan Scout Frederick Russell Burnham.
I climbed those peaks and explored those canyons so many times as a teenager and young man…
It was fitting to close a circle here. May it be unbroken, by and by.
Clyde says
“Lest we forget.”
Greg Walker says
“The wheel is come full circle.” — William Shakespeare (King Lear)
Matthew says
Glad you were able to go.
Andrew says
“It was fitting to close a circle here. May it be unbroken, by and by.”
Amen!
JoshM says
Thank you for the pictures of that area. Glad you made it back. You’ve mentioned that area before; as a guy about your age, with a family cottage in Northern Michigan, I always wonder about other people’s wilderness “happy place.” Nice to see yours. I hope it continues to bring you good family memories.
JimC says
Thanks Josh. I was very fortunate, growing up in LA that this was my experience, rather than concrete.
deuce says
Glad you could make the trip, Jim.
lane batot says
Did they film some of the episodes of the old Fess Parker Daniel Boone series anywhere near there?
JimC says
Relatively close, yes.
lane batot says
AWRIGHT! I managed to post a comment! But it only seems to work on my Work Computer. I’ll havta try again at home……
Jerry N says
There’s a place just outside the Ritter Hot Springs that carries a similar pathos for me and my dad. Besides some great vistas, I have fond memories of my dad teaching me how to be a woodsman and a hunter. He was spectacular at both.
JimC says
It’s good to have those places.
Jerry N says
Yes sir it is. He passed in 2018.
Jean says
I spent lots of time in those mountains about 20 years before you. My son also spent a lot of time there when he returned to SoCal for college. Sad to see the burns. Maybe in a hundred years things will be beautiful again.
JimC says
You saw some glory days.