Things I will not miss about L.A. Item #1: Smog

When I moved to Los Angeles, I was apprehensive of the smog. Little did I know, at the time, that I had already experienced what could be considered the poorest air quality in the United States. I received my undergraduate degree from the fair Pomona College, a lovely oasis in the midst of an endless suburban sprawl referred to, with a characteristic Californian mixture of fondness and sarcasm, as the "Inland Empire." According to Wikipedia, the Inland Empire rates worst in the U.S. for particulate air pollution standards (although the San Joaquin Valley still comes in last for overall air pollution). I had a friend in college who was obsessed with the smog and kept track of the daily-changing visibility of the nearby mountains. Despite the sometimes annoyingly predictable nature of his running commentary, I have to admit that he had a point. There were times that the neighboring Mt. Baldy, the foothills of which one could reach by an easy bike ride, was not even visible.

Los Angeles County is not all that much better. It's our pollution, after all, blown by the friendly ocean breezes, that causes our eastern suburbs to sink so low on the pollution scales. Apparently the geography is much to blame. It's something about the way the mountains trap the pollutants we create instead of letting them wash away harmlessly over the desert. John McPhee describes it thus in his fascinating chapter on Los Angeles in The Control of Nature: "Early in the day, it is for the most part the natural sea fog. As you watch it from above through the morning and into the afternoon, it turns yellow, and then ochre, and then brown, and sometimes nearly black -- like butter darkening in a skillet." It's not until you get out of it that you can appreciate the full magnitude of its impact. If you arrive in Los Angeles by airplane, you can see it, like a yellow blanket, covering the city. It makes you want to hold your breath as you descend into LAX. I've also observed it from the Angeles Crest mountains, returning from a camping trip. It's hard to believe that you are voluntarily returning to such an obviously unhealthy atmosphere. I've also seen it from only 26 miles across the sea. When Peter and I took a weekend trip to Catalina Island, we could barely see the mainland for all the "atmosphere." Is this really the air we choose to breathe on a daily basis?

One day Peter drove me to work. As we exited the freeway in Burbank, I exclaimed at how beautiful the mountains looked. "Beautiful?" he asked. "How can mountains look beautiful?" I struggled to express how inspiring it was to see the details of the canyons and valleys, the contrast of the morning light with the remaining shadows of the previous night. What I realized was that I hardly ever saw the mountains from this point of view. I resolved to prove my point, and packed my camera in my purse. Every day for two weeks or so, I snapped a picture at the same intersection. You can see the results below. Peter's point was that a mountain is a mountain, regardless of how many particulates hang between you and the geographical feature in question. But my point was that you can't enjoy the beauty of the scenery if you can't see it at all. Here are some of the pictures I took, with the clearest ones at the end. I'm sure you will have to admit, as Peter did, that after seeing nothing but a vague smudge in the distance every day, a sprawling mountain vista is a startling, and pleasing, surprise.





This is why smog is one of the undeniable features of Los Angeles that I have to say I will not miss. I'm hoping to feel pain as my lungs get accustomed to the crisp Idahoan mountain air. I expect to see the adjacent mountains in Boise, even when I'm not snowboarding down their pristine slopes. And if I can't see them, then it better be either the middle of the night or a really loud thunderstorm.