Angeles

In 2019, Oregon bookseller Billie Bloebaum saw an author raise a question on X she had heard many times before: “Why should I support independent bookstores when independent bookstores don’t support romance?”

“For a long time, and still somewhat to this day, independent bookstores have had a reputation as being not as welcoming to romance readers and books as they could be,” Bloebaum told The Times. “There were a lot of booksellers that I knew who read romance, who championed romance, who had it on their shelves in the bookstores where they worked or that they owned.”

Determined to rewrite the narrative, Bloebaum launched Bookstore Romance Day in August — Romance Awareness Month — that same year. The inaugural event had less than 200 participating bookstores across the U.S. Now, in 2025, there are more than 600 registered locations around the world.

“It really was a way to get the word out that independent bookstores are not romance-unfriendly,” Bloebaum said, “to bring those two communities together, the romance community and the independent bookstore community.”

There are now 103 brick-and-mortar, romance-only bookstores in the U.S., according to Romancing the Data, including the Ripped Bodice in Culver City, Heartbound in Anaheim and Mystic Box in Huntington Beach. Over the past three years, Pages: A Bookstore in Manhattan Beach has doubled its space dedicated to romance titles, said general manager Jeff Resnik.

“We take romance seriously,” Resnik said.

Across Los Angeles, independent storefronts are observing Bookstore Romance Day on Saturday, Aug. 9, with author talks, book bedazzling, giveaways and more. For those who can’t attend the festivities in person, Bloebaum also offers free virtual events all weekend.

Son Heung-min left the Spurs squad on their tour of his native South Korea on Tuesday to fly to Los Angeles.

Son Heung-min has agreed to a contract with Los Angeles FC, finalizing his move to Major League Soccer (MLS) after a decade at Tottenham Hotspur.

The 33-year-old South Korean superstar forward is joining LAFC three days after he formally announced his decision to leave Tottenham.

Son attended LAFC’s Leagues Cup match against Tigres at BMO Stadium on Tuesday night, watching from a luxury suite. LAFC will formally introduce Son at a news conference Wednesday, but the club showed the forward on the stadium video board late in the first half as he waved to roaring fans thrilled by their team’s landmark acquisition.

LAFC, a deep-pocketed club with significant team success in its first eight seasons of existence, reportedly paid a transfer fee of more than $20m, which could end up being the most ever for an MLS move.

Son was a beloved presence at Spurs, scoring 173 goals in 454 competitive appearances for the North London club, while rising to global prominence with his combination of speed, playmaking skill and finishing acumen.

The captain was given a memorable farewell last week in Seoul during Tottenham’s exhibition match against Newcastle, getting a guard of honour from both teams and tearfully exiting in the second half while nearly 65,000 fans roared.

But South Korea’s most popular athlete – and almost certainly the greatest Asian soccer player in history – has chosen an auspicious stage for the next chapter of his ground-breaking career.

Los Angeles has the world’s largest ethnic Korean population outside Korea, with the city’s vibrant Koreatown district sitting just a couple of kilometres (miles) from LAFC’s BMO Stadium.

LAFC is undoubtedly hoping to market Son as a soccer counterpart to the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, albeit on a smaller scale. Ohtani, the three-time MLB MVP from Japan who is on a trajectory to become the greatest Asian player in baseball history, draws fans from across the Pacific Rim to Dodger Stadium while attracting millions in sponsorships and partnerships for the Dodgers.

Son’s move to California also puts him in a position to have an effect on and off the field at the World Cup, which will be held across North America in 2026. Son, the captain of his national team, has already said he will play in his fourth World Cup.

After leading Tottenham to its first European trophy in decades by winning the Europa League in May, in a fitting cap to his English career, Son will go straight into the MLS Cup race when he suits up for his new club. LAFC currently sits sixth in the Western Conference at 10-6-6, but with multiple games in hand on every team ahead of it due to its participation in the Club World Cup.

Son’s seven Premier League goals last season were his fewest since his Tottenham debut, but he still appears to have the pace and skill necessary to be a difference-maker at any level. He also turned 33 only a month ago, putting him on the younger end of the global stars recently arriving in MLS.

Lionel Messi and Marco Reus were 35 and Luis Suarez was 37 when they went stateside in recent years, while Olivier Giroud and Hugo Lloris were both 37 when they joined LAFC last year.

Son will be reunited in Los Angeles with longtime Tottenham teammate Lloris, who has been outstanding since becoming LAFC’s goalkeeper last season.

High-scoring French forward Denis Bouanga is the only designated player currently under contract for LAFC, and general manager John Thorrington has been criticised by some fans for not using the full power of his financial resources this season. LAFC spent months on an ultimately failed attempt to get France’s Antoine Griezmann to leave Atletico Madrid.

Bouanga and Son have both thrived on the left wing during their careers, but Son likely has more positional versatility than Bouanga, making him a candidate to line up in the middle or even on the right wing.

Son seems to be an infinitely better fit for LAFC than Giroud, who moved to Lille last month after one disappointing year in California. LAFC plays a counterattacking, speed-based style that didn’t suit Giroud’s goal-scoring strengths, while Son should be right at home in such a system.

But LAFC could also alter its style in the winter, after coach Steve Cherundolo departs for Germany following four largely successful seasons highlighted by an MLS Cup championship.

Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min has confirmed he will be leaving the Premier League club this summer.

South Korean sportsman Son Heung-min was in transit to the United States on Tuesday to officially join Los Angeles FC, a record-breaking signing for Major League Soccer, which is expected to be announced in the coming days.

Videos on social media showed Son signing autographs for fans at Incheon airport in Seoul before he boarded a flight to Los Angeles.

The Athletic and GiveMeSport reported on Tuesday that LAFC is paying a transfer fee of about $26.5m to $27m to acquire Son, shattering the current MLS record of $22m that Atlanta United paid for Emmanuel Latte Lath last offseason.

Son, 33, announced over the weekend that he planned to leave Tottenham Hotspur, saying he had achieved everything that he could with the North London club and was interested in a new challenge.

Son scored 172 goals and added 94 assists in 451 matches for Tottenham across all competitions, with 127 coming in Premier League play. A team captain, he helped the Spurs win the 2025 Europa League for the first major trophy of his career.

Son has also scored 51 goals in 134 matches for South Korea, the country’s second-leading goal-scorer of all time. Son played in the past three World Cups.

The forward made his last appearance for Spurs, waving to the club’s travelling fans after their preseason friendly against Newcastle United on Sunday.

Son was given an emotional farewell by his teammates, Newcastle players and almost 65,000 fans at Seoul World Cup Stadium in his native South Korea.

The game between the Premier League teams ended 1-1, with the high point being Son’s second-half exit when he was surrounded by both sets of players before eventually sitting on the bench in tears.

“First, we had the walk around, and then the teammates gathered around, and he was emotional,” Tottenham coach Thomas Frank said. “In the changing room, it was more of the same. I just said a few things, but not much, because it’s about Sonny, and then he said a few things. It was beautiful.”

Newcastle manager Eddie Howe also paid tribute to the South Korea forward.

“The reaction was instinctive from my players. I think that speaks volumes about him,” Howe said. “I think he’s seen as one of the game’s great Premier League players. It’s not just the talent he has but the way he has carried himself over the years.”

Bar Benjamin’s cocktail program feels a little like alchemy: Seemingly disparate ingredients enter a drink, but the results can be liquid gold. White chocolate mingles with English peas, lemon, olive oil tequila and cream sherry, while in another potion there’s fermented-mushroom green tea with red curry, olive-leaf gin, coconut rum, cilantro, and lemongrass foam. At the upstairs follow-up to the Benjamin, one of 2024’s best new spots to grab a drink, the cocktails are taken far beyond the downstairs focus on martinis and classics.

Owners Ben Shenassafar, Kate Burr and Jared Meisler tapped Jason Lee (formerly of n/soto, Baroo) and Chad Austin (formerly of the Mulholland, Bootlegger Tiki) to steer the new venture, and they’ve injected the dimly lit space with equal parts creativity and technical prowess. They draw on L.A.’s cross-cultural landscape with ingredients like Parmesan-washed Oaxacan rum, Sichuan peppercorn-laced mezcal and miso-imbued rye. There’s taro in the clarified milk punch and everything-bagel seasoning in the Gibson, and there’s a selection of bar snacks and small plates — beef tartare, shrimp rolls, deviled eggs — to round it all out.

Let’s offer a preseason top-10 rankings in high school football for the City Section:

1. BIRMINGHAM: The Patriots have weaknesses (lack of a passing game), but a big offensive line, two transfer running backs and a big-play weapon in receiver Paul Turner make them the team to beat. They have a 49-game winning streak against City teams thanks to forfeit wins against Narbonne.

2. SAN PEDRO: Junior quarterback Seth Solorio takes over as the starter behind a veteran offensive line. There’s speed and kicker Dylan Moreno starts out as the most accurate in the City Section.

3. CARSON: A new coach but lots of talent. Quarterback Chris Fields will have plenty of weapons. The defense needs to prove itself.

4. GARFIELD: New coach Patrick Vargas learned from the retired Lorenzo Hernandez. Vargas might call a few more passes but has a top running back in Ceasar Reyes.

5. PALISADES: The passing combination of quarterback Jack Thomas throwing to Bishop Alemany transfer Demare Dezeurn is going to be fun to watch. Dezeurn is one of the fastest athletes in California.

6. EAGLE ROCK: The Northern League favorites return quarterback Liam Pasten, who passed for 3,600 yards as a junior. Their opening game against Kennedy should provide clues whether they are an Open Division team.

7. DORSEY: A new quarterback to team with receiver Deuce Johnson should benefit the Dons, who went 5-0 in the Coliseum League in a breakthrough last season.

8. KENNEDY: Valley Mission League favorites will rely on All-City quarterback Diego Montes.

9. BANNING: Must break in new quarterback but lots of players to build around, including linebacker Keshawn Galloway and defensive back Alonzo Ruiz.

10. VENICE: Quarterback Bennett Dome, defensive back Joshua Aaron and receiver Aaron Minter are standouts on a team capable of winning the Western League.

After a rocky start to summer, L.A.’s food scene is finding its footing.

Downtown restaurants are bouncing back after suffering significant loss of business due to temporary curfews put in place following protests against ICE raids. After announcing its permanent closure, Cole’s French Dip — L.A.’s oldest saloon and restaurant, which opened in 1908 — experienced a swell of support and extended its run until mid-September. In Little Tokyo, a cafe themed after a popular anime series is bringing renewed interest to the neighborhood.

As temperatures continue to rise, there are plenty of ways to get out and enjoy the season while staying cool. Embrace the dog days of summer with pup-friendly patios (and homemade recipes), grab a couple scoops of vegan ice cream, fuel up with over-the-top iced matcha and coffee drinks or taste the resurgent trend of chicken Caesar wraps while exploring the city’s summer offerings.

And if you’re looking for additional dining ideas this month, bookmark this list with new openings and long-standing restaurants that need support, including a destination for inventive chicken tenders from a Michelin-star chef, a Hawaiian poke shop in Echo Park and a Filipino breakfast pop-up from a Chinatown rotisserie and wine bar.

My friend Bob and I had stopped to rest during a hike in Icehouse Canyon near Mt. Baldy and were having an uncharacteristically quiet moment when we heard rocks tumbling nearby.

We scanned the steep canyon walls and quickly spotted movement. “What do you think it is? Is it deer?” Bob asked.

“Are those rams?” I asked. “Are those mountain goats?”

Bob vowed that this would be the last time we didn’t pack binoculars. (Dear reader, it wasn’t. We always forget them.)

After watching my shaky video several times, I concluded that Bob and I were lucky enough to spot bighorn sheep. It was the first and only time I’ve caught a glimpse of these cloven-footed critters in the wild. I’ve been wondering, though: What do hikers need to know to increase our chances of spotting these elusive ungulates?

I spoke to John D. Wehausen, an applied population ecologist who has studied bighorn sheep for 51 years. “More than half a century,” he pointed out during our call.

Wehausen likes to ask people, “How many populations of bighorn sheep do you think we have in California?”

I guessed seven.

“Just in the desert alone, we have 60 populations of bighorn sheep,” he answered, “and then we have another bunch in the Sierra. … It’s not easy to see them.”

I felt somewhat validated that California’s premier expert on the species noted how tricky sheep are to spot. Before we dive into Wehausen’s tips, I wanted to share a few other things I learned from our conversation.

• California has two subspecies of bighorn sheep: desert bighorns and Sierra Nevada bighorns.
• That’s essentially because, about 600,000 years ago, Sierra bighorn diverged from desert bighorn and became specialists at living above the tree line in alpine zones; yes, bighorn sheep have lived in the land we now call California for thousands of years.
• Bighorn sheep can live months without drinking water, surviving off moisture they get from the plants they eat.
• Wehausen’s niece, also a scientist, recently discovered a population of bighorn sheep in the Great Western Divide that were previously thought to be extinct. Scientists had thought they’d all been killed in the 2022-23 winter season, which dumped huge amounts of snow on the mountains.
• Outside of the indie rock band that formed in Claremont, Southern California doesn’t have native mountain goats.

I developed a new appreciation for these resilient animals after talking to Wehausen, and I hope you do too. Let’s dive into how to see them.

Understand where sheep live

Desert bighorn often live below the lowest tree line (although there are exceptions), while Sierra bighorn sheep live above the highest tree line. They live in these landscapes because it’s easier to detect predators, mountain lions included, in wide open spaces.

The sheep in the San Gabriel and San Bernardino mountains — which can sometimes be found among the trees — depend on wildfire to clear the land of thick brush, so they can avoid predators.

Locally, sheep hot spots can be found in areas like Icehouse Canyon and the Mt. Baldy area, north of Piru, along the Pacific Crest Trail near the Little Jimmy Trail Camp and around the Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area.

Try to be quiet

Bighorns have keen eyesight, thought to be “like us with binoculars,” Wehausen told me.

“Commonly when you find a group of bighorn, they’ve already busted you. They’re watching you,” he said. (Perhaps watching us from their perch on a steep hillside while we shout about whether we are looking at deer or goats?)

Look for water sources

The easiest time to see desert bighorn sheep is, unfortunately for us, in the summer, specifically near water sources.

“If you can break through [the heat], you can go to water sources and just set up a nice little place to sit up on a slope above water. You’ll watch sheep coming and going to water,” Wehausen said. “Very few people do that.”

That includes in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, where visitors frequently see sheep in Palm Canyon, he said.

Lytle Creek, east of the Mt. Baldy area in the San Gabriel Mountains, also used to be a “very predictable” place to spot sheep, Wehausen said. The group has experienced significant population shifts, though, and it might be harder to find them there.

After talking to Wehausen, I looked at iNaturalist and was pleased to see users had documented sheep near the Bonita Falls Trail that runs parallel to the South Fork of Lytle Creek as recently as April.

Scan the shady spots 💤

During the day, desert bighorn will lie under shade trees where they’re easier to spot.

“The sheep will shade up for a considerable time period in the middle of the day,” Wehausen said. “When we’re working out there in the summertime, we would do the same thing,” finding some shade to take a nap.

Learn how to use binoculars 👀

Wehausen regularly hosts field seminars in the Sierra where he teaches participants about spotting bighorn sheep.

First, he finds sheep with binoculars and sets up a spotting scope for students to see them. And then he encourages them to stand back and notice how, if they look closely enough, they can see the sheep with their naked eye.

Wehausen points out that once you develop a “search image,” i.e. understand what sheep look like through a magnified lens, it’s easier to start noticing them by just scanning the terrain.

You’ll start looking for the sheep’s bright white rump patch along with the shape of horns. “What you’re looking for is rocks with legs on them,” he said.

And if the rock with legs moves, congrats. That’s probably a sheep!

“I do find bighorn with my naked eye,” Wehausen said. “I’ve driven across the desert going to meetings and just looked over at mountain ranges on I-40 and see them.” (Goals!)

Listen for the bleats or rock falls

Sierra sheep rarely vocalize, but during the spring when they’re rearing lambs, desert bighorn ewes and lambs talk to each other a lot, Wehausen said.

“And the mothers and the lambs know each other’s individual vocalizations,” he said.

In the Sierra, if you hear repeated rock falls in the same area, or sometimes even “little jiggles of rocks,” you might be near sheep, he said.

I hope these tips empower you to respectfully observe these fascinating animals. Please share your photos if you do. I’d love to see them.

3 things to do

1. Celebrate the L.A. River near downtown L.A.
Friends of the L.A. River will host the organization’s annual RiverFest from 2 to 8 p.m. Sunday at L.A. State Historic Park (1245 N. Spring St.). Local artists will sell their work, while others offer live performances. Guests can also participate in educational environmental activities and snag food from local vendors. Register for a free ticket at folar.org.

2. Restore wetlands habitat in L.A.
Volunteers are needed from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday to clean the Ballona Wetlands freshwater marsh. Participants age 12 and older will remove invasive plants from the wetlands. Volunteers who arrive early will be provided coffee and snacks by nonprofit Breathe Southern California, which is co-hosting the event with Friends of Ballona Wetlands. Register at ballonafriends.org.

3. Learn about giant trees in Claremont
The California Botanic Garden will host a screening of “Giants Rising,” a film about redwoods, at 7 p.m. Aug. 7. Guests attending this outdoor film screening will be treated to native plant popcorn and pre-film crafts and trivia. General admission for adults is $19, $14 for students and seniors and $5 for children ages 3 to 12. Buy tickets at calbg.org.

The must-read

Oceanographer Anya Štajner was walking along the La Jolla Shores beach when she noticed something astonishing in the sand: a rare species of sea snail, Janthina janthina. “These creatures, more commonly known as violet snails, are distinguished by their striking purple shell and the delicate bubble raft they secrete to stay afloat in the open ocean,” Times staff writer Clara Harter wrote. “They are not known for their presence on Southern California beaches.” So what’s the deal? J. janthina are usually found in toasty subtropical to tropical seas, washing up along Australia’s southern shores. They are found in Southern California usually when warmer offshore waters are flowing toward the shore. “The day that I found my specimens, the water was notably warm,” Štajner said. “I remember when it washed up on my feet, I was like, ‘Whoa, this is hot.’”

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

One of the biggest complaints of outdoorsy Californians is how hard it can be to find a campsite without registering six months in advance. Good news! According to Times staff writer Christopher Reynolds, California State Parks has updated its system to better display campground availability and provide almost real-time data about open sites. The state is also expanding its campground lottery system to include Malibu Creek State Park starting this month, with Morro Bay State Park and McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park coming later this summer. I hope this helps more Californians make memories in our beautiful state!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

I read George Skelton’s column (Dec. 2) and agree with his main point of the need for public financing of campaigns. However, I take exception with his lines about my father: “The word in those days was that the price for guaranteeing a bill’s passage through the Assembly was a $10,000 contribution to the political coffer of the late Speaker Jesse M. Unruh (D-Inglewood). I never knew whether that was true, but I didn’t doubt it.”

Frankly, that was a cheap shot at someone who’s not here to defend himself from rumors. Even more that that, I’m surprised that Skelton, with his years of experience in Sacramento, would write as if he only remembers my father’s line about money as the mother’s milk of politics while forgetting his less polite line to freshman legislators about resisting lobbyists. Please let me refresh his memory with the following: “If you can’t eat their food, drink their booze, screw their women, take their money and then look them in the eye and vote against them you have no business being here.”

I worked for Sen. David Roberti (D-Van Nuys), both on his district staff and in his fund-raising operations. I have met all the named principals of Skelton’s article and I must say that I also found his use of Alan Robbins’ statements to lump Roberti in with convicted felons to be offensive. I did not always agree with his political positions but I always found Roberti to have a strong sense of personal ethics and morals toward his public and private responsibilities. Please understand, I did not say this out of self-interest since I left Roberti’s staff under less than pleasant circumstances. As for Robbins, he failed to explain that delivering votes and support were also necessary for receiving “perks” in the Senate. What he called “perks,” such as increased staff, are generally considered to be necessary when one is given increased responsibility, which was the case with Robbins. It is the facts of politics, not Roberti’s ethics, which are in question.

Skelton would have gotten no argument from my father on the need for public financing of campaigns. I’m just amazed he would dredge up old gossip to try make his point. That has never been the way to influence public opinion toward positive changes. In the future, Skelton might consider his own journalistic ethics before he throws more stones in an attempt to make a point. That is, if he is genuinely concerned about helping change what needs to be changed.

RANDALL UNRUH, Santa Monica

My plan for today’s Wild was to write about three shady hikes near L.A. where you could escape the summer heat.

But last week, as I was busily researching via mapping technology about slope angles, sun exposure and the elevation of various canyon walls near L.A., an editor, observing my fury, suggested I zoom out and teach Wilders how to find their own shady hikes.

This week, you get to peek behind the curtain and learn about some of the tools I use to find the best hikes around L.A.

My goal in writing this is to empower you to find hikes near you that you didn’t realize provided good shade at various times of the day. Lists of hikes are great, as they introduce you to new adventures. But sometimes reaching those hikes involves a long drive when, in actuality, there‘s a great trail waiting for you basically in your backyard.

To find a shady hike, you need to consider a few factors:
☀️ Time of day (and year)
📈 The day’s forecast
⛰️ Local topography
🌳 Tree cover

Before we dive in, I want to note: Sometimes it really is too hot to hike. Please use your best judgment when heading out and, as the temperature creeps up, remember to drink more water than usual.

OK, let’s find our next adventure!

🌅 Time of day (and year)🌇

Let’s say we’d like to find the best time and place to hike at Griffith Park this Saturday without getting up before 7 a.m. or burning our faces off from the sun. (Kudos to the the 5 a.m. Crew. Your faces are always safe from the burn.)

This Saturday, the sun in L.A. will rise at 6 a.m., according to data compiled by the Griffith Park Observatory. But where will the sun rise, and how does that help us discern where the shade will be in the morning? (Yes, the sun always rises in the east, but we’re about to get way more specific!)

To figure that out, I’d like you to grab your cell phone and open your phone’s compass app. With the app still open, set your phone on a flat surface parallel to the ground. Your compass app should have a number next to the direction it is facing. For example, my iPhone’s compass app is showing 59 degrees northeast right now. This number is your compass bearing, which is a precise way to describe a direction.

Now, slowly rotate your phone until it reads 66 degrees northeast. That, my friends, is the exact direction the sun will rise this weekend, according to Griffith Observatory’s website.

Why does this bearing point matter? Because the direction the sun rises from will help you discern where the shade will be.

🌄Local topography🌄

Back to our example. We want to hike Saturday morning in Griffith Park. Since the sun rises northeast of the park this time of year, that means that the earliest rays will shine onto the northeast-facing slopes.

This includes trails near the Merry-Go-Round, including the Old Zoo Loop, and the Mineral Wells and Bill Eckert trails, along with the area near Amir’s Garden, where the sun will be shining by 6:30 a.m. (Again, this doesn’t mean trees won’t provide you with shade.)

Meanwhile, hikes along southern and southwestern-facing slopes are more likely to be shady, including Fern Dell and trails near the bird sanctuary where a nearby west-facing slope blocks the morning sun.

For a visual, take a look at this map I made focused on sun exposure in Griffith Park at 8 a.m. with bearing lines pointing to the directions of the sunrise and sunset.

You’ll see much of the map covered in yellow, which represents sun exposure, while purple patches remain on the south and southwestern sides of slopes where there will be shade at 8 a.m. By 9 a.m., those patches start to shrink, although the map is only taking into consideration the angles of the slopes and not whether these paths have tree cover.

☀️The day’s forecast🌥️

OK, we’ve learned about the direction of the sunrise and a bit about local topography. Let’s dive a little deeper.

Let’s plan a hike to Angeles National Forest, somewhere that starts above 5,000 feet elevation. Why? Because this cooler-than-average July will not last forever (sad), and we’ll need to escape to higher elevation soon.

Let’s say it’s going to be a hot day in L.A., and you’d like to hike in the San Gabriel Mountains in a hopefully less hot area. (Also, for the purpose of our example, there’s no strong inversion layer, which can create a scenario where it’s hotter in the mountains than it is in L.A.)

The plan is to arrive by 8 a.m. to the trailhead. Where can we find a shady reprieve along with hopefully a lower temperature?

First, it will depend on how high we go. “In general, for every 1,000 feet you ascend, the temperature drops approximately 3.5 to 5 degrees Fahrenheit. This predictable temperature decrease is known as the lapse rate,” as this HowStuffWorks article points out.

The amount the temperature drops, though, will vary depending on the weather, humidity and time of day.

I usually start to notice a temperature drop in Angeles National Forest once I travel beyond 5,000 feet. For example, I’ve found on a hot day the parking area at Mt. Wilson might be 10 to 15 degrees cooler than L.A. The Buckhorn Campground, which sits at about 6,500 feet elevation, and the nearby Burkhart Trail are my other go-tos on hot days. You can find the elevation of the hike you’re considering by using Google Maps’ terrain function or by finding your hike on CalTopo, right clicking and choosing the “point information” option.

But how do we find a shady spot at a higher elevation in Angeles National Forest?

For one, we need to consider the direction that a slope faces. I must admit: Figuring out the direction a slope faces broke my brain. I am a bit directionally challenged (a great attribute for an outdoors journalist!). That’s to say if this feels confusing or a bit heady, I understand.

The simplest way to understand the direction a slope faces, or its aspect, and thus how much sun it will get is this: A slope’s direction is the cardinal direction in which it slopes downward.

For our purposes, we’re looking for north-facing slopes because those get less direct sunlight. Why? Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the sun is always to our south, never directly overhead, as it travels across the sky. (Thank you to Mt. Wilson telescope operator and volunteer Nicholas Arkimovich for explaining this and more to me.)

North-facing slopes with trails through them include the Mt. Waterman hike and Mt. Baden-Powell via Vincent Gap. I’ve also found nice shade on the Rim Trail at Mt. Wilson, a path that descends a north-facing slope to Newcomb Pass.

🌲Tree cover 🌳

Lastly, as mentioned, tree cover plays a huge role in temperature, given we have a dry heat here in Southern California. The type of tree cover you’ll find will vary widely among the San Gabriel and Santa Monica mountains, as these ranges feature robust and different plant communities depending, in part, on elevation and a slope’s direction (and thus sun exposure). I could probably write a series of Wilds about this topic (maybe an entire book). In short: Oak woodlands, areas around rivers and higher elevations with tall pine trees will provide you with great shade.

I know this was a lot of information, but I hope today’s Wild will be something you can repeatedly come back to when planning your summer hikes.

If you’d like a little homework, take a look at the map and look for canyons near you. Do they run north-south or east-west? Is one canyon’s wall taller than the other? How does that affect how much shade the canyon floor will get? And is there a trail leading through the canyon, waiting for you to explore it?

Let me know how it goes! I love hearing from you.

3 things to do

1. Bend the curve for birds in Torrance
Keith Haney, a biologist and California naturalist, will present “Bending the Curve with Audubon” at 1 p.m. Saturday at the Madrona Marsh Preserve and Nature Center in Torrance. Haney will explain how the Audubon Society is addressing the downward trend in bird populations and how residents can help locally. Register at eventbrite.com.

2. Meander past murals in East L.A.
People for Mobility Justice will host an art-focused bike ride at 9 a.m. Saturday through East L.A. and Boyle Heights. Riders will start at Mariachi Plaza and ride together to murals in the area. Beginner riders are welcome. Participants should bring a working bike or wheeled device, a helmet, front and back bike lights, reflective clothing and a water bottle. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Marvel at moths in Valyermo
In celebration of National Moth Week, the Invertebrate Club of Southern California will host a black lighting event from 6 to 9 p.m. Saturday at Devil’s Punchbowl Natural Area in Valyermo. The group will set up black lights to observe moths and hike a short distance into the valley to observe scorpions and other invertebrates. Register to learn more.

The must-read

Jomarie Calasanz was visiting Sequoia National Park when, seemingly in a flash, she was swept away by the Kaweah River. Her family longed for news — that at the very least, her body could be recovered. But rescuers found the water too treacherous to keep searching. “On the family’s last morning at the hotel, a waitress who had kept her distance out of respect approached (Jomarie’s) grieving mother and gave her a hug and a tip: There’s a local legend, a man not affiliated with official emergency service agencies, who finds people,” Times staff writer Jack Dolan wrote. That man is Juan Heredia, a 53-year-old scuba instructor from Stockton. Over the past year, Heredia has found the bodies of a dozen drowning victims after authorities had either temporarily or fully stopped searching. Heredia has gained a significant following online and has been getting calls from across the world from families pleading for his help. “I think when they call and tell me they have a loved one who has drowned, it opens up a wound in me, too. And then I need closure,” Heredia said. “I can’t stop thinking about them alone in that dark water.”

Stay safe out there, friends.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

As I was researching this week’s Wild, I called the Mt. Wilson Observatory, as it has a long history of studying the sun (and I had a lot of questions about how the sun moves about). I was greeted by an automated voice prompt: Press 1 for information about visiting the observatory, press 2 to leave a message for the office and “if you’d like to hear an excerpt from the poem ‘The Observatory’ by Alfred Noyes about first light on the 100-inch telescope, press 3.” I pressed 3 and listened for about four minutes to a dramatic reading of a beautiful moment in L.A. space history. “The observatory loomed against the sky; / And the dark mountain with its headlong gulfs, / Had lost all memory of the world below,” a line that reminded me of all the times I’ve escaped to Mt. Wilson on a hot summer day. I politely request more places offer poetry as an option to callers.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Los Angeles loves dogs. The city was ranked as the most popular across the country for dog ownership, according to data gathered by U.S. News, and with get-outside weather and an abundance of green spaces to explore, it’s easy to see why.

Pet ownership skyrocketed during pandemic shutdowns, with local shelters experiencing a rare shortage of dogs and cats. But as the world reopened, dog owners were faced with the challenge of balancing return-to-office demands and expanded social lives with the responsibilities of pet ownership, making dog-friendly spaces all the more important.

Thankfully, the local restaurant scene offers countless settings to socialize with your pup, from an Eagle Rock coffee shop with an attached dog park to an Arts District pizzeria and a Lincoln Heights cider house. Here are 12 dog-friendly patios in L.A. to visit with your pup this summer.

More than a month after President Trump made the fiercely contentious decision to send about 700 U.S. Marines to Los Angeles, those troops will begin withdrawing from the city, Pentagon officials said Monday.

The decision comes a week after the Pentagon announced that half of the almost 4,000 National Guard soldiers deployed to the Los Angeles area would be released from duty. The Marines and National Guard were sent to the city in early June amid widespread federal immigration raids and fiery protests against the raids, with the Trump administration vowing to crack down on “rioters, looters and thugs.”

While the president contended that he had “saved Los Angeles,” local and state officials ferociously denounced the extraordinary deployment of military troops to the streets of an American city.

Advocates and California politicians also argued that the heavy-handed spectacle would be incendiary, potentially putting both the troops and protesters at risk.

In recent days, the troops have been largely fighting tedium, without much to do.

The sometimes volatile protests, which erupted in downtown Los Angeles and other parts of the region in mid-June, have since wound down. The troops have been tasked with guarding federal buildings, and some have accompanied immigration agents on tense enforcement actions.

Speaking on behalf of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell seemed to acknowledge the quiet in a statement Monday.

“With stability returning to Los Angeles, the Secretary has directed the redeployment of the 700 Marines whose presence sent a clear message: lawlessness will not be tolerated,” Parnell said. “Their rapid response, unwavering discipline, and unmistakable presence were instrumental in restoring order and upholding the rule of law. We’re deeply grateful for their service, and for the strength and professionalism they brought to this mission.”

News of the Marines’ withdrawal, which was first reported by the New York Times, broke minutes after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass finished a Monday morning public appearance with veterans’ groups, where she decried the “inappropriate” presence of military forces on L.A. streets.

“This is another win for Los Angeles. As we said this morning — the way to best support our troops is to have them do what they enlisted to do, not to protect two office buildings,” Bass said in response to the withdrawal.

Roughly 2,000 National Guard troops remain in the region, according to U.S. Northern Command.

Lindsay and Daniel Sheron dreamed of buying a home of their own. But in Los Angeles, where housing is expensive and in short supply — the median home price is roughly $1 million, according to Zillow — purchasing a home can be difficult for first-time homebuyers with limited equity.

So after many years of renting various homes, including a Craftsman house in Portland and, most recently, a small bungalow in Eagle Rock, the Sherons, who are both 36, reached a tipping point while searching for a house in northeast Los Angeles. They quickly realized that they couldn’t afford to live in their neighborhood.

“We weathered the pandemic in a 900-square-foot bungalow in Eagle Rock,” Lindsay, who is an architect, recalls of the house, which their landlords had listed for $900,000 before they decided to rent it out. “I thought, ‘If that’s what $900,000 gets you in Los Angeles, why don’t we look at land and see about designing and building our own house?” she adds. “Maybe we can gain more value that way.” (The bungalow sold for $1.3 million after they moved out.)

Using Zillow, the couple scouted several hillside lots and eventually purchased a 4,300-square-foot hillside property in 2021 for $212,000. Located at the top of a small ridge at the end of a cul-de-sac in Mount Washington, the north-facing lot was on a buildable slope with lovely views of the San Gabriel Mountains. More importantly, the vacant lot had access to utilities such as electricity, gas and water, including a sewer manhole at the bottom of the property. There are many lots for sale, Lindsay notes, but many of them don’t have access or utilities.

With their entire savings invested in the land, the Sherons took a cost-saving, hands-on approach to the next step: construction. In addition to Lindsay’s design services as an architect, they decided to serve as general contractors and subcontract the major trades, including the concrete foundation, tile, framing, exterior siding and hardwood floors.

Although the architect was thrilled at the prospect of designing her own home, she had never built one before — or bought one, for that matter — which perhaps is why she could ponder the formidable tasks of securing a construction loan, deciphering Urban Forestry and municipal building codes in a neighborhood with strict development regulations, permitting the house (which took seven months with the help of an expediter) and deciphering new development fees linked to affordable housing. “Every step of approval is not straightforward,” Lindsay says. “We were on our own for all of the inspections.”

“It only worked because Lindsay knew how to do it,” says Daniel, who is a musician and, by his admission, had never used a nail gun before tackling their 1800-square-foot home project. “Because she has a background in construction administration on huge commercial projects, she had the answers when a concrete contractor had questions about what PSI [pounds per square inch] concrete to pour.”

From the outset, nature was a priority for the architect, who, like Norman Jaffe and Joseph Esherick and William Turnbull, Jr. of Sea Ranch fame, was concerned with the relationship between architecture and landscape.

Mindful of her neighbors, Lindsay devised a plan for a modern three-bedroom house that did not overwhelm the cul-de-sac: a two-story house that steps down the hill and is complemented by a pitched roof that soars parallel to the natural slope of the hillside.

“I designed the house to descend into the hill rather than being perched on top of the street,” she says. “That would have felt invasive. I wanted to bring nature in and blend into the hill as much as possible, even in an urban setting.”

The effect, Daniel says, is a sense of wonder: “It feels like you’re living inside the hill.”

Working together, the couple completed a significant portion of the work themselves, including the interior trim, and Lindsay even built a bench that doubles as the HVAC register. They also undertook extensive waterproofing on the exterior of the house and around all of the doors and windows, dug a trench for their water line and spent most weekends filling in the gaps where labor was lacking. When Tropical Storm Hilary marched through Southern California in August 2023, they crawled on top the house and frantically covered the framing with 100-foot-long tarps.

“That was stressful,” Lindsay says with a sigh. “If we had a crew, we could have asked them to help.”

There were other unexpected fees. When all was said and done, the couple paid the city more than $80,000, with some fees meant to stymie new home development , even as there were discounts for accessory dwelling units, or ADUs. If they had added an ADU, the calculation for one fee would have been $1.08 per square foot rather than $8.30 per square foot, they later learned. “If I had known the difference would have been $2,000 versus $23,000, I might had added an ADU,” Lindsay says now of the attached studio they installed at the front of the house alongside the carport.

Similarly, when they went to obtain their Certificate of Occupancy last December, they learned they owed a parks and recreation mitigation fee — a payment that would go toward “improving park and recreational facilities for new residents,” according to the city website. “We were tapped out at that point,” Daniel says. “We had to pay $8,000 or they wouldn’t issue us the certificate.” They put it on a credit card.

Three years and more than a few hassles later, the couple has a finished home that is a testament to their perseverance. Walk past the carport, which was influenced by Buff, Straub & Hensman’s historic Poppy Peak neighborhood in Pasadena, and a path gently curves around the side of the house to the front door, which opens to a central stairway with breathtaking views that connects the upper and lower levels. Two bedrooms are located on the top floor, while the stairway descends to the living room, dining area and kitchen, all of which are designed to be loftlike, creating an open floor plan bathed with natural light.

“We say this is a house with no hallways,” Lindsay says of her efficient space planning. “You circulate in a connected space. The stairs are connected to the space; the hallway to the bedrooms is connected.”

The larger living areas are neutral, with warm oak floors and exposed Douglas fir beams that are accented with bold moments. The kitchen is a standout, featuring bright green custom kitchen cabinets painted “Raw Tomatillo” by Farrow & Ball, which add vitality to the single-wall layout. A custom metal hood by Practice Fabrication, powder-coated the color of a Pixie tangerine, adds a sense of fun.

“I wanted our house to feel really warm and bring nature inside,” says Lindsay, referring to the Western hemlock tongue and groove planks that she and Daniel installed on the walls and ceilings. “Wood does the heavy lifting in accomplishing that.”

The exterior of the house, which is clad in shou sugi ban charred wood siding from Nakamoto Forestry, was a priority for the architect but a mystery for the subcontractors. “Everyone presumed we were going to add stucco,” she says, “because that’s what everyone else does.”

She created a small mock-up to illustrate the rainscreen infrastructure system, which offers both fireproofing and insulation benefits. “It’s like putting a down jacket on your house,” Lindsay explains. “It’s a sustainable way to build out your exterior, providing more thermal insulation and allowing your siding to dry. It’s not attached to sheeting so it can breathe thanks to an air gap behind it.”

Toward the end of construction, when they could no longer afford their rent, the couple stayed in a friend’s spare room for four months. Then last April, once floors and drywall were installed, they moved into the house and showered at the gym. “We were squatting in our own house,” adds Daniel, who says he listened to island exotica music while working on carpentry projects late at night to help combat the stress. “I’d fill the house with the dulcet tones of Les Baxter,” he says, smiling.

Looking back, the couple says the most challenging part of the process was that everything started and stopped with them. “We did not have a third person where we could say, ‘Hey, can you go do this?’” Lindsay says. “So many times I wished we could make a to-do list and give it to someone.”

“There was no one to fill in besides us,” adds Daniel, who is now working as a project manager for a residential contractor in the Pacific Palisades. “When the city wouldn’t approve the permit for their driveway, he drove to Norwalk and consulted property records on microfilm to try to determine the history of the shared driveway.

“We could have written a show about the experience,” Lindsay says, to which her husband responded, “It would be a comedy of errors.”

It also taught them a new level of collaboration.

“We had never collaborated on anything to that extent,” says Lindsay. “I’m an architect. He’s a musician. We’re very different, but I relied on him a lot. He was freelance and could be at the house a lot more while I worked full time, so he would call me with questions or he would send me a picture and I would sketch on top of the photo.”

“I gained a deeper appreciation for Lindsay’s iterative approach,” Daniel says.

Longtime friend Nicolas Sohl, who attended Middlebury College with Daniel, remembers walking the boundary lines with the couple after they first purchased the land.

“Their love for each other is evident in the attention to detail in the home they chose to build together,” he says. “They saw it as an opportunity not only to advance their careers but create lasting friendships in their neighborhood.”

Though their goal was to build the home for under $1 million, in the end, they borrowed a little over that amount. Even so, they estimate they built their house for approximately 45% less than what a similar home would cost. They have seen three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom homes on comparable lots in their neighborhood sell for around $2 million.

On New Year’s Eve, the couple put aside their power tools and opened their home to 30 of their friends. Celebratory champagne flowed freely and thanks to the home’s open floor plan, dancing spilled into the kitchen.

Such joyful moments are especially meaningful after three years spent working as general contractors.

“Our friends say we seem way more at ease now,” Lindsay says.