The IAAL-MAF Take Back Griffith Observatory Invitational ride made a successful - if painful - assault on the ridges leading up to the observatory tonight, joined by more than 30 gutsy guest riders.
The air was crisp, the skies clear, and the 1,000-foot climb by turns spooky, pungent, peaceful, glorious and relentlessly steep. But everyone made it to the top, and came back with cameras full of stunning views and good friends in all their ragged, spent glory. Here are a few of mine:
Heading north along the L.A. River bike path.
Thematic graffito, snapped at high speed
Cruising toward the foot of the "roller coaster" - a steep and winding road that gains 1,000 feet in elevation over a couple of miles. A good, stiff climb.
Travel Town stop - before the climb
Taking a breather halfway up
Another break to savor the views.
(ENLARGE)
Choice: Lug a tripod, or enjoy the impressionist blur. Tripods are heavy. I liked the contrast of dark tree and bright lights.
Into the tunnel
One more uphill push - our legs are burning now - and we reach the top.
After four weeks of no biking before this ride, SuperLuckyCat is near death.
Will "Agent Orange" Campbell demonstrates the extremely tricky IAAL-MAF gang sign.
Griffith Observatory staff were showing off modern telescopes almost as powerful as the main observatory scope. This one was trained on uranus, which appeared through the eyepiece as a crisp, blue disc.
Viewing the Foucault pendulum pit
Detail from Hugo Baffin's glorious dome paintings. For more shots of the murals and the rest of the newly renovated and expanded Observatory's interior, go here.
A model of Saturn looks down over a frosted-glass portrait of the Milky Way galaxy. When you press a button on the display, a tiny pinprick of laser light pinpoints the location of our solar system.
The moon hovers in the museum's false darkness. The gift shop next door has plenty of videos, tchotchkes and branded scwhag, but the best stuff is the book selection. If you only buy one more coffee-table book - ever - I highly recommend Full Moon, a collection of NASA mission photos from the surface of the moon.
A chunk of moon rock hovers in its case as the moon spins past.
I liked the way the shadow from the label was falling on the sample. Then I stood back and had a Keanu Reeves moment. "That rock is, like, a billion years old, and it's from Mars. ... Whoa."
The meteorite display really grabbed me this time. Check out the crystalline patterns in this slice of iron.
The porosity of this sample left me wondering how and where it was formed lo, those billions of years ago before it was set hurtling off into space to crash land on Earth.
Upstairs, a newly installed working model of a large telescope that you can activate with pushbuttons.
On upstairs to the roof, and the real thing.
Why, yes it does!
The scope was out tonight, and anyone could wander in and look through the eyepiece or at a monitor to see a cluster of stars millions of miles from earth.
(ENLARGE)
The telescope's dome was refurbished - the copper recladded and the door gear reworked - but the telescope remains unchanged. More specs here.
(ENLARGE)
Next time, I'm taking the shuttle and bringing a tripod. The view from the roof of downtown and the lights beyond is stunning.
Hey, Invitational riders - Post links here when your photos are up!
