The mountains within

In the morning I was brought to a halt, awe-struck by rock. That afternoon, the same thing, except by concrete. Mountains in the morning, a freeway interchange later in the day.

A freeway interchange? You must think I've lived in Los Angeles for too long. But look this one up; it's the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, and is one of the most astonishing structures I've seen.

Our visitors never fail to gawp at it on the way home from the airport, its four storeys of flyovers rising above the 105 freeway, the very essence of what LA is perceived to be.

To get a far better sense though, take a bus to the stop in the middle of the interchange. Head up the escalators to the Green Line Metro station where roads swoop above and below, vehicles racing along on so many different levels it's hard to work out what is going where. The very concrete seems to be in motion, with two carpool lanes high above racing towards each other, then curving gracefully, continuing their journey side by side to the surface level far below. It's mesmeric, and when I was there, I just stood, jaw gently hanging, the white noise of all those speeding tyres hurting my ears.

That morning's moment of awe was the opposite in many ways. I stopped my bicycle during a climb into the San Gabriel mountains, and the silence was as overwhelming as the hiss of those tyres. Except for the road I was on, there was nothing manmade in sight, and the mountains sat immovable, almost as forbidding as they were beautiful. Unlike the interchange whose slopes were built to facilitate travel, these slopes are an obstacle to travellers, even today. The ranges north of Los Angeles constantly block movement with winding roads that are seasonally snowbound and have to be cleared of falling rocks. The second biggest road over them, the Angeles Crest Highway, was recently closed for months because of fire damage and landslides. Even the gigantic I-5, the freeway that runs down the west coast from Canada to Mexico, has closures in winter at the infamous Tejon Pass, the high point north of LA that links Southern California to the Central Valley.

Eerie wilderness

My wife and I love the mountains because they are our daily reminder that there is still wilderness in this world in which humans are small and vulnerable. Hiking or biking up there can leave you eerily alone.

One recent ride I scared a deer who struggled to run up a near vertical slope to get away as I cranked past. Another day, a lynx glowered at me from the side of the road, close enough to spring onto my back if it so chose. In July, when we leave here for good, our airport shuttle will drive over the Judge Harry Pregerson Interchange, and I know that as it does, I'll think of the mountains — the Santa Monicas, the San Gabriels and the San Bernadinos. Not only will I have them in my mind, but I'll carry a minuscule bit of their rock in my legs — the physiological imprint of the hours spent toiling up their slopes. The mountains in turn will bear a lot of my baggage on their broad shoulders because no matter what troubles I take up there with me, I always come speeding back down light and happy.

As our plane takes off into the night, the mountains, in all their immensity, will be invisible in the darkness. The valley with its brightly lit freeways and interchanges will be the last thing we see before flying back home across the Pacific.

Gautam Raja is a journalist based in the US.