I saw a burned state park sign in the Angeles Forest, up on the side of the Crest Highway (the 2 highway through the Forest) earlier in 2012, I think. This sign was, I mean, it was burned black and full of holes and ash – beyond all usabilty, legibility and recognition, except for the state-park-ish-ness that those things have at their core. I took a bunch of crappy lo-res digital photos, but nothing exciting as the thing itself. I was up there, randomly, for the first time, and it seems I was lucky, that it had just re-opened after a bad wildfire, and here I was almost to 5,000 feet (?), not far outside Los Angeles, on this fresh blacktop.
A few months later, I decided to document the drive up from the beginning of the Forest Proper, with a roll shot randomly more or less out through the windshield, hopefully ending with a shot of that beautifully fucked-up sign, which I planned to make a mold of in place, or even just steal…..
but it turns out, the Rangers had done their work of clearing away any such reminders of the fire, and the sign was gone.