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Under Saturday's dramatically blustery skies, 98 people hiked up to a peak above the Observatory in Griffith Park to commemorate StepItUp '07, the day author and environmentalist Bill McKibben set aside for a countrywide day of actions in defense of the climate (the day's slogan: "Cut carbon 80 percent by 2050!").

Wait -- make that 98 people, four "be-stilted clowns" (as organizer David Newsom called them), former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Francis DellaVecchia, and his press corps -- me.

Clowns from left to right: Jesster (getting fueled up), Noah Veil (with the toy gas tank and nozzle), Mondo and a guy named John Pedone. Francis is holding down the right-hand side of the banner, and that's me holding down the left-hand corner with my recently rescued Cairn Terrier.

As I had driven all the way from Santa Monica, where a whole carnival of climate-defenders was holding forth on the promenade, I missed the official departure of the hikers. So did Francis, who drove up in his cornflower-blue Prius at the very moment I was parking my biodiesel bug. While the two of us walked up the trail together in the hopes of catching the whole crew, I took the opportunity to bitch about everything that was bugging me about the day (see earlier post). I had heard, for instance, that somebody had planned to melt a 100-pound block of ice on Hollywood Boulevard. How much refrigeration, water and gas would that stunt take?

Francis made the point that McKibben had begun the movement with just six college students, and they never imagined it would grow into 1,400-some separate actions around the country. They couldn't control the message in every single one. I argued that hardly anyone beyond the participants even knew the events were happening. My New York friends, not environmentalists but not unenlightened, either, had heard nothing about the sea of blue-clad people gathering at Battery Park to show how high the sea would rise if the Arctic ice continues to melt. Francis insisted that it was enough for people to get together and seed an event that will only get bigger next year.

And maybe he's right.

We never caught the crowd. We took a few wrong turns and missed their shortcuts. But I think we did pretty well by ourselves stumbling upon the clowns, who were also late and falling behind -- it's a challenge to cover the rocky terrain of the eastern Santa Monica Mountains in stilts, even if, like Jesster, you've been walking on stilts for 10 years (I first met her, on stilts, at Burning Man in the year 2000).

Francis talked about how the stuff we'd all been talking about five years ago was finally moving out of the talking stage; we discussed the possibility of a sustainably powered nightclub. We mulled over options the city of Los Angeles has for dealing with its stormwater runoff. ("Is it really a choice between backed up sewers and polluting the ocean?" Francis wanted to know.) Jesster and I talked about where to get better environmental news (I should have mentioned TreeHugger and Grist). People saw us and asked what was going on. We told them. Never underestimate the power of four stiltwalkers where you don't expect to see stiltwalkers. Especially stiltwalkers wearing cars (with bumperstickers: "Don't Fry Our Planet in Oil!")

Francis even helped carry John's truck (I tried, but I was too short).

We did eventually make it to the top of the peak (Dante's View) where the first photo here was taken some time after the crowd had left. In the end, Francis said he could "pretty much guarantee that we've had the best Step It Up experience of just about anyone in the country," and I couldn't dismiss that as just more of Francis' tenacious optimism. I agreed. A bunch of people with ideas got out and talked, bickered, laughed and basically reaffirmed our intentions. A small thing, maybe, but not a trivial one.

I hope that's what went on in other places, too (click on that link and look at the photos -- it'll make you giddy). I think it did. So I withdraw at least some of my niggling criticism of the day (I do hope that block of ice thing was just a rumor, though). We did something fun, and it happened to be something that mattered. Now that's the way to change the world.

(Photo credits: David Newsom, first and last; Francis with the car -- me.)

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