Are you ready to travel back in time to the 1890s?? Back in the day, Echo Mountain was the site of a resort that drew tourists from all over the world to take in the views of Southern California. It was destroyed in a wildfire, but now we get to hike the trail up to the summit with the company of a brilliant historian, who can tell you about 19th century California and all you need to know about modern Germany, Central Europe, and the Ancient Greek belief in wandering wombs. Paul Lerner will join us on this 5 mile hike to the ruins of the resort! Here are some old pictures for fun!
PEAK: ECHO MOUNTAIN
DIFFICULTY: 3/5
SCENERY: Views of LA on one side and the forest on the other
FUN FACT: Thaddeus Lowe, who built the resort, was an aeronautic inventor whose expertise was in balloons!
PROFESSOR: PAUL LERNER
DEPARTMENT: History
RATE MY PROFESSOR: "Amazing professor, one of the very best I've had at USC! Lerner really cares about and listens to his students, he's incredibly kind, brilliant, and funny in the best way!" Read more rave reviews here.
Professor Lerner is a historian of nineteenth and twentieth-century Germany and Central Europe. His expertise includes Jewish history, the human sciences, gender, the history of psychiatry, and the theory of consumer culture. Ask him about German department stores prior to World War II, how psychiatry has functioned as a form of social control throughout history, and why he prefers to write in karate dojos.
TRIP LEAD: HANNA FAHSHOLTZ
Echo Mountain