There's one 11,503' peak within 2 hours of LA. Don't get me wrong, the San Gabriels and the rest of the Transverse Ranges are great fun. But they're not the same as the glaciated stratovolcanoes in the Cascades.
You said you missed mountains around Seattle, so I had to point out that while not glaciated, the Gabriels and San Bernardino mountains are breathtaking in their own right. And the Sequoias by Yosemite just 4 hours north arent bad either where you have peaks over 14K feet. I live in the mountains, I moved to California for the mountains.