Moments in Dirt and Ink

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trail head. We drove to the end of Paradise Road to stop by Red Rock for a little hiking. It turned out to be very short, indeed. We only went a little way up the river before returning. I stopped by the rock that attracts many people and sketched before we left again. The top of the large red rock in the river. Red layers of rock with a bit of salt or lime. Green mountain sides surround the red rocks. A sketch of the big, red rocks of the river. Afterward, we stopped by Nojoqui Falls since it had rained recently, but were disappointed with the flow that didn't seem to have improved with the rain. ©2008,2012 Valerie Norton Posted 16 September 2012

Open air sketches for the month. The city poking out of the haze while hiking up the old toll road . Antennas on the mountain top . Top: south view.  Bottom: northwest view.  From near the top . Some of the turtles on campus.

from Lake Poway, nearish La Jolla Locate the trailhead. I only drove to La Jolla, so can't say how to get there, but Lake Poway is on the map. It's a short trail, but can get hot so we meant to head off quite early. We did manage to get around to going downhill before it started to feel particularly hot. They've certainly put together a lot of trails for a place that hadn't had a trail until 1980, but there's usually trail signs, too. Not quite the first view of ocean along the trail. I'm told this wasn't particularly visible until fire came through a few years ago. There were a few funky shaped bits of pink granite around. It seemed to be turning into shells, in a way, in places. Besides this one, the top features a wave of stone everyone but me was taking photos of. The local pink granite, a rock that isn't as much harder than the local sandstone as expected.

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. The old way to Henninger Flats is to start at the bottom of the Mt. Wilson Toll Road and walk up. The road has a gate on it that is only open sunrise to sunset but now hasn't been open for years because a large section of the road, visible from the gate, has been removed by a landslide. With the traffic of people who go up the mountain from around here, it might be expected to have a good trail bed again, but it does not. Since the gate never opens, one must start in at some other location or trespass. If the sunrise to sunset time limit is no problem, then the Eaton Canyon lot is a good starting spot. If not, between the two is a small dirt lot along Altadena Dr. Either way, the reason there hasn't been a good trail bed made by the passage of people is because there's another way up using the Eaton Canyon trail directly across the riverbed. From the lot on Altadena, one may have to go east a little to get to it. ...

Outside sketches of the month. Apartment in downtown Pasadena. Colorado and Wilson, Pasadena. (From my photo.) Old fireproof warehouse for the long gone trains. (From my photo.) A tree and hitching post by the campground .

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. A handy map to the trailhead found at the end of the road which is not, according to the map, where the trail starts. Grizzly Flat is a short way up the north end of the Dark Canyon trail. The south end starts in Oakwilde, about 4 miles up Arroyo Seco starting near JPL. It is marked with one of those flat, brown stick signs, but rather than simply saying "trail" as they normally do, it is well marked with promises that the trail further on through Dark Canyon is unmaintained and likely to take your life if you try to travel along it. The north end, in contrast, starts about a mile along Big Tujunga, which is reportedly difficult to pass in high water, and doesn't really have a trail along it from the road. It is true that the route is difficult to determine among all the choices for the first section along the creek, but it is easy to find as it heads upward away from the water. From there is is well maintained t...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. Going down Paradise road to Red Rock, there is a fork in the road at lower Rancho Oso where the left side goes up to Upper Rancho Oso. Mom and I took a small hike up this trail to see what was on it. Turns out, there's a lot of people with dirt bikes on it since they are allowed on the fire road that makes up the first part of the trail. However, within the first mile of the road, there's a trail going off to the left. This one does not allow any vehicles, off road or otherwise, and the sounds of bikes vanished as we proceeded down it. The trail was quite delightful. There was a spot along it where the cliff had eroded into a big bowl and the sounds of the creek were amplified so that as you approached it, you weren't sure if there wasn't more water coming down off the side until you could see. As we approached, some hikers were standing in it talking and their rumbling amplified voices were carried quite far...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. When everyone else went on down the mountain, I went further up it to see if I could get to the peak. The road did not actually go there although it was rather obscured by other details on the forest map. There was a trailhead instead. A short way down the trail splits one side heading off to one side of the mountain, the other to the other side of the mountain and a usage trail splitting the difference heading up the mountain. I met a man walking along with his kids that looked like they weren't more than five coming down the usage trail. He said that the trail started off quite steep but got quite flat above. Although I didn't actually see little footprints all the way up, it was pretty good for a usage trail. It was especially good for a usage trail that travels along a ridge passing about four false peaks. It looked like a lot of people don't actually get all the way up to the peak. There was a wide, fla...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. We spotted the sign for Raspberry Spring on our way to Chorro Spring the day before. It was a little way down the hill on the near side of Reyes Peak campground where trailhead parking could easily be mistaken for campsite parking since a campsite was also there. The trail was a little harder to see from the road but easy enough from the sign. It is only 0.4 miles down to the spring. Finding the spring itself proved a little harder. We came upon a campsite, since this is also a campsite like the other spring complete with campfire grills, and then another one but didn't see a way off to a spring or any sign of a spring. I followed an animal trail a little ways figuring it would go to the spring. It probably did in the other direction but I found a third site up from the animal trail a little way instead. Then I found myself at the first site again and spotted a people trail that headed to the spring. The spring on...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. The trail down to Chorro Spring started at the far end of Reyes Campground. It had a large road sign to mark it so was easy to find. The first few feet looked like road and had a road block on it, but shortly after that it was only trail sized. The trail actually goes past Chorro Spring to Oak campground and then on to 33. On the way to the trail head, we found a former bee hive. A little bit of honeycomb is still visible in the hole that was once occupied by a bee hive. The hole still smells strongly of honey, too.

Los Padres National Forest Chorro Spring | Raspberry Spring | Reyes Peak We headed out looking for a place to camp. The main plan was somewhere on up highway 33 near Wheeler Gorge. First we looked for a spot in the valley, but the Gorge campground itself was full with people reserving spots and had weird rules for weekends. Middle Lion and Rose Valley were both quite full when we went by, so we climbed the mountain. Dropping into Pine Mountain and found one site empty. I dropped off my passengers to hold it and wait for the second car while going up to see if there was something in Reyes Peak, our preferred spot, but there wasn't. It was quite nice, though, and I found the trail down to Chorro Grande. After setting up and getting ourselves fed lunch, we headed over to Chorro Spring on foot. Then back for lovely dinner and a bit of star gazing. The stars were nice and crisp and plentiful. Then along came the very annoying not quite teenagers who felt the nee...

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. Fellows who claim to have hiked it before claimed Arroyo Seco connects with Switzer trail for a total of about 8 miles of hiking.  The sign at the turnoff to the bottom of the dam would seem to imply the same thing, although maybe it's 8.5 instead of 8.  The map shows the trails connecting.  A brilliant plan would be to hike up the 6 or 7 miles to the bottom of the falls instead of hiking down only 2 miles to the same.  It would be just long enough and probably not too long. Unfortunately, it is 9 miles to the bottom of the falls.  As the sign where the trail I was on met up with the trail I'd been on said, it is 8.5 miles to "Altadena".  It is at least a quarter mile to the falls from there.  Ignoring that signs further down claim you are going to "Pasadena" and I'm fairly certain that's "La Canada Flintridge" anyway since it's next to JPL, that's a bit of a longer distance than...

Santa Barbara Front Country Locate the trailhead. For a short hike with a little bit of water falling at the end, we selected to wander a little way up San Ysidro Trail just behind Montecito, oddly close to the road by the same name. Although then there was a right at East Valley Rd. and a left at Park Lane and keeping right at a Y with East Mountain Dr. after turning north on San Ysidro. The road ends at the trail since someone has decided the rest should be a private road these days. The trail meanders past a few houses and then follows the road shortly before going back to the more general trail-ish style of travel. The trail follows a stream along up the mountain. A bit of stream along the trail.

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. One day short of a year from the last go , and we're off again. Well, fewer than before. We're out to see the falls and the day is just a bit clearer. As we went up the canyon, there was actually water along the bottom, we could hear it. Also, we could see it for a short bit where it came up in the litter of rocks at the bottom when the trail hits there. We powered our way right on past the first waterfall and up the canyon on the side looking to see where we could get to. Instead of going along the first trail to the left, we kept going up the bottom of the steep, narrow canyon. Further up there was another trail going off toward the various falls that are promised to be up there. Now anyway. Up and up and up we went. Finally there was a low road that looked at least as well traveled as the one still heading straight up. What we found was a big waterfall. Thelehaha (top) and Roaring Rift (below) falls: Beyon...

Angeles National Forest When I got back from the Condor Peak hike, it had gotten quite dark and the moon was overhead. I played with the camera a little bit. Just letting the camera choose its own speed, the moon is easy to see. I was holding the camera against the car to try to get this at first. Since the shutter isn't open so long, it almost worked. Result was generally fuzzier than this. After playing with night mode, I tried again with this normal picture setting but this time making it pause for a long time between the press of the shutter and the photo so I could take my hands away from the camera before the picture was taken leaving it just resting against something. Plants, in this case, which isn't ideal. In between I played with the "night mode" which seemed to open the shutter for about six seconds. This turned out to be too long to try to hold the camera, even braced against something. That's when I found the plant to hold th...

Mount Gleason Angeles National Forest Taking off for a nice drive and a little hike, I headed for Mount Gleason. Which hopefully wouldn't be too high for snow. The plan was to take the trail down from Deer Spring, which goes along the canyon I hiked last week. The road is off the old crest highway. Even though the local mountains aren't so high, a few were obviously a little splotched with snow especially on the north side of the mountains. As the road wound up, it quickly gathered its own splotches nearby. They seemed to get thicker and then as the road passed into a north side slope it became clear it had been plowed. So it's looking good for getting to the trail, but not so good on actually traveling down it. Luckily it is down and a southern slope, so it might be okay. On the other hand, a canyon will generally keep snow longer. Anyway, see when I get there. But I didn't get there. Turns out the road is only plowed to "County Camp No 16...

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. Myself and a crew of one decided to head up to Trail Canyon to see the waterfall about two miles along. He offered to drive up there, but I knew he wouldn't like to have his car on the last bit of road so I insisted on driving. When we got out he confirmed that he wouldn't have wanted to drive down that road and I probably shouldn't either. Unfortunately for my car, my philosophy is that it exists to get me where I want to go, and if that means a rough but passable road, then that is what it will go down. There is some parking at the start of the road for those who do not wish to beat up their cars, but I have rarely seen it used. The public road stops just before the first crossing of the creek. I could only recall crossing the creek a couple times on the first trip up this canyon, this first crossing being one of those times. It was the hardest crossing, and the current water level made it especially difficult. The ...

Santa Barbara front country Locate the trailhead. Somewhere along the windy bit that is Las Canoas Road off of Mission Canyon Road is Skofield Park and Rattlesnake Canyon, which is apparently part of Skofield Park. Start of the trail up Rattlesnake Canyon. Well, the one one the west side of the creek, anyway. This trail is an old standby from childhood. That is, we must have been on the start of this thing at least a dozen times. As is typical of front country trails, continuing on the trail can be a challenge at times. A little ways up, the trail goes straight while a bulldozer width trail turns right up the hillside. It goes a short way up to a road and fencing and, believe it or not, a bulldozer. There's an okay view from it too. A short offshoot of trail leads to a view of some of the city below and St. Mary's Seminary.

 Rattlesnake Canyon , Santa Barbara front country: Jan 2  Trail Canyon Trail , Angeles National Forest: Feb 2  Condor Peak and some Mt. Gleason , Angeles National Forest: Feb 10