Moments in Dirt and Ink

Although already posted separately, here are the walking about sketches of the month. Along the slopes just above the houses of Altadena. Large bunches of flowers on a tree along the Toll Road .

Angeles National Forest I decided to head on up to Henninger Flats along the toll road this evening. I need to walk more, after all. Just past the two mile marker, I saw a nice tree full of flowers and sketched it. A flowering tree along the road. From there, I continued up to Henninger and a little bit further. There were three deer in the campground and another one just outside it. I went on up to where a road heads off to the west, quickly splitting into a numbered route and a road to a helicopter pad. By then the sun was set. I'd driven up to the start, hiked about three miles uphill, and got a sketch done in just a little more than two hours. I took a good look around because it was still time for colors in the sky and I'd not been up that far and the road had just reached the edge of a ridge with the far side having a little different character from the side I'd been up. Then I hiked back down. It was shortly after 9PM when I got back...

Angeles National Forest This afternoon I stopped by Jo-ann to find that if I ever want sock yarn in a solid color, I need to order it online or get some good stuff from Skein. But that was on my way to go hiking: there is a trail that heads up into the foothills from about halfway down to the bridge along Mt. Wilson Toll Rd. I had seen a bit of it down below me when I was hiking much higher up from Rubio Canyon some weeks back. It calls itself Altadena Crest trail and I decided to see what it's like. The trail climbed steeply out of the canyon and then kept going steeply to get above the house level as it goes along the little canyons above Altadena. A few of the canyons seemed like death traps should there be a flash flood. A little way past a canyon I recognized as the one I'd been in, but far above on the trail from Rubio which ended in a rock slide here, the trail suddenly took a twisting and turning path downward with no apparent trail on the other si...