Moments in Dirt and Ink

Sketches in the out-of-doors for the month. There's free moments after lunch when conferencing at Asilomar. Another little trek up to the little waterfall. Rustic Canyon is the home of many things, including a Boy Scout Camp. All the way out into the yard.

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. Switzer Falls is found just a short way up highway 2, the first stop past the turnoff to the old highway to Lancaster. We found a spot down by the picnic area, so didn't have to hike down the road. It's a very popular spot and there often are no places anywhere. The trail heads downhill with many crossings over the creek. The water was low, so crossings were easy with many many rocks to choose from. It isn't always like that. There is a campground about halfway down as the canyon narrows tightly heading into a few waterfalls, cascades, and rapids. There the trail stays high passing a few scary cliff edges. Eventually it splits with the long trek to JPL on the right and a downhill sprint to the bottom of the tight canyon on the left. Then there's just a few more crossings to get to the bottom of the waterfall that is accessible. The waterfall, which has a bit of a cascade character to it and is only...

Will Rogers and Topanga State Parks Locate the trailhead. I was tasked with finding a hike again for the day. This one should be "about three miles" which meant six miles total. I found one that was six miles where most of that was a loop going out of Will Rogers State Park. It seems to be a popular place for Easter with egg hunts adding to the usual soccer game traffic. The games we saw looked like they're probably a city league rather than a bunch of kids. We poked our heads into the barn and outside of it are buried a couple of ol' Will's favorite ponies, one for polo and one for roping. The old polo fields were today's soccer fields. Then we hiked up the loop to the local Inspiration point. We hadn't figured out which trail we were coming back along so thought going up that it didn't matter which way we took that loop. Turned out if we'd looked more carefully we'd have seen the arrow on the edge saying "to Rustic Canyon...

Monrovia Canyon Park Locate the trailhead. We took a second trip of Monrovia Canyon . This time we only did the small canyon with the falls, and not a bit of Sawpit that it is a tributary to. This makes the trail even shorter. We didn't quite do the shortest version, but it was very nearly so. As before, the trail is sometimes narrow, often wide, and always easy. It goes past the old flood control barriers... Where there's a creek, there's flood control. Or it seams that way. Sometimes even very large double bits of flood control like this one.

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. Fish Creek was once very accessible but now has a quarry operating at the end of the canyon. Now it can be got at by way of a much longer trail that climbs the ridge and drops into the canyon surrounded by a truly amazing amount of poison oak. This trail seems to be the domain of stringy old hikers who can manage to make it to the trail by 7AM. However, on cerain Saturdays, the quarry runs a shuttle through their operations so that if you can start by noon and be out by 3PM, the average 5-year-old can make it up to the falls. The vans were running today, and I saw a lot of young kids, some of them even walking it themselves. The trail heads out over a bridge and into the canyon, turning a few sharp corners quickly hiding the quarry from view. The canyon itself is rather narrow and steep with water leaking out the left side here and there. The trail stays fairly high up on the left side most of the way until that side becomes ...

Sketches done "in situ" for the month. A tree on a ledge by the creek, walking upstream out of Nira . Eaton Canyon , the first of the day. Rubio Canyon , the second of the day. Millard Canyon , the final fall of the day.

Angeles National Forest accessible from Altadena and Altadena front country The rains had been fairly steady over the week before including the previous weekend.  The weekend before that was well rained on by an earlier storm.  It was high time to get out for a hike and the rains suggested going to see the waterfalls.  Altadena has at least three waterfalls that can be hiked to in less than a mile.  I've been to two of them , but only looked down the canyon toward the third before.  I decided to try to see all three starting somewhat late in the morning.  I started with the one I had not seen before because it should have the best light in the morning. Eaton Canyon Locate the trailhead. Eaton Canyon has a large parking lot somewhere for everyone to park in so long as they don't want to be there before sunrise or after sunset.  In two tries, I couldn't manage to make the correct turn so I went along Altadena Drive to the smaller parking ar...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. NIRA is a campground at the end of Happy Canyon road, which you can get to from highway 154 via Armour Ranch road. It is also a main entry point into the backcountry and a very common hike for us when I was young. It was also my first backpacking trip. We didn't get very far then, I think it was only about four miles in. It can be tough to go backpacking with an ill-equipped 9-year-old, you end up carrying her rather heavy slumber bag. This time, the area had been closed the previous two years due to fire damage. I was hiking again with my mom. A tree tested by fire. This one is still standing tall and strong even though the base has been well blackened by the passing of the flames. The trail starts off at the far end of the campground and crosses the river. I remember it being bigger. I remember many boots off crossings. The water was usually slow and not too far up the shins. I remember many crossings ...