Moments in Dirt and Ink

Some attempts at art in open spaces. The fire lookout that has been moved to Henninger Flat . Painted up at SBCC while trying to encourage mom to have at it too.  She used to draw a bit, but worries it isn't good.

Warner Valley, Lassen Volcanic National Park Locate the trailhead. This was a quick hike late in the day before driving back home. Warner Valley is along a road that goes into the park and stops a bit east of the main road. A sign in Chester pointed the way to the park road. Keeping left, then right brought me to a small parking lot for the Pacific Crest Trail well after the road had turned to gravel. The trail had many junctions but was well signed. Someone had written in "Boiling Lake" on the one sign post that forgot to mention it. The lake itself was a very easy 1.5 mile up the trail which has a loop around it. It's so easy, or maybe the land so cold this time of year, that I was quite comfortable in my thermals the whole way up to the thermal feature. The road actually goes up to a ranch just past the trailhead. I followed the PCT along through some sloshy grasses and over a small but fast stream to a footbridge across a small but fast river. Above t...

Lassen Volcanic National Park Locate the trailhead. I drove around to the far side of the mountain the long way around because the road was closed through the park. The north side of the park doesn't have quite as many features to look at even though the road isn't closed until about 10 miles after the entrance station. It goes up to a parking lot in the Devastated Area, so called for having been destroyed in the most recent eruption. There is a picnic area and small loop with interpretive trail around the various lava rocks that came from the mountain when it blew. The north side of the mountain and the land that was cleared by the 1915 eruptions.

Lassen Volcanic National Park Locate the trailhead. I headed up to Lassen to see what I could see. I have not been for quite some time. Being a wintry time, the mountain was covered with snow. The southernmost mountain of the Cascades, Mt. Lassen, viewed from the road on the way up to the park but still quite a ways off. A dribble of water along the roadside in the park has turned into a frozen waterfall with some water still flowing.

Angeles National Forest Locate the trailhead. I decided to have an afternoon/evening hike up to Henninger Flats for sunset and drawing and such. There are claims that they are rebuilding the roadway, but it was supposed to start in October and not finish until April or so next year. I didn't check the bottom slide area. I parked along Altadena, as usual, and proceeded down and over the wash area to the start of the horse trail to the road. The horse trail has a little bit of shade, especially at the bottom, which was nice when starting a little after 3PM with the temperature somewhere a smidgen below 90F. It looks like some repairs have been completed, though. There was no need to snake about the fallen debris near the top of the hike on this go. The roadway was all a smooth and easy hike. I got to the top with about half an hour to sunset. Since I've already done a sunset picture during a previous hike , I opted to sketch the transplanted fire watch tower ins...

Sketches for the month. The tree up on Echo Mountain . Looking over the Salton Sea while in Joshua Tree.

Joshua Tree National Park Locate the trailhead. Finally, we stopped for another hike of not too great length. This loop started at Cottonwood Spring and wound around to Mastodon Mine by way of Mastodon Peak. We didn't quite see the mastodon in the peak, but we saw many other shapes in the rocks. This hike wasn't quite so hot as the one in the morning but is at a higher elevation. We headed out into the desert by way of Cottonwood spring. This is a spring with quite prominent, non-palm trees.

Joshua Tree National Park Locate the trailhead. Along the road as the deserts change and the frequency of particular cacti changes, there is a little educational loop through a dense patch of cholla cactus. It turned out these were the delightfully wicked narrow spiny things I'd spotted at that first stop and thought were interesting enough to photograph with the Joshua trees. They didn't look very healthy at that first stop. A few at the second stop looked a little better. In the "garden", they looked very happy and healthy. The cholla cacti were very dense on the patch of land designated as the garden.