San Gabriel Bighorn Sheep Country

Once when I was younger, stronger, and a wee bit more fit, I worked in the high Sierras doing wildlife surveys. Now I still work for California wildlife, but at a desk in front of a computer. And while I'm still doing a lot of good for the animals, the lack of outdoor activity is not doing a lot of good for me. So whenever a volunteer opportunity comes up to do field work, I try to jump on it. The Department of Fish and Game announced they needed hikers on the ground to help with bighorn sheep surveys in the San Bernardino/San Gabriel Mountains. It was an instant "sign me up", even though I suspected the hiking transects through steep, desert scrub terrain in the southern California heat was likely a bit out of my outdoor fitness league. I was assured there was an "easy" hike for us flatland desk dwellers, so I warmed up on a practice hike (see previous blog), bought a lightweight backpack, grabbed my hiking poles, and was ready to go.

I camped with my uber-camper-hiker field biologist colleagues at Lytle Creek in the San Bernardino National Forest, Applewhite campground. It was early March and quite windy this time of year. My first act of field-savvy brilliance was to head down to camp in the Santa Ana wind zone without my tent stakes. I set up my little backpack tent, and off it went with the first gust of wind. So while the others were long setup, settled, and getting ready to prepare food, I was searching for a collection of rocks to keep my tent from blowing away. Awkward... But we had a nice leisurely day at the campground, had lunch at the nice local and eccentric cafe (Melody's Place), and went to the bighorn sheep survey training seminar in San Bernardino, where we learned how to find, identify, and record data for the sheep. I was good and ready to see some sheep and satisfy my inner field biologist's hunger for adventure.

My hiking partner was our license and revenue branch chief, so I thought I was in good company as far as taking the "easiest" route and being slower than everyone else. My second stroke of brilliance was to leave my hiking poles in the vehicle, and my third brilliant decision was to hike from the parking lot to the trailhead (instead of taking a ride). The trail itself was "flat". The hike to the trailhead was straight uphill. And it was a nice, unusually, sun-blazing hot morning in the San Gabriel Mountains Barret-Cascade Canyon. My "slow" hiking partner, along with everyone else, hiked circles around me and ridges ahead. There I was again, in my usual trailing position. Hike, rest, gasp for breath; hike, rest, gasp for breath. The survey leader handed me his hiking poles and told me there was no time to rest. I volunteered to stop at the first survey point. My interest was to see sheep, not to prove to myself I could still hike. I sat down next to a few other volunteer observers, and scanned the canyons with my binoculars for three hours in search of the sheep.

The sheep were in the area, but not on our side of Mt. Baldy. They were up by the snowline, so the power-hikers who hit the steep trails saw a few, and the helicopter surveyors caught sight of them as well. I would have felt bad about it, but I was too busy reveling in the fact that instead of sitting under fluorescent lights in an office in Sacramento, I was sitting in the San Gabriels surrounded by gorgeous bighorn sheep habitat, and learning about an endangered species I previously knew nothing about.

Thanks goes out to the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep for running the citizen-science census each year and for informing the public about this wonderful animal. I'll be back next year.

Auburn's Hidden Falls - The Practice Hike

Hidden Falls Regional Park in the foothills northwest of Auburn, CA, off Mt. Vernon Road, is one of the area's best hiking spots, but not too many people know about it. I use it as my training ground to get myself back into shape or if I want to get a quick nature fix. I wanted to prepare for a hike that was at least a 500 elevation gain in about a mile and got much more than I had bargained for. There's a network of looping trails, centered around two unmaintained dirt roads, the Pond Turtle Road trail and the Turkey Ridge Road trail. If you want to hike straight to the falls and back, it's easy. You follow the road trail about 500 feet down to the canyon to the Hidden Falls Access trail, and it takes you to a nice wooden lookout platform directly in front of the multi-tiered falls. In late February, the rush of a winter-full of water drops from the top of the hill and over each tiered set of rocks, as if it was skillfully crafted by an artisan. It's just the spot to stop and take a snack and meditate on the kinetic energy of falling water and its multiple pools of foam before finally settling into the calm pool at the bottom. Getting back should have been simple as well, until we decided to take an "alternate route" to mix it up a little. "Let's go back this way," is a good suggestion if you are well aware of where "this way" goes. We thought we were at the Poppy Trail, which is longer and less steep than the Pond Turtle Road Trail but winds up back at the parking lot. We, however, took the Blue Oak Loop trail instead, which started in the right direction, but looped back to where we started by the falls. By the time we figured out our mistake and started the loop back, we lost our daylight. Worried the authorities would lock the gate and trap our car inside of the park, my two companions ran ahead with the dog and left me trudging up the hill at my slow, asthmatic pace. Good thing I always bring a headlamp and know how to look for eyeshine in cougar country. We made it out in time, and I got much more of a workout than I had bargained for. As far as building up my stamina for the hike to come, I'm not sure it did the trick. But a nice gyro from Milo's in Rocklin hit the spot for a few hungry, tired hikers.





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Wild Side of Lake Berryessa

Yom Kippur 2011. Instead of fasting in a stuffy synagogue, our family tradition has been to go out into nature--away from people, food, and noise--and fast in the great outdoors. This year's holy day was a trip to Lake Berryessa, in search of the Lake Berryessa wildlife area. Coming from the south and the west, we drove nearly the entire perimeter of the lake on Knoxville-Berryessa Road before discovering the east side road and the small signs on the fence that gave us the clue we were there. What we found was a thin strip of grassland, with a few scattered oak trees, flanked by private cattle ranches to the east and the lake to the west, and a fence blocking access for those who are not up to hopping over it. We kept driving south and found one of the two public access points, that wooden gateway that tells you there is a trail, or some resemblance of a trail, leading from the road to the lake.

This is not a side of Berryessa I had seen before. It's nothing like the privatization and boat docks of the wooded west side, or the one or two recreational areas with asphalt parking lots and picnic tables. This side of the lake, or at least the small strip of land between the road and the lake, is truly wild. There were no humans, no boats or jet skis near the shore, and no smell of food. I sat in my lawn chair next to the water and shared my reflections and atonement with ospreys, a white pelican, Canada geese, ducks, woodpeckers, a northern flicker, greater or lesser yellow-legs, squirrels, dueling red-tailed hawks, coots, grebes, gulls, blackbirds, buffleheads, egrets, black phoebes, and jumping fish. I sat there for hours and didn't even notice being hungry. The solitude was golden.

The Lake Berryessa wildlife area is owned by the Bureau of Reclamation and is one of California's many wildlife areas managed by the California Department of Fish and Game. Many of these wildlife areas are open to the public for wildlife viewing, and with no fee. The birding is supreme and when in the right place at the right time, one could see a fox or a coyote or encounter a rattlesnake in the grass. On this day I saw no hungry carnivores other than my husband and family saying it's time to leave this serene place, find a restaurant and break our fast. I recommended the Putah Creek Cafe in Winters, and we broke our fast with a tasty California-style pizza, in a trendy atmosphere with cyclists, tourists, and locals.

Temescal Canyon - Secret Escape From the Smog and Tumult

We often travel to the greater Los Angeles area and have been doing so over many years, whether it be for business, to see relatives, for some family event, or on rare occasion just for pleasure. Back in the day it was to try to score some agent for the movie writing mom or to score some fancy record deal for the family band. Since we moved north from Santa Monica in 1973, we've taken the yearly or semi-yearly pilgrimage down to "smell-A" to enjoy the nostalgia, share holidays, choke on the smog, buy cheap records, stroll the beaches, hit up the entertainment biz, visit the cousins, and either laugh or get annoyed at the family shenanigans. As the years speed by and I find myself in the midst of middle age, the occasions are growing more solemn--the grandparents' funerals, my uncle-in-law's burial in the Hollywood Hills. The drive down is long, and it can feel like a lifetime spent in my vehicle, especially since just making a left turn on a major street can be a major project, let alone trying to get from point A to point-I've-never-been, and choosing the most efficient and bearable route offered by the bickering of disagreeing human maps.

There's been one consistent figure from the time it all started--the nature-loving, mountain-climbing, hiking uncle--who pulls us away from the tumult and the smog, the neurotic scenes, the noise, and the headaches to get a breath of green-tree fresh air and stretch out those overly stiff muscles. His favorite best-kept secret is Temescal Canyon in the Santa Monica Mountains. Park in a nice residential neighborhood off Sunset Blvd. in Pacific Palisades, and ten minutes later, you're on a sweat-inducing, heavy-breathing workout up the steep trail that climbs the canyon, on a hot southern California day.

The west side of the loop keeps us in the shade of the trees and through the nice arboretum of introduced succulent plants and flowering shrubbery that unbeknown to park officials and the visiting public, my uncle planted along the trail over the past 30 years. He also plants rocks along the trail that traveled with him from places as far away as Israel, just to confuse geologists of the future. At the top of this loop is the nice wooden bridge and the Temescal Creek waterfall--which sometimes has water, depending on the time of the year and how much of a drought there is. This trail is often well populated with young college-age athletic or nature types, or pretty young women who get an earful from Uncle Herb's overly sociable Iranian friend, Little Joe.

The west side of the loop is a bit more steep, and also more exposed to the sun. The reward after a solid, steady stride of huffing-and-puffing is to take a short break at what my uncle calls "Spielberg's Point", where we take on the lovely view of the Palisades housing tract that contains the big blue sprawl of Steven Spielberg's home next to a number of other ridiculously large mansions, and then beyond that, the green canyons and glittering sun off the Pacific Ocean. Once, I had the energy and time to keep going up the Temescal Ridge trail beyond Skull Rock, and up the trail-turned-dirt road that climbs higher and higher into Topanga State Park. Here is where I'd more likely meet up with a bobcat than the hippy record executive living down in the canyon below (that's another story), and I don't recall getting much relief from the sun. But more often than not, after only a brief half mile up and back down, there's just too much else to do in the hustle and bustle of the traffic and tumult to continue up that path, so I always save it for the next time. Now as long as the bobcats don't die off from the mange caused by rodent-controlling anticoagulants, I may still run into one during one of my pilgrimages up the great Temescal Canyon/Ridge trails.

"Stick Shift Kitchen Aid" or who says cars don't have consciousness

Sunburn had been to college, a graduate of Sorry State. Less worse for the wear with dirty oil, broken headlight, worn belts, and a little hungover.

He was born in 1995 in a VW assembly plant in Mexico, of German parents, and designed by G-d himself (Dr. Ferdinand Porsche). Hence the name Sunburn from a shoddy Mexican silver paint job.

Sunburn was researched by an Apple Computer engineer and was a cross between a runt Mercedes station wagon and a 300SL gullwing coupe.

Sunburn is a sleeper. An engine you could eat off of and faster than anything off the line in Vallejo, California. All souped-up engine power goes through a 5-speed Kenmore washing machine transmission and ugly as hell. Only a 0-60 mph in 4 seconds Lamborghini has beat us in the 1st block of street racing.

Sunburn is a VW Golf III 40th anniversary special edition, given to me by my daughter as a keepsake. I got him when he had 80,000 miles on him. Since, we have traveled 200,000 miles together.

It was 5:30 PM on a Shabbos afternoon and ol' Dad was tired of "working on Maggie's farm" (a honey-do list longer than Sunburn's owner manual). I had to find a low-stress project with a high-yield satisfaction other than my NASCAR pit crew job. Sitting in my garden getting drunk with the slugs and snails off 4 beers, I remembered that incredibly fast mood enhancer of my teenage years.

Getting Dad's T-bird ready for a hot Saturday night Gator girl date in Gatorland, I was a suave "B" teamer with bitches, painting Gainesville orange when we won.

Washing Sunburn is a private time with my beloved VW. Going over every part of the machine that I had fixed or restored at one time or another, every fade mark on the Mexican paint, I enjoyed stepping back, admiring a wet, shiny, clean ride. My hands went over the contour of the body like feeling up my date's tits. I carry on absorbing conversations with my old friend, much the same way some dog lovers talk to their dogs.

When I hand-wash Sunburn with a sponge, bucket, and soap and hose, I remember every trip we took to upstate California for the past 10 years. With soaked speakers and a vacuum cleaner on the end of a marlin line, I get my satisfaction of completing a project and a job well done.

Nevertheless, my VW Kenmore makes my brain smile with its 32 mpg, Grundig sound system, and a heart like an Indian pony. I noticed a change of attitude towards an old friend that gave me so much pleasure.

Sunburn is registered in the green zone and will never have to be smogged again. He will be buried on the high desert. "From iron ore to iron ore and scrap metal to scrap metal."

They say you can never go back to your youth, but as a grown man, I still collect toy cars and play with Sunburn.

Kauai's South Shore

Last of my Kauai blogs--August 9, 2011. We traveled near the airport in Lihue since this was our last day of sight seeing. We started at Lydgate Park just behind our hotel, with its historical heiaus and a nice walk down the path above the beaches and the man-made snorkeling bay, where kids supposedly learn to snorkel. The better snorkeling spot, however, is Poipu Beach Park, especially for a novice like me with a leaking snorkel mask. The water is calm and the fish are plenty, and flavored shaved ice and taro chips are in the market across the street. Following Poipu and Lawa'i roads from east to west, we started at shipwreck rock. A hike to the top of the rock gave us spectacular views of the crashing sea below. Stunt doubles have dived off this rock in probably more than one movie, but if any of us did it, curtains. It's a long way down and a nice long trail along the top of the bluffs where sea fishermen cast a very, very long line. West of Poipu Beach Park is Prince Kuhio beach, another small snorkeling beach. Prince Kuhio, the last reigning prince in Hawaii, was thought to be responsible for bringing Hawaii to statehood with the United States congress. Continuing west, we visited the spouting horn--a large jetty of rocks with holes that cause waves to shoot water up like a geyser. With each eruption, the legendary mo'o (a lizard) trapped beneath the rocks hisses at the people above.
We left the area the way we came in, through the beautiful Eucalyptus tree tunnel on Maluhia Road between old Koloa town and the main Kaumualii highway. Heading back towards Lihue, we visited the thousand-year-old fish pond. In ancient days they diverted the river to capture fish, but now it serves threatened and endangered birds in one of Kauai's wildlife refuges. Our final adventure was searching for the Point Anini lighthouse in Lihue, but it stands abandoned in disrepair. The light that replaced it can now only be seen from the Hyatt Regency golf course. It's a good thing the State of Hawaii requires private resorts to allow public access to their sites. If it was all private, we would not be able to enjoy the beaches, cliffs, and spectacular views along Kauai's shorelines.

Kilauea Point Lighthouse and Wildlife Refuge

August 8, 2011. The best way to describe Kauai's Kilauea Point is through pictures. It's on the very northern tip of the island and is home to the only national wildlife refuge on the island that is open to the public. On the day of our visit, the green, rocky point and inlet of crashing sea on its east side hosted dozens of red-footed boobies, wedge-tailed shearwaters, great frigatebirds, and red-tailed tropicbirds. Seeing these seabirds fly about in circling flocks was a treat in itself, but the real surprise was walking a trail lined with burrows where shearwater nestlings were seen tucked away, waiting for mom and dad to return from their daily fishing trip. We took the trail the Kilauea Lighthouse, which is in the process of being restored, and will be open to the public on its centennial birthday in 2013. Then we took in the views from different directions off the point, the Na Pali coast to the west, the monk seal island to the north (though no monk seals present today), and plenty of Pacific Ocean to the east.

We were also privileged to meet up with the now re-introduced NeNe, the Hawaiian goose that had once disappeared from the island and is now making a come-back. There are two other national wildlife refuges on Kauai, but humans are not allowed to enter them to see (disturb) the endangered species they support. A beautiful view of the Hanalei Valley from the roadside was enough for me, letting the drama between the endangered waterbirds and waterfowl and the introduced species play out in the wetlands below. We see plenty of coots, stilts, and ducks in California, so we drove on up the highway to leave the Hawaiian species follow their own road to recovery.

Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge