SWCAMBORNE

Dogs poop outdoors.  When it happens in your neighborhood and your dog is on a leash you scoop it up with a bag and throw it in the trash.  But if you are hiking and your dog poops on the trail and isn’t on a leash there is a whole new set of problems even for a responsible dog owner.  First you might not notice it.  Second even if you put the poop into one of those little bags what do you do with the bag?  There isn’t a trash can for miles. If you try to kick it off the trail there is a a high probability you will end up with smelly shoes.  Leaving the poop on the trail create an eye and an olfactory hazard for others.  It also reinforces the opinion of people who want to restrict where dogs can be taken.

Here is a solution that will work.  Press leaves together to make a card about the size of the cover of a small paperback book.  Think about a thicker version of the seaweed paper they use for wrapping sushi.  The cards will be easy to use and will store in a small pack. After clearing the trail the poop and the scoop will both easily and invisibly biodegrade in the bushes off the trail.

Give the product a clever descriptive name like “Mountain Scoop” and sell it through pet stores.

Photo credit Does a Bear Shit in the Woods?

To celebrate one of my friend Howard’s important landmarks we went for a hike down Bear Creek Canyon in the San Gabriel Wilderness and survived.

Howard wanted an adventure and I went along without checking the details too carefully.  Here are some things you should know about the Bear Creek Canyon Hike that we didn’t know when we set off.  Some because we are bad planners some because the guidebook is wrong.

• It is beautiful and wild.  We didn’t see another person all day.
• It starts with a 1000 foot elevation gain in the first three miles.
• The next three miles is on a very narrow talus trail clinging to the edge of a cliff.
• There are thickets of poison oak and I got a large exposure on my butt. Why ask why.
• After the first six miles mentioned above you reach beautiful Bear Creek and find out that there really isn’t even a bad trail anymore.
• Boulder hopping and wading in the creek is much slower and more strenuous than walking on a trail.
• You never bring enough water.
•  The guidebook says it is 11 miles.  It is really about 16 miles.
• Lizards and flowers everywhere.
• Sunset in the mountains can be quite beautiful.
• Howard is slow but steady.
• I am ready for my hike in the Alps at the end of this month.

We were late getting home and made our wives anxious and therefore angry.  You can see many more photos of this great adventure and the beautiful Bear Creek Canyon on Flickr here.  You better look because you will never hike there to see it for yourself.

I may have to start an ore cart factory in order to get one for my yard.

Here I am posing with the one up at Henninger Flats.  It may become the prototype for the factory.  My brother Matt in the UK who is in the railway equipment business has found some wheels in a yard in the rural UK.  We aren’t sure how we are going to get them to the USA yet.  They don’t look like carry-on luggage.

There is lots to do but an ore cart will be a great addition to the garden.  And the perfect place to display all of the rocks and minerals I have brought home from various trips over the last 30 or 40 years.  They are currently stored in many large cartons in the garage.

In preparation for our hike in the Alps for my 65th birthday I have been doing some practice hikes in the San Gabriel Mountains.  As you can imagine I take great pleasure in being able to write that I am going hiking in the Alps.  Yes life is good.  On these training hikes I’ve taken a few good photos of the spring wild flowers.  Here are a few:

Wild Mustard on a hillside

a close up of the mustard

Orange Flowers

See lots more spring flowers in my Flickr album

Volunteer Vincas?

Even the desert can bloom.

I want an ore cart to display my rock samples and I saw one in Las Vegas and blogged about it.  My feeble efforts to find one or get one made were fruitless and I had pretty much given it up as another one of those wild ideas I have that come to naught.  Then on a hike to Henninger Flats last weekend I saw an ore cart.

In fact two ore carts:

They were part of a display about mining in the San Gabriel Mountains in the 19th and 20th centuries.  The thing I learned is that the wheel assemblies (trucks) are a separate piece from the cart.  I’m back to dreaming about ore carts.

Lillian and I hiked to Switzers Camp on Tuesday and saw this sign at the beginning of the hike.  We discussed the entomology of snag for much of the hike.  I maintained that a snag (noun) referred to an obstruction in a river.  It ended up being the first of many definitions in the iPhone dictionary.

btw The Switzer Falls were great.  Beautiful hike five miles round trip.  Mostly along a stream.  Watch out for the “snags” (dead trees)  Really the bigger problem is the poison oak.

Last week I went on my first hike up toward Henninger Flats since April.  It is already pretty dry but some wildflowers are hanging on and I took some pictures:

Life is Good!

Rebecca and I hiked up to the Eaton Canyon Waterfall on Monday.

There was enough boulder hopping over the stream to make it fun with out it being dangerous.

This rock has been lodged at the top of the falls for perhaps 20 years:

And the graffiti is still everywhere.

Rebecca thought that the best solution was to invent a paint that has a release antidote.  I wanted to put in remote cameras catch and then spray paint some young men.  Albert Nock would say that if you live in an urban area this is one of the penalties, live with it.

The Station Fire has changed the habitat of the animals who live in the San Gabriel Mountains and we are having more bear sighting and a small herd of bucks have been grazing the front yards during the day. I know that deer are a common sight in Ohio, Georgia and Virginia but in suburban Los Angeles deer sightings are as rare as honest politicians.

A deer is behind the tree just to the left of my mailbox

through my gate into Lew’s front yard

That will be three bucks

Life is Good

NASA sent a drone over the Station Fire and compiled this very cool map showing the extent of the fire:

Want more details?  Go to the NASA site. Your tax dollars at work.