SWCAMBORNE

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.

The Prickly Pear Cacti in Eaton Canyon

have a white mold looking stuff on them. This years there is a lot of it.

Inside the mold is a small sac of red liquid created by a bug called: Cochineal-dactylopius coccus.

The red liquid used to be the only really good source of red dye and was one of the early exports from the “New World” to Spain.  It still is used as a red dye in foods.  So when you eat red velvet cake part of what you are eating is bugs.  More information

I see an opportunity for local, natural, organic, color dyes to sell at farmers markets.

Rebecca and I were hiking up the Mount Wilson Toll Road last Friday and we saw this deer near the upper slide.

We walked up the newly bulldozed road (Click here to Read that wonderful story) and we saw him peeking at us over the ridge:

Then finally as we looked down off the road we saw him again wandering off:

Clearly this is a deer who does not feel threatened by humans.

The most common adjectives about the Station Fire are that it is scary, destructive, wild, voracious, raging and uncontrolled. These are all true but they contain some hyperbole and not a little anthropomorphism.

The San Gabriels on 8/31 from Kaiser Sunset

I’d like to propose a few others adjectives that we should also be hearing.  The Station fire is: normal, useful, cyclical and natural. We live in a very arid region.  Fires were a natural part of the environmental cycle long before humans arrived here.  Fire experts and environmentalists now agree that suppressing every fire means that fuel will accumulate and when they do finally occur they’ll be bigger and hotter.  Where we live fires will happen in the same way that snow will happen in Buffalo, New York.

The residents who live near the San Gabriel Mountains should see a positive in the Station Fire for three reasons:  First it is happening at the beginning of the fire season when the Santa Ana winds aren’t blowing.  Second we have some of the world best trained, financed and equipped fire fighters working to save us and our structures.  And third this fires, which is doing very little damage to people or property, will make the West San Gabriel Mountains much less likely to have a massive burn for the next ten or twenty years.

A smoke ball above Mt Wilson

My friend who lives in upstate New York called to make sure we were ok.  He asked me “Why would you live in a place that has fires and earthquakes?”  I answered “Why would you live in a place that has winter?”

If you are looking for information on the Station Fire here are a few resources you can try:

My Blog about reopening the Mount Wilson Toll Road has a few pictures and my claim to prescience.

The Altadena Blog has very timely information about the fire

The Mt Wilson Towercam has real-time pictures of the Summit of Mt Wilson

The Altadena Weather cam

And the LA Times site has Maps and Photos that are only a few hours out of date

We feel pretty safe here in Sierra Madre Villa.  The wind is low, the fire is at least five miles away uphill and the fire fighting resources are well organized to save structures.  It is smoky, the sky color is eerie and the noise of the fire plane and helicopters creates a sense of urgency but we are safe.  The television news exacerbates the sense of drama and urgency.  We have friends in La Canada who were evacuated but they are now back home and everything is fine.

Yesterday Corina Knoll from the LA Times called and interviewed me for a story about the Mt Wilson Toll Road.  Today there is a nice story in the Times on Line that quotes me and mentions my blog about the trail.

It has been a long wait but it is nice to know that the Toll Road is finally reopening.  Perhaps my gadfly blog had a tiny effect on the outcome. Click here to see my Mount Wilson Toll Road Informer Blog.  Or here to learn the answer to one of the oldest rhetorical questions in the world.