Category Archives: the land

An air mattress for the trail: REI Flash pad review

The REI Flash insulated air Pad is the third air mattress for backpacking I've tried since starting on the Pacific Crest Trail a couple of years ago, and, to be truthful, the first that really worked well. Alternatives such as NeoAir, by the well-known brand Thermarest, and the Oak Street, by the great tent makersContinue reading “An air mattress for the trail: REI Flash pad review”

From Kennedy Meadows north on the PCT

It's May, and though California only recorded 5% of a normal snowpack, err, 3%, still that turns out to be plenty when climbing from the desert up the Pacific Crest Trail into the mountains, into the high Sierra around Cottonwood Pass and Horseshoe Meadows. I couldn't dawdle through this section, not while trying to keep my nephew Eli Huscher, here seen in a typical pose, in sight: 

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More on this surprising section of PCT for the curious, bellow the virtual fold:

Throwback: the campfire at Pinyon Point

I mentioned in a recent post that I made a fire at Pinyon Point in the fall of 2013. I didn't plan to, I didn't know anything about this campsite, and would never believe after walking through barren dry sand desert with yucca and Joshua trees for ten or twenty miles that I would comeContinue reading “Throwback: the campfire at Pinyon Point”

Not again! Meteorologists abuzz about El Nino in drought

Last year at this time a huge wave of heat was detected propagating as the scientists say through surface waters from east to west across the Pacific. Ultimately a series of such "Kelvin waves"  went on to warm much of the tropical Pacific, and waters along the West Coast, resulting in huge changes in sealife.Continue reading “Not again! Meteorologists abuzz about El Nino in drought”

Secrets of the PCT: Pinyon Point

This doesn't look like much, does it?

Trailnearpinyonpoint

This is a section of the Pacific Crest Trail, section F, heading north through the Mojave Desert.

Let me say I grew up far away from the desert and never thought I liked its lack of trees and aridity, but well, maybe I should have known better. Should have listened to my elders. For example:

Plazaatpinyonpoint

This is a sort of plaza, at about six thousand feet, overlooking the vastest desert in Southern California. This area, which I'm calling Pinyon Point,has numerous sites in which to roll out a pad in beauty and serenity (and perhaps wind, for at its height, it does experience weather — that's why, I think, the pinyon pines grow so well there).

Yet it's all but unused. I made a fire there a year and a half ago, after a snowfall, and near as I can tell, the campfire hasn't been used since. I confess I kind of like it that way, so I'm not going to reveal the exact location, although readers who would like to know can write me, and I'll probably tell.

I was rolling up my tent this past Sunday, and heard a pair of PCT walkers stop and chat on the other side of a rock, not fifty feet away, and yet completely oblivious of my presence.

Let me show you a little more —

A botannical moment from the Sespe

Went on a tamarisk-removal expedition down a Southern California tributary of the Sespe this past weekend with friends and with support from the Forest Service. Happy to do it and glad for the opportunity but know that the agency would rather us not post any on trips to protected places. So here's my allowable momentContinue reading “A botannical moment from the Sespe”

CA water bureaucrat disses federal weather scientists

How often does one see an outright confrontation between state bureaucrats and federal scientists? In my experience, well — never. But that's what I saw last week at the Chapman Conference on California Drought.  Organized by the American Geophysical Union, at a National Academy of Sciences center at UC Irvine, this conference brought together aContinue reading “CA water bureaucrat disses federal weather scientists”