Section F of the PCT: Park off Hwy 58 near Mojave…

While struggling to retrieve images from a balky memory card, here are the writerly version of some lost snapshots from a week ago, setting out on Section F of the Pacific Crest Trail:

Section F of the Pacific Crest Trail for the northbound
begins at an offramp at Cameron Road off Hwy 58 west of Mojave (exit 159, to be
precise). Nervous about leaving my truck for a week by the side of the highway,
I stopped in Mojave. Looked for a cab service, and couldn’t find one, so I
called Mojave Towing to see if they could recommend a place to park in town,
and give me a ride out there, but a fellow named Wade, with a drawl to his
voice, and the sense that he had all the time in the world, assured me I could
leave my vehicle at that offroad no problem, the CHP use it as a turnaround all
the time. Wonderful start to the trip. 

Parked at the offroad, under a grey sky with blustery winds.
Train rumbling by, lots of semis on Hwy 58. Spent a good forty-five minutes on
my last repack before hitting the trail for a week. Always the hardest part for
yours truly — getting away on the trail. Trail runs east from the off-ramp,
complete with a galvanized steel graffitied column, and a lone-but-welcome PCT
marker. Heads down the hill and  west
alongside the highway for about two and a half miles. Walked through the
darkening day against the on-coming truck traffic. Wind machines moving atop
the opposite ridge. 

According to the map, the trail at this point crossed the
Garlock Fault, which is a major seismic riftt, but in my rush to get going up the hill,
I didn’t notice it. Map shows a campground — without water — on the ridge
above the highway, perhaps three miles or a little more, but the dark came, and
with it rain and wind. Good deal of wind, not too heavy on the rain,
thankfully. A great deal of cursing ensued as I attempted to set up a balky
tent using two trekking poles, in the dark and the rain and the wind, but as I
had to succeed, I eventually did, and crawled thankfully into shelter. 

Next morning, perhaps half an hour or a little more up the
ridge, came across a small grove of scrub oak trees, one of which spread its
limbs over a low campground, perhaps six feet high, but well sheltered. The
moss on the limbs glistened: in the night the wetness had frozen, and now ice
like cheap cut glass listened on the dried leaves beneath the outspread
branches of this little tree. Had a breakfast there, of granola and coffee, and
loved every minute of it. 

Here's the message: this section turned out to be a lot more fun than I had thought — it's not the prettiest section of the PCT, but the Mojave Desert…whoa. A place unlike any other place. 

Tamarisk in Mojave

Pic of tamarisk in the Cronese Lake area, from David Magney. 

A changing California: Lyell Glacier melting away

Climb it before it melts away, suggests Barney Brantingham of Santa Barbara's Independent:

"Barney-at-Mount-Lyell-Yosemite-1980s_t180(In the 30-plus years since my son Barclay and I trekked Mount Lyell’s snowy flanks, it’s been melting, not as fast as a vanilla ice cream cone in the summer Sierra sun, but melting.

Lyell Glacier’s retreat has speeded up since 2000, says Yosemite geologist Greg Stock. “Eventually, there’ll be nothing left.” But Barclay and I had no sense that we were climbing against time, on a glacier silently dwindling beneath our boots. Scientists say the glacier will vanish in about 20 years, victim of that ol’ devil climate change."

(It's a lovely reminiscence and essay, and makes me want to go…but for today, drier slopes.)

"When the glacier is gone, a vital water source for Lyell Canyon will go with it, affecting plants and animals that live there now.

Even if you don’t get to the glacier, it’s a beautiful hike through a broad valley within earshot of the rippling stream. I’ve been back a couple of times for short hikes from Tuolumne Meadows, crossing short bridges over trickling creeks. Next time you’re up there, take a walk in the sun."

Good news: Coen brothers to bring folk scene to life

While I'm on the trail, let me shamelessly plug the upcoming Coen Brothers movie, which sounds utterly irresistibly to folk music lovers. 

Some say it's good (from a review at Cannes via The Playlist):

Arguably the least plot driven film from the Coens since "The Big Lebowski," which still provided the journey for a new carpet as the Macguffin of sorts, "Inside Llewyn Davis" is even more freeform, but never out of the Coens' grasp. The film unfolds over what turns about be roughly a week or so in the life of Llewyn, and follows his attempts to put some order to the chaos in his life. And it's a tough week: Jean reveals he's pregnant with his child; he's saddled carrying the Gorfeins' cat after it escapes out the door, and accidentally locks the door behind him after staying the night (a great running gag that eventually turns into a lovely metaphor for Llewyn's journey); he's chasing payments from Legacy and trying to line up some gigs. A road trip later in the picture offers a change of pace, but this is a slice of life of one of many trying to make it on the folk circuit, and the Coens capture every detail, acknowledging their fondness for their era, while being able to laugh at it as well (though without getting as broad as Christopher Guest's "A Mighty Wind," the last major folk movie).

Gotta love that classic folk song, produced by the irresistible T-Bone. 

Exposure can kill you: Slaves of the Internet, Unite!

Sometimes a headline is enough, but this op-ed — Slaves of the Internet, Unite! — by Tim Kreider makes so much sense, it's sad that (as he more or less admits) he won't be heeded.
Quote of the weekend:

…the Internet seems like capitalism’s ultimate feat of self-destructive genius, an economic doomsday device rendering it impossible for anyone to ever make a profit off anything again. It’s especially hopeless for those whose work is easily digitized and accessed free of charge. I now contribute to some of the most prestigious online publications in the English-speaking world, for which I am paid the same amount as, if not less than, I was paid by my local alternative weekly when I sold my first piece of writing for print in 1989.

From my perspective, it's amazing how hard you have to fight to get paid freaking peanuts. 

State cuts budget for earthquake maps, imperiling CA

For the past few weeks, the LA Times has led in its big Sunday editions with stories revealing how the city of Los Angeles and the state of California have turned a blind eye to seismic risk, despite many urgents warnings from scientists. 

To wit: 

After the 1971 Sylmar earthquake, California began an ambitious effort to map faults across the state.

Over the next two decades, officials published 534 maps of active earthquake faults. New construction was prohibited on top of these fissures because previous quakes showed that buildings could be torn apart during violent shaking.

But the mapping campaign has slowed to a crawl — with many dangerous faults still undocumented.

For the same paper, Ted Rall tells the same story — entertainingly.

EarthquakeMaps
In my experience, the more you read about seismic risk in CA, the more you are likely to freak out. 

I can’t pretend to be interested in your books: Chekhov

A Times review of a"Seagull" set in Ireland during the time of "the Troubles" doesn't love the production but brings its wit out lovingly nonetheless.

Among the production’s freshest scenes is the brief colloquy between the bluntly bitter Mary and Aston. Mary’s no-nonsense approach to the impossibility of finding lasting love is in contrast to the other characters’ fretful idealism. As Mr. Kilroy’s excellent if sometimes overly loquacious adaptation clarifies, she is the rare character in the play granted true and thorough self-knowledge.

“I can’t pretend to be interested in your books,” she tells Aston, “but I’d love if you’d send me copies of them from time to time with my name inscribed.” Then she adds: “Don’t write something flowery and poetic, though. That wouldn’t be right, would it, for someone like me.”  

And what a gorgeous looking production! Like a living painting:

Seagull-articleLarge

El Nino will not save you — sorry SoCal: Patzert

Must say it's been a lovely warm weekend…even if dry as heck. Perhaps we should get used to that. Last week William Patzert, the well-known oceanographer and climate expert, dropped some knowledge on on reporter Melinda Burns re: an upcoming "rainy" season in California.

Her story is called Dry with a Chance of Drier, and it's a warning especially for Southern Californians.  

    “There’s definitely no El Niño going to gallop over the horizon and save you,” Patzert says, referring to the climatic conditions in the Pacific Ocean that favor biblical rains. “A dry decade every once in awhile is good, because it makes you rethink your water usage and your future.”

We've all heard of biblical rains, but how often in comparison biblical droughts?