A Time of Wonders

Increasingly, we’re living in a land of wonders. I submit for your consideration:

I wonder … if anyone else finds it unbelievable that the California Department of Health Services has just made it possible for boys ( “boys” being the operative word here) as young as 12 to order condoms – free of charge, mind you – by mail or online? Because, as every progressive adult knows, lack of access to free condoms is the problem with today’s youth.

I wonder … now that Alaska Airlines has ended their 30 year tradition of including a small prayer card with passengers’ in-flight meals, if they will react as decisively to the deluge of letters management has reportedly received from customers who are offended and saddened by the removal of the cards? Apparently, a small number of travelers had complained that their right to “separation of religion and travel” was being violated. I’m not kidding. Maybe Alaska Air should go completely “PC” and place a condom on every tray so passengers can practice safe flying.  

I wonder … if advances in television technology are contributing to the problem of obesity today? Think about it – as TVs have gotten slimmer, people have gotten fatter. Coincidence?

I wonder … why dog owners have been so effectively trained to carry plastic bags to pick up their pooches’ poops, but the same courtesy hasn’t yet caught on with owners of horses? Granted, equestrians would need to strap rolls of Hefty bags to their saddles to clean up after their steeds, but I for one would certainly appreciate the gesture. Last Saturday on an otherwise wonderful bike ride in, around and through the Southern California neighborhoods of La Canada, South Pasadena and Altadena, pedaling near the landmark Devil’s Gate Dam recreational area required some rather artful dodging around many massive mounds of aromatic and well-used hay. Talk about your road (apple) hazards.  

I wonder … if the moral termites in the programming department at ABC Television would be so quick to green light a series with the title of  “GJB” or “GMB” as they have their latest anti-Christian comedy; “GCB”? Note to the entertainment industry: we’d be slightly more receptive to your laughable claims of diversity, enlightenment and tolerance when your shows equally mock and/or ridicule Muslims, Jews, Hindus and, oh yeah … Democrats. (Now THAT would really be a dangerous and edgy move!) This might come as a huge surprise to the entertainment industry elite in their insular and self-congratulating worlds, but it ain’t bold, creative or even remotely original to routinely slander and malign Christians and/or conservatives. Frankly, your brand of Christophobia is easy and expected. Come on, kids. Lift the lids just a teeny bit on those supposedly open minds of yours and try something new. Please.

I wonder … if I’m the only one who shops for greeting cards, chooses exactly the right one out of hundreds of options, and then wastes a ton of time trying to remember where I found that card because for some reason I think only the envelopes in THAT slot will fit my card. As if 99.9% of the other cards and envelopes right in front of me aren’t the same size!?!?  I always feel like such a ditz when it dawns on me that any envelope of any color will fit the card in my hand and I’ve just totally wasted ten minutes of my life I’ll never get back.

I wonder … if all Prius vehicles make that odd sound as they drive by – you know the one that sounds like someone laughing their head off? I usually hear it when I’m standing by the side of my truck at the gas station and watching the total on the pump roll past three figures. Sometimes I have a hard time hearing the strange laughing-Prius sound over my own sobbing, but I’m pretty sure it’s happening.

See what I mean? Wonders all around us. I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a post of my column first published yesterday, 3.1.12, in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper (cvweekly.com).

© 2012 WordChaser, Inc.

On the Trail to New Discoveries

As I mentioned in my post last week "Boots, Bug Juice & the Beauty Before Us" , one of the blessings of living in the Crescenta Valley (in Southern California's unincorporated Los Angeles County) is our close proximity and easy access to a seemingly endless network of hiking and biking trails.

Since the beginning of this year, my wife and I have enjoyed a new-found focus on better health and wellness. (I hesitate to use the word, “fitness” because it conjures up images of either hyperactive old men in one-piece jumpsuits and bad hair pieces doing calisthenics on a black & white TV show, or frighteningly ripped and oiled women on Sunday morning infomercials who could break me in half over a spray-tanned knee and never miss a beat of their adrenaline-fueled sales pitch.)

Where was I? Oh, right. One result of my wife’s and my passionate pursuit of physical perfection (just go with me on this, okay?) has been our diligence in seeking out new hiking trails. Although our big goal hike next month is the 14,505-foot summit of Mt. Whitney, for the past several months we’ve primarily done hikes much closer to home.

Some of our recent favorites, in fact, are only minutes from our driveway. I’m embarrassed to admit that, even having lived in this area almost all of our lives, we’ve recently discovered many trails that we had no idea existed, let alone that we have ever hiked before.

For example, the trailhead to one of our favorite after-work escapes these days is as close as the San Rafael hills above a popular local tourist destination, the Descanso Gardens. Granted, the trails collectively called “Cherry Canyon” are relatively short. But what they lack in distance, they more than make up for in intensity. One route in particular, the Owl Trail, climbs straight up the mountain – sans switchbacks – until you reach the top and are rewarded with spectacular views (between bouts of the dry heaves, of course) of  downtown L.A, Glendale and Griffith Park looking South, Pasadena to the East and the entire sweep of the Crescenta Valley foothills looking to the North.

Whenever my wife and I hike these trails, whatever the weather, we always are entertained by the variety of wildlife we see as the ecology around us changes from shaded canopies of oak trees, to bone dry chaparral, to crumbled granite rock fall and dusty, rutted fire roads. We’ve been quite literally stopped in our tracks watching the silent drama of a hawk searching the ground below for field mice. We can’t hike more than a hundred yards without hearing the rustle of a wild rabbit in the undergrowth alongside the trail. If we pause long enough, the bunny is sure to show its furry self – along with some of the most unusual and colorful creepy crawly bugs and bird life I’ve ever seen. All in all, it makes for quite an entertaining way to exercise both your muscles and appreciation of the Crescenta Valley. 

Although we don’t hike them nearly as often, we also enjoy the trails through the Deukmejian Wilderness Park above Markridge Rd. Former turn-of-the-century owner, George LeMesnager would no doubt be amazed at what has been done to the land surrounding his old stone barn. We have trekked along these trails both before and after the terrain-changing Station Fire and are always amazed at the views they afford of our hometown.

Another particularly challenging favorite is the trail that begins at the top of Lake Avenue in Pasadena and switchbacks relentlessly up to the top of Echo Mountain. Once on top, we like to wander through the eerie (to me, at least) ruins of Professor Thaddeus S.C. Lowe’s “White City” and the long-abandoned Mount Lowe Railway. At 3207 feet elevation, the trail climbs dramatically high above Altadena and rewards sweaty visitors with views to the ocean and beyond, air quality permitting, of course. One of the unique features of this particular hike is the shear nature of the trail up the spine of the mountain. With no other hills or trees to obstruct your view from the top, hikers can see all the way down to where the trail begins on the floor of the San Gabriel Valley below. It’s a tiring but welcome visual reminder of just how far you’ve climbed. And justification for the aching in your thigh muscles and the sweat-soaked shirt on your back. 

I’ll wrap up for this week due to a sudden urge to lace up my Vasques, top off the CamelBak and head for the hills. If I don’t see you on the trail, I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is an edited version of my column first published yesterday, 8.18.11, in the the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper .

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.

Boots, Bug Juice and the Beauty Before Us

Last Friday, my wife and our home-from-Montana-for-the-summer son made an early evening escape 300 miles up California's Hwy 395 to Mammoth Lakes, a small resort town in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. During the winter, Mammoth Mountain is a mecca for mogul-seekers and downhill danger junkies. In the summer, mountain bikers, fishermen, backpackers and outdoor lovers of all sorts find themselves drawn to this high altitude wonderland of recreational adventure. 

Due to the reality of too much work and not enough vacation time, our stay this past weekend was limited to, well, the weekend. Still, we managed to come back to our Southern California home on Sunday night filthy, sunburned, sore, bug-bit and thoroughly exhausted.

If a getaway to the mountains ever really needs an excuse, this past weekend ours was to get in a fast, high-altitude hike to help us prepare for our upcoming hike to the top of Mt. Whitney next month. If you don't have your north American mountain peak statistics at hand, Mt. Whitney is the highest peak in the contiguous United States. And yes, my wife and I are certifiably nuts.

We have our permit for the mid-September attempt to reach the 14,505-foot summit and have been trying to take as many hikes (as  high up as geography allows without driving to Katmandu) as we can before the big day. I’ll write more about that crazy goal next month.

Our training hike this past weekend was to a stunningly beautiful, above-timberline glacial pond in the John Muir Wilderness with the less-than-dignified name of Barney Lake. The actual hike was only seven miles, but the training value was in the elevation of the destination – some 10,000-plus feet above sea level. It was a breathtaking hike, not only because of the scarcity of oxygen.

On the way to Barney (I can’t write that without thinking of Fred and Wilma) Lake, the trail winds its way past other dazzlingly blue, Jeffery pine-rimmed lakes, through verdant mossy meadows, below shear granite cliffs and over crystal clear streams flowing from under snowfields still impressively large after a record winter. I’m sure we added hours to our sunrise hike with all of the times that the three of us rounded a corner or crested a hill to see revealed a panorama of such exquisite beauty that we were simultaneously stopped, speechless, in our tracks.

I have no idea how many times I said to my wife something along the lines of, “Tomorrow, when we’re both sitting in front our computers with a week’s worth of office work ahead, remember this view and where we were only 24 hours before.” Of course, it sounded more like, “Tomorrow (pant! pant!), when we’re (wheeze! pant!) both sitting in front of (pant! gasp!) our computers with (cough!) a week’s worth of office (pant! gasp!) work ahead, remem-(gasp!)-ber this view and (gulp! gasp!) where we were (pant!) only 24 (gasp! cough!) hours before.” I’m pretty sure our shadows shifted slightly underfoot in the time it took me to utter that simple sentence. But it was worth it.

Fast forward to the next day when, in fact, my wife and I were both in our respective offices basking in the glow of our respective computer screens. I opened up an email from the too-tired Mrs. expecting to read that she desperately wished we were back on the trail dodging fresh road apples, swatting suicidal mosquitoes and sucking scarce oxygen into our lungs instead of the slogging through the mundane meanderings of our day-to-day jobs. I know that’s what I was thinking, at least.

So, imagine my surprise when I read in my wife’s email a heartfelt reminder from her that we are richly blessed to be able to enjoy the outdoors at anytime, anywhere. Even right here in our hometown Crescenta Valley. She was referring, I knew, to our recent discovery and frequent use of hiking trails not 300 miles from here, not a three, four or five hour drive from here – but more like five minutes from our driveway.

She’s right, of course. Over the past few months, many of our training hikes have been done (and thoroughly enjoyed) as close to home as the Cherry Canyon trails above Descanso Gardens, or the extreme vertical climb from Altadena up to Echo Mountain and the ruins of the old Mount Lowe Railway.

I’ll write more about our adventures in local hiking next week. Maybe I can catch my breath by then.

I’ll see you ‘round town.

Note: This is a slightly revised version of my column titled “Happy Trails” first published yesterday, 8.11.11 in the Crescenta Valley Weekly newspaper. 

© 2011 WordChaser, Inc.