Moving into Spring

Winter time in Southern California is not very wintery. Sure there’s snow on the mountains, some mountains, not my mountains. But here on the coast, I’d say we’ve moved right into spring 2023.

4 miles in the local hills:

Am I Out?

I’ve grown weary with the piled-on injuries status, and a little worried too. I mean, is this how it’s going to always be now, am I out?

With the mountains turning green and starting to bloom in December in my state, I’ve also been growing rather anxious watching spring from the sidelines. This is how I’ve been talking to myself as the weeks turned into months: “Calm down Lauren, you’ve seen spring in the mountains many, many times – in fact, you are blessed with mountain springtime experiences, don’t be so selfish! You are extremely blessed with what you have already been given!!!”

This past Saturday (3/19) I finally got out to walk on some dirt – a short hike really, and I didn’t want to do it. I had to force myself out the door. And then I drove 5 minutes to the closest trails. I just wanted to test out my physical abilities.

The worst of my physical pains is my left arm. Thankfully, though I need my arm to run, I don’t need it so much to hike. Removing the pack can be a pain – a minor inconvenience!  What I really wanted to do is put a few miles in on hilly terrain. I wanted to see if my torn calf had indeed fully healed. I can say after my first experiment, I believe it has healed. 

The hike was a beautiful 4 miles just before some rain came in that night. Lots of mountain bikers were out, a few e-bikes as well. On the way in, I had a nice long conversation with another hiker about coyotes, fishing and bears. In the end, it was good to get out and I felt relieved.

Experiment 1 is complete. Step 2 is to get out again to make doubly make sure the calf is good.

Some pics from Experiment 1:

The Last of June Gloom

Went out on a four mile hike the day before Summer Solstice (June 20) in my local hills off of Las Ramblas (In Dana Point). This was the second of back-to-back hikes, which is rare nowadays. June Gloom still had a grip on us here on the southern coast as you can see from my photos (you can also see the last of spring). Don’t let the clouds fool you – it’s not cold by any means and it’s humid.

Veterans Day Hike 2020

I woke at 5 am on Veterans Day, which is a federal holiday that isn’t observed by most of the population. Pretty much only government or bank employees are off work – all of the public schools, libraries, banks and the post offices are closed. This is why I always hike to celebrate Veterans Day – I am off work and am afforded the luxury to do so. I woke at 5:00 am on this Veterans Day, earlier than planned, but only 30 minutes earlier. I’ve been waking early a lot lately. I don’t even use an alarm anymore. Originally, I planned to hike in the San Gabriel Mountains with an old friend. But he texted about 5:30 saying that he woke with a sore throat. Sore throat is a bad word during this pandemic, so we decided to postpone.

Ended up that this cancellation was for the best because I didn’t know that my strength was dwindling as I neared the end of an extended fast. I hadn’t realized one bit at home that I was weak. But as soon as I tried to take on those hills I knew. I decided a US flag hike was being called for so and fortunately I picked the easiest. The easiest just so happens also to be the closest. The Las Ramblas Trails are just a few miles away from my front door which means they have views of what I call home: Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente and the Pacific Ocean.

The route that I planned to the flag was about 4.25 miles roundtrip. My legs felt a little wobbly at the onset, and I had to rest here and there on the hills because my breathing was not very controlled. This was not a big problem to me. I took it with stride because I can’t complain about stopping to take in the awesome views on such a day as this. I was grateful for it. What a gorgeous day it was!

Brrrrrr, it was cold!

Las Ramblas in Between Rains

Well, heck, we've had a lot of rain lately in the state of California, the place that supposidly doesn't get any rain. Only problem with the no-rain claim is that I have lived here all of my life, and we get plenty of rain EVENTUALLY.  People just have short memories, else they are just too young to remember the many, many times we've had lots of rain. 

It's a good thing that we're finally getting rain. We've been in a drought for a while. The creeks are now all flowing, water falls are falling. Everything is green. It's beautiful. But most of the time on our rain reprieve days, my local trails are closed due to "wet and muddy conditions." I had a hunch though that Las Ramblas Trail wasn't closed. Las Ramblas trailhead is at the edge of Dana Point, right on the border of San Juan Capstrano. The trails associated with Las Ramblas run just inland, overlooking Dana Point, San Juan Capistrano and San Clemente. The view of the Pacific Ocean is immense. But there are no trees. Literally, no trees. There's a few tall shrubs here and there, but really not much shade to speak of. This is why I rarely ever hit Las Ramblas. But there are no rangers for these trails (that I know of, as I believe they are city trails), which meant that possibly they were not closed due to wet and muddy conditions.

Las Ramblas did not disappoint. It was open as I had hoped. It was cold, it was muddy, and at times it was gray. But add to that gray, a sea of green -- and that's not a sea as in the ocean (the ocean was a silver-gray). The sea of green belonged to the hills, they were covered with fresh new growth. Of course, the dirt trails were completely saturated, which meant mud. Boy was it muddy. 

In all I got in 7.59 miles with 1,591' of elevation gain.