Catching Up

Two months have past and not a single blog post. My only excuse is that there are two many things to juggle. And I'll take that. I'll take that only because the alternative is less appealing. 

Overall, my life is good despite the human condition (in other words it's a roller coaster ride but I'm doing it). And for the sake of my sanity, hanging by a thread here, I continue to hit the trails. Not often (not even once a week), but always just in time before the nut cracks. Trails always put things into perspective and give me a calmness (though momentarily it might be!). I don't recall a lot right now from these trail adventures but because I keep stats and photographs which I post online here, I have a record. Amazingly, I can look back on the pictures and memories and get me some residual calmness. 

So, with relief, I am back for now, writing to the internet about my time wandering. Writing, it seems, also gives me perspective and calmness. But writing is much more difficult than miles on my feet or any strenuous hill. This is why I haven't been writing. I haven't had the strength. I have been haggard. Thank God for the gift of wandering. It has helped bring me back here.

Cathing up, there was . . .

March 23: 4.64 miles on hike with my youngest son and his friend in Aliso Canyon. They took the bushwhacking creek route, I opted for the single track above the road. It was good to get out. And it was good to let the boys do their own thing. Later and us three explored the caves of Cave Rock Trail. 

March 31: 10.75 miles, again in Aliso/Wood Cyns Wilderness. The hills and meadows there were still saturated with green and peppered with white, orange, yellow, and purple flowers. I took on Mentally Sensitive, the steepest trail in the park, and its spring flower splendor was like none that I've seen before on that trail.

April 4: 3.86 miles, not on trails, but instead a walkabout down to Monarch Beach. I took pictures, but didn't post them anywhere. It was an emotional day. At the furthest point in my loop, I received some news and wanted to get home, so I phoned my husband to pick me up at the library across the street from the Pacific Ocean.

April 5: 17 miles, Santiago Truck Trail to Old Camp. Santiago Trail was bursting with flowers, so much so it was distracting (I had to stop often to take in the beauty) and that slowed my trip some. Took lots of video too, but have not strung the clips together yet (and I probably will not when it's all said and done). What a memorable trip this was. A life saver!

April 27, 11.37 miles not on trails, but instead on the paved walkways of Six Flags Magic Mountain. I had a great time chaperoning an overnight music competition for my youngest son's orchestra. What a blessing the weekend was. I learned and reflected much, which headed me in a good direction. The day at Magic Mountain was also quite nostalgic. It's been 35 years since I've been to that park. I think that I enjoyed it most this time. And yes, I took in a few rollercoasters. I love/hate the shrieking terror of rollercoasters. I cannot resist. (Can you believe I walked more than 11 miles at an amusement park!?)

May 12, 12.24 miles, once again in my backyard known as Aliso/Wood Canyons. Did a loop that I haven't done in a while that involved a trail named RockIt (which includes a wonderful rocky climb). Spring flowers were still blooming in abundance. It was another magical hike. Something that stands out from this adventure: At Top of the World, I saw a woman with a cat on a leash in the park. As I resituated my pack, I saw the cat run up into a tree with the owner still holding the leash. And then I witnessed a drama unfold as the pet owner and a friend, as carefully as possible, YANKED the cat off a branch and out of the tree! All was well in the end.

And this brings me up to date, my most recent hike:

May 29, 10.02 miles  along an old favorite, Arroyo Trabuco Trail (with a detour along Loop Trail). I have fallen out of physical shape, but I can still pack in the miles. I was a bit more fatigued than normal, but that's okay. I can handle fatigued -- that's my modus operandi. Fatigue is well worth the benefits, and this last hike greatly benefited my state of mind. Work and other life matters are slowing down. I am beginning to see an end to things, and possibly a begining to other things. I took lots of pictures of Arroyo Trabuco and I worked through many concerns and ideas in my head. Most of the time though, I didn't think about a single stinking thing. 

At last, I am caught up on my blog and other things in life (like I finally got my truck legal to drive!!). I also just finished a week off from all teaching. Next week I return on to a reduced teaching schedule. That means I can work on items to get myself situated on the straight and narrow toward hope, acceptance and calmness. Yay for summer vacation. The key here for me is to keep a schedule and some kind of structure. I want to get organized, do some "spring" cleaning, some reading and more writing. And most important of all, I want to get in more trails.

Nearly Forgot This One!

I nearly forgot this one. Harding Truck Trail out-and-back. I hiked this Sunday, March 16, 2019. It was cold and difficult, and skies were blue. 19.19 glorious miles with 3,593' of elevation gain. 

Two day total: 31.44 miles

Painted Lady Migration

A week or so ago the Painted Lady butterflies began making their entrance into Southern California. At any given time you could have hundreds, no, thousands of butterflies fluttering about you. It has been quite amazing. Of course that's a difficult thing to actually capture in a photo. Eventually, I'll post a one of the butterfly video clips I took during my hike-run in Aliso/Woods Canyons some time ago (too much time, oh how it has gotten away from me -- much has happened in the past week which has pretty much dwarfed everything else).  

So, this post will briefly cover a 12.25 mile course with 1,657' feet of elevation gain. (3/15/19) The course: Aliso Canyon, Wood Canyon, Cholla Trail, West Ridge, Top of the World, Meadows, Wood Canyon, Aliso Canyon. The hills and the canyons were superb, so lush and green! Thousands of Painted Lady butterfies flittered and danced about, especially so in Wood Canyon. Tiny spring flowers, white, purple, yellow and orange dotted the hillsides. And wow, the skies were so blue with wisps of white clouds painted across them.

Ortega Falls (Oops, Not Ortega Falls, which is about a mile further up Hwy 74)

Thursday my husband and I had AGAIN planned to hike Caspers to the hot springs. However, the trails we planned on taking were still closed. So, we drove up Highway 74  to the lot across the street from the candy store. There is a lovely short-short hike up called the San Juan Loop that takes off from the parking lot and winds around to end in back in the lot. It's only 2.2 miles long, but you can add more by hiking down to the falls. Our total hike ended up at 2.7 miles, and boy did we see some falls. It has been quite some time since I have seen Ortega Falls flowing -- can't recall the exact date, but it's been years. This hike is a must do after the rainy season. The added bonus is that it is short, so you can do it as one of your first hikes working up to longer ones. The trip down to the falls is a bit tricky, but definately can be done. Just do it with care.

The first sight of some falls -- looking down from San Juan Loop

 Hiking down & getting closer

 Arrived!

 After hiking back up to San Juan Trails, we spotted this one a little further in

Hot Springs Canyon 3X

I have come to conclude that it’s a good thing that the state and county parks have been closed so much lately “due to wet and muddy conditions.” I was getting so annoyed at OC Parks, but now I am fine. Really, I am fine. All these closed parks have lead me to a wonderful revisit -- a revisit to Hot Springs Canyon. And what an unexpected delight this has been.

Hot Springs Canyon is toward the bottom of the mountain off of Ortega Highway (In the Cleveland National Forest on the Orange County side). The turnoff is by the fire station and the same road that you take to LazyW Ranch. Old Goat’s Chimera (100 mi. race) has an aid station in this canyon. It’s where the runners come off a long 12 mile downhill on San Juan Trail. And then they must turn around and repeat those 12 miles back into the Blue Jay campgrounds. I have frequently travelled San Juan Trail over the past decade. But I almost always stay toward the top of the trail and go off on other junctions like Chiquito Trail and The Viejo Tie. A couple of times I have ventured up San Juan Trail from Hot Springs Canyon. Once, some years back, I ran up the trail from Hot Springs Canyon to Cocktail Rock. One thing for sure, during the summertime, San Juan Trail is a bear. It can get brutally hot, heat stroke kind of hot, if not taken seriously. It’s completely exposed until you get in pretty close to the campgrounds. So, you’ve got about 7 or 8 miles of uphill sun beating down on you if you want to make the trip on San Juan Trail from Hot Springs Canyon into Blue Jay campgrounds.

Oh, how I have digressed. My journey back to Hot Springs Canyon began at the beginning of this month -- March 1, in fact. I got a really late start because I had to pull over and make some unexpected phone calls. It may have been as late as 1 pm before I arrived to Hot Springs Canyon, the location I chose because it was semi-close and all my local trails were closed. I meandered a bit about the creek, which was clear and rushing. Then I gave myself two hours up before I needed to turn back to make sure that I’d get in before dark (we hadn’t changed the clocks yet). The weather was cool and breezy, the skies gray. Little fields of wildflowers were splattered all over the slopes. And moss and ferns were wrapped around boulders and rocks in the shady areas. Wow. This was no summertime San Juan Trail. This was beautifully cool weathered- springtime San Juan Trail. 8.10 miles on this hike; 1,713 elevation gain.

Trip number two into Hot Springs Canyon this month was unplanned. Thursday, March 7, my husband and I had planned a hike in Caspers Park to the San Juan Hot Springs (we have never been). I should have known, because Caspers is part of the county park system, that it was closed due to “wet and muddy” conditions. So, we drove a few miles and turned into Hot Springs Canyon hoping we could find a way to the hot springs from that location. Turned out that the entire perimeter of Caspers is fenced. We did find a spot to squeeze through, but being that the place was so heavily fenced and plastered with no trespassing signs, we decided to squeeze back through the barbed wire fence and did a short creek hike instead. We crossed the creek several times before reaching LazyW Ranch. We took in every cabin (as close as possible). Everything was clean and green. Some of the cabins had the creek flowing just past their front doors. What a lovely spring canyon. 4.03 miles on this hike, plus a little more walking around at the Tree of Life Nursery down the road a bit. (Wonderful nursery with all California native plants).

The very next day, Friday March 8, I got back out to Hot Springs Canyon. I had five hours. I really needed to get back to the car by 4pm so that I could bring my son to an appointment. (Just in case though, I had left directions on the kitchen counter so that my husband could bring him if I didn’t get back in time.) My goal was Cocktail Rock, which I estimated was around 6 miles away (uphill).

Well! The day was absolutely lovely with big puffy clouds and blue skies. Spring flowers were bursting all over the place. I could see down to the Pacific Ocean and for miles into the Cleveland National Forest. It really was amazing. But my time was not good. Cocktail Rock was slightly further than I expected. The weather was super cold at the rock, and the wind began to pick up. It took me slightly more than 3 hours to arrive there, and I wasn’t going to turn around and go straight back. I did recorded some video, took in the scenery. By this time though, I basically had 1 hour and 45 minutes to make the trip back, which I could conceivably do if I ran it. Funny thing was, my phone rang when I was hanging out at Cocktail Rock (did not expect any service there!). Learning that I had cell service, I gave my husband a call to let him know that he would have to take our son if I didn't make it in time. I had fun running back (as it was basically all down hill). But the trail got too technical in some parts, and being that I’m not really practiced at running this level anymore, I slowed it down during those portions.  I did not make the return trip in 1 hour 45 minutes. But I was close. It took me just a little over two hours. Total distance: 13.11 miles, 2,546’ of elevation gain. And that is why Hot Springs Canyon 3 times!

Wet and Muddy Conditions

We are having one of  our wetter rainy seasons this year. Sometimes we skip right past the rainy season with just two or three rains. And sometimes, we get a deluge for weeks and weeks. Such is the case right now. Everything is green. Everything is clean. The weather is perfectly cool, sometimes even cold. There's snow even occassionally in the local mountains, and the mountains just west of those (The San Gabriels for example) are still covered in snow. The rain is delightful (oh, except for all the driving I do freeway flying between three campuses). Creeks are full. Waterfalls fall once again. It is perfect trail season right now. PERFECT. Too bad our dang county park system has got the door closed tight on all the local trails. They're all closed due to "Wet and Muddy Conditions!"

A window opened up on the last day of February, and I got off to Wood Canyon Thurday late morning. The creeks were flowing and the skies were blue. Like I mentioned, perfect trail weather. I took the easy canyon route with two detours: 1) up to a bench that overlooks the canyon, and 2) Wood Creek Trail, a magical shady trail that crosses over Wood Creek and winds through a thick forest of trees.

Since I am behind in everything, I'll cut this short and end with the stats and pics. 

9.07 miles, 650' elevation gain.