Fires and Terrible State Parks

We recently evacuated due to the Kincade Fire. The text alerts from CalFire and the Sonoma County Sheriff were great, and sorting Twitter by latest for #Kincadefire was also very useful. I have never been this scared or anxious or felt I had so little control - and we got out with family and critters and papers well ahead of when the fire would have come, but waiting to find out if your house burned down is no fun. We love Sonoma County, but we don't love this aspect of it so much. Climate change is giving Sonoma County LA County's weather, and when you already have forests, they burn, which is how the landscape will gradually look more like LA County (or almost instantaneously, geologically speaking.) The natives who preceded people of European descent here set controlled burns every autumn (and this has been witnessed since before contact), but when you have this many people in non-mobile dwellings that can't be rebuilt in mere days, that's not an option. Low humidity plus longer rain-free periods plus heat and bad Diablo winds (our local foehn winds) are how this happens.

So, a thank you to the people who hosted us and our various critters or who offered and were ready; also to the men and women who put themselves on the line to hold this fire. Had it not been for you, many people would have died, and I wouldn't have a house right now. Take a minute to thank a firefighter, buy them a beer, send a card, whatever. There are few people whose work matters more than theirs, especially in California.

If you spend much time on social media, you will notice (especially on Twitter) Russian troll bots taking advantage of Trump's threat to abandon California even while he promises fire aid to Siberia. They do this by trying to stoke the fires of "CalExit", which may be the dumbest thing anyone has ever thought of (give Trump's party a permanent majority in Washington and dividing yet another of Russia's main competitors.) You'll recognize them when you see them - the one I clicked through on was full of pro-Brexit, pro-Catalonia independence messages, while curiously silent on the protests in Hong Kong or independence for Russia's neglected Far East territories. I wonder why? I Twitter-replied to this effect and my reply was deleted within a minute.

The following pictures were taken from China Camp State Park the following weekend. Fire is about 60 miles north at 75% containment but the smoke layer is obvious and Mt. Tam is still quite hazy. Bay pictures are looking east across the very top of the Bay (curved, with mouth of the Napa River) with Mt. Diablo just visible through the smoke layer in one looking southeast toward Richmond.










Next three below: you'll have to forgive my obsession with manzanitas. Their bark is the bubble wrap of the natural world. It peels like that as a defense against fungus; I wonder if, as uniquely woody members of the heather family (see ice plant here), this is more difficult for them than other plants, that have specific endochitinases to kill fungus (rubber trees and mangoes both do, but they're in the wet tropics. Incidentally it's this endochitinase that causes allergic cross-reactivity, ie why people allergic to latex are often also allergic to mangoes.)








Above: this picture was taken from the International Space Station, looking south along the Pacific Coast, with the Kincade Fire plainly visible. Below: fire-smoke sunsets are obscenely pretty.



As it happened, the weekend we evacuated we actually had a pre-planned trip which took us to Southern California, and I had all kinds of runs planned down there and of course while we were there, their local foehn winds came through and everything caught on fire there too. So no running in Topanga State Park for me. Instead I ran in Chino Hills State Park, which is the most useless state park I have been in. A cluster of oaks along the canyon bottom, and then the rest of it just brown curved hills covered with those scratchy sticks that poke you (my shins are still paying the price.) Gross. Feel free to skip these pictures, they suck. If you live there, I hope you didn't have to pay more for your property for living near this "natural resource", which I would put on par with the industrialized part of the North Jersey Meadowlands (and not even with cannoli.) Seriously, it's the ugliest state park in California, hands down. Good points: a) fine, I saw a tarantula (see below) and some wild gourds growing, b) it looks nice in the spring when it's green and you're driving past it, and c) I will never have to go there again before I die. The hikes listed on Nobody Hikes in LA are faint in their praise.

Unsettled Winter Day at Confluence Area, Auburn, Sierra Foothills

Below: the various shades of the American River at the Confluence Area on a winter weekend, filled with silt and rockmilk. Most of the color variation is from light rather than water content. One of the samples is from a holly berry (and to the expert, it will be obvious.) Average colors of California and of forest around the world can be seen here.



Every year I say "I'm glad we're getting all this rain because we need it" and also I say "I'm really sick of this rain." Today was no exception, as I uttered both during my quickly aborted attempt to get a run in at Auburn. (But it made for some great photos.) For those curious: it was actively raining on 2/17, the trails around Auburn were quite muddy (except maybe on the way from No Hands to Calcutta Falls) and of course No Hands itself had a lake in the middle. But there were a lot of falls and creeks going that are normally just gullies. In this first image you can see the mud slide in the parking area across the road from the lower gate.

Suffice it to say, a much different mood than the warm sunny day in October a bit downriver documented at this link Here is the confluence area in multiple seasons.














True black and white vs grayscale, take your pick. If you like, pretend the one above is from an indie album from the 90s or a scary movie poster. Of possible interest: Rohrschach tests don't have a ton of evidence behind them, but for what it's worth, people with psychosis or learnings there-toward often perceive color in the black-and-white images. When I look at the grayscale version of the photo, I have a strong suggestion of color and have to remind my eyes it's black-and-white.

Backbone/Bulldog Loop in Malibu, and Not a Lat Injury

Despite a current injury, I relied on my low levels of common sense and did an awesome 15 miler (this trail with side spurs) in the I-can't-believe-I-haven't-run-here-before Malibu Creek State Park, in the Santa Monica Mountains. Some of the views would not be out of place in Colorado, except for the Pacific being below your feet of course.



From photographyontherun.com



There sure am be some green stuff back there, and the rock formations and sea views from the top of the ridge can't be beat.  Plus along the way I saw the MASH filming site.  It's only right now that I laugh out loud and realize I ran the aptly-named Backbone loop (and Bulldog).

Why is that funny?  Two posts ago I mentioned a possible injury to my lats that I got (I think) from bicep curls.  Despite knowing that something didn't fit, i.e. the location of the pain wasn't really where your lats are, I didn't update my belief.  Saying the same thing in medical language, I should have moved "lat tear/sprain" down my differential and thought about what to move up.

Long story short, there are many reasons to think that my current (and previous) pain are a disc herniation, rather than a lat injury.  I have contralateral pain at a different level that also fits the bill for herniated disc that's stayed with me for a year but I can tolerate it; this one has gone from comparatively much worse to almost resolved in a few days, and it's moved downward a little too (n.b., muscle injuries don't do that).

Fortunately, scary though it sounds, disc herniation is usually self-resolving or only causes mild discomfort, and can be managed conservatively with NSAIDs, heat, and activity restriction.  15 miles up and down hills didn't bother me too much; I guess I just need to find a bicep exercise that doesn't involve shock-loading my spinal column.

Turns Out the State Parks Department Does Have Some Money

$54 million more than they've been reporting, as it turns out.  Disappointing to say the least, especially for those people and organizations who've been working their tails off to preserve the state's parks.  Further reinforcement that the state of California is not all that serious about maintaining these parks and open spaces, which is one of the main reasons many of us put up with the rest of the problems in California and continue living here.

Berry Creek Falls, Big Basin

(from BayerCruz Youtube channel)

Ran up there from Waddell Beach, after a quick visit to Pescadero Marsh (was that little trail there before?) I posted a video because still frames of waterfalls miss a lot. The sound is part of it but the whole reason a waterfall attracts our attention is the motion. Animals (and babies) look for longer at things that surprise them (this is used in experiments) and I always wonder if that's why we find waterfalls interesting. Do other primates? Do dogs?

I'm very glad I went. With all the recent weather it was roaring, much higher volume than this, and I wasn't even thinking about the falls specifically, I just wanted to hit this trail before I left the Bay Area. There were two crossings out but it was still fun, picking my way across make-shift bridges - there would be no fording this stream. But when I first saw the white roar up ahead through the green I remembered why this trail was so great.

I've been pretty stressed recently and the immediate sense of relief that came from looking at these falls for a few minutes - just looking at them and enjoying the summed splatter of all this water - was overwhelming. It's like forced mindfulness, looking at the trails the water takes down the rocks, and the way it's atomized to vague mist at the bottom but crisp and clear at the top as the first streams clear the ledge; looking back and forth at the two is like a contrast bath for your eyes. The ecozones on the rock face next to waterfalls are also cool - watching how the plant community changes in just a few feet, showing us a temperature-and-humidity time average over months and years. But mostly it's the black rocks and the white water and the green moss, and the rush of the falls after the rain that's the best. It was a good day.

Rain and Fog: NorCal in March

It doesn't rain all winter, and then right after I come back up from San Diego to the Bay, the normal winter weather returns. The weather is a d*ck. This hasn't stopped me from the usual ridge trail in Tilden (whatever that thing is called) and Tenessee Valley and Muir Beach, and Annadel State Park today. (Annadel State Park, which is still on the closure list.) Muir Beach was particularly fun. Every trail was a river and the little creek that flows out into the ocean was a full-on torrent.



Tilden in the fog. World, please come back when I get back to the trailhead. From schaufensterbabe.blogspot.com.

I should add that both my right upper IT band and now my right ankle are bothering me. But hey. When you have a sudden increase in mileage that leads to injury, you know what the treatment is? More mileage!

This training regimen is known as the reverse taper. The Oakland Marathon is this coming weekend, and once again, I'm doing the training regimen of champions.

Join Friends of Palomar Mountain State Park

A group of citizens is forming to preserve Palomar Mountain State Park in the face of its imminent closure. Join and become part of the solution! Direct link here; More information here.


From wildrecovery.org

Google Map of Closed State Parks

Seeing it this way drives it home:


View State Park Closures in a larger map