Hike 2014.009 -- Bonita Falls, San Bernardino National Forest

Hiked Sunday, February 16. This hike was a little shorter than what I normally count as a hike. On the other hand, Hike 2014.008 (not yet posted) was basically two hikes in one.

I hiked here once before, at the end of 2011. Been thinking about stopping here on the way from a Las Vegas run one of these days. Finally did it this weekend.

Bonita Falls is a dramatic, beautiful waterfall. It's also highly accessible--a short 2 mile roundtrip after a short, ten minute drive from I-15.

That accessibility is a blessing and a curse. Unfortunately, a lot stupid people with no appreciation for nature or consideration for anyone other than themselves have spray painted rocks, logs, and cliffs with a wide variety of stupidity.

So if you can tune out the graffiti, and the often loud rowdies hollering at each other in the canyon, it's a nice place. Otherwise, it's not so nice.

Detailed directions on how to get to the trailhead are included on the original post I linked.

Interestingly, some descriptions of this hike describe two "treacherous" stream crossings on this hike. In real-life, there's no need to make any significant stream crossings. Cross Lytle Creek at the bridge that heads into Green Mountain Ranch. (BTW, they apparently are a destination for mountainesque weddings). Don't actually enter Green Mountain Ranch, especially with your car. Instead, after crossing the bridge, bear right at the boundary fence, and stay outside the private inholding.

After the fence turns to the west, you should also turn to the west, heading up the boulder-strewn canyon bottom. This is a "tributary" to Lytle Creek, although, unless you're coming after a big rain or a major snow melt, the canyon is dry.

At the first reasonable trail on your left (about 1/2 after turning up the canyon), head up the incline. It's no more than 1/4 mile up the canyon to Bonita Falls. Most of the time, there's no water coming out of this canyon. It all seems below ground higher up the hill, and makes its way underground to Lytle Creek. No stream crossings are usually required to get to this waterfall, at least not until you're basically at the falls.

And it certainly is a big falls. For some perspective, note that the second picture on this post is a crop of the first picture. It's made larger so you can see the guy standing up near the edge of the falls. He's barely visible in the full-frame version.

I've heard numbers on up to about 160 feet for this big falls. There are apparently several more large drops higher up that canyon, though they would appear inaccessible without technical climbing equipment. Certainly, I would not suggest trying to work your way around the falls.

Less than two miles for the day. Short hike, but a nice interruption to the long drive across the Mojave.

Hike 2014.007 -- Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve

Hiked Friday, February 14. I just hiked this place two weeks previous, but I forgot my camera. So I decided I'd stop by here on this next trip past the Mojave Preserve, as well.

Unfortunately, with a relatively late start and the longer drive from the LA area versus from the Las Vegas area, the strong shadow at the dune crest was gone by the time I got there.

It was also hotter than expected: mid-70s on up to low-80s. That's a little crazy for mid-February.

So it was a shorts and t-shirt hike, with my funny floppy hat. It's still a pretty short distance. And, while warm, it was not HOT. So I tromped my way across the sand again.

Actually having my camera this time, I took plenty of shots. As noted earlier, the shadows weren't as dramatic as last time. But I had plenty to occupy myself with shooting. Lots of grass, shadows of grass on sand, sand ripples, and details of the sand.

I also got to experiment some with a "new" lens I had. It's actually an old lens: A Tamron 500mm catadioptric telephoto lens. "Catadioptric" means it uses mirrors and lenses to fit the long focal length into a relatively short package.

I bought this lens years ago, for my Canon 35mm cameras that I no longer use. But after some poking around on the Internet, I discovered that adapters could be had to fit this old Tamron "Adaptall" mount to my Nikon dslr. It would not have autofocus, of course. Also, the lens if a fixed aperture lens, so there's no adjustment possible with the f-stop: It's just a plain f/8.

Obviously, it has no vibration reduction technology. Further, while it's a 500mm focal length for a 35mm camera, it turns out that on the smaller photo sensor of these dslr (as opposed to a "full-frame dslr," which would cost a lot more), I'm actually getting the equivalent of 750mm. That's a lot of magnification to try to hand-hold.

Yet further, because the camera gets no feedback from the lens, you can only shoot in full manual mode. Nothing you can do with the aperture, but you can/need to set the camera's ISO ("speed") and shutter speed. Ideally, you want something around 1/1000 of a second, to try to minimize the blur from camera shake.

These long telephotos have what they call shallow depth of field, so the part of the image that's in focus is only a very short range in distance. So, put all these factors together, and using this particular lens to good effect is going to be tough, even under the best of circumstances. I'm thinking maybe with a monopod, I might have some luck using it for shooting waterfowl, though.

On this trip, I used it to shoot some long-range shots of my car, from the crest of the dune, a distant structure near some powerlines, and a far-off set of rocky outcroppings. Oh, yes, and the German tourists on top of the crest. That one, and the last photo on this post, are with the super long telephoto. I'm not thrilled with the results, but considering that it only cost me about $20 to make the old lens usable on my new camera, I am still pretty pleased.

3 miles for the day. I'm well behind my blogging, now. I'm up to 9 hikes for the year, and have blogged only three of them. And one of them was hiked twice! Got some catching up to do.

Hike 2014.005 -- Kelso Dunes, Mojave National Preserve

Hiked Monday, February 3. Second hike of the weekend. I took Monday off from work, allowing me a long weekend to spend some time with my wife and also get a little hiking in. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera at home, and only had my very poor-quality cell phone camera to take pictures. They're not only blurry and often hazy, but the color is off.

The Kelso Dunes trail-head is about 8 miles south of Kelso Depot, where the main visitor center for Mojave National Preserve is located. From paved Kelbaker Road, it's three miles on a gravel road (generally suitable for passenger cars) to the parking area. A vault toilet and interpretive signs are at the trailhead.

The actual hike is also advertised as "about three miles" roundtrip. Probably depends on which route you take and how long you wish to walk amongst the dunes.

Once you leave the parking area, the initial part of the trail is well-defined. However, soon there is no formal trail, as you're going over sand, which blows across the footprints each night. The highest dunes are allegedly 600 feet tall. I'm not sure where they're measuring that from. I suppose the total altitude gain from the trailhead may be close to that, but you're not 600 feet above the area immediately around the dunes.

Normally, you want to visit sand dunes near sunrise or sunset, with the low sun giving you nice shadows and textures. Of course, in the winter time, the sun never gets very high, anyway. The hike is also easier in the winter (though harder than the distance would suggest, because you're walking up sand). In the summer, bring lots to drink, and a hat and sunblock. The sun bounces off the white sands, and would burn you pretty quickly.

The third photo was taken nearest the start of the hike, with a well-defined trail. The first was near the top of the tallest dune, looking towards the Providence Mountains. The second was on the way back, on the flatter area. Lots of various creature tracks along the way, at least where they weren't obliterated by footprints.

Hike 2014.003 -- Legg Lake

Hiked Monday, January 27. Guess I'll be posting backwards for a while. This was my third hike of the year. It was an after-work thing, so I had little time before the sun set and I completely lost my light.

Most locals referred to this entire developed area as "Legg Lake" (or, if you're a kid, "Lake Lake"), but Legg Lake is actually only the southernmost of three small man-made lakes in the midst of the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area.

The Whittier Narrows itself is the relatively narrow passage between the Montebello Hills (to the west) and the Puente, Hacienda, or Whittier Hills (to the east). Both the Rio Hondo and the San Gabriel River must pass through this area. In pre-modern days, the rivers frequently switched beds, washing back and forth over the narrows. In more modern days, both rivers are nearly entirely encased in concrete. An exception is the short segment of the Rio Hondo that passes just north and south of the Pomona Freeway (CA-60), right near Legg Lake.

Despite the proximity, these lakes are not river impound-ments, nor even formal settling basins for this rare bit of water in an arid country. But the area is owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, and, were the twin rivers ever to really flood like in the days of old, this entire area would certainly be one of the places inundated with water.

But, until that happens, Legg Lake is just a really nice place to take a walk in the morning or evening. Numerous dirt, asphalt, or concrete trails crisscross the area and circumnavigate the collection of lakes. Within the lakes are numerous large islands that provide a safe haven for migrating and non-migratory waterfowl.

If I were an expert avian expert, I could tell you all the birds I saw. Instead, all I can say is that there were a lot. Definitely plenty of Canada geese, and numerous heron and egret. LOTS of ducks, geese and coots.

I walked and photographed for somewhat over an hour, so I'll call it a 3 mile walk Not sure what the actual distance around each of the lakes would be.

This is definitely no wilderness trip. The Pomona Freeway roars to the north. Rosemead Blvd (CA-19) hums to the west. Santa Anita Avenue is on your east. Durfee Road is to the south. The grass is manicured. But the islands and lakes do attract the aforementioned waterfowl, and they provide lots of free entertainment. :D

This area is also linked to other bicycle and hiking trails along the Rio Hondo and San Gabriel Rivers, so the possibilities are pretty endless if you wanted to extend your hike or ride. For me, with the darkness falling, three miles was all I had time for.

Stars Over Joshua Tree

After a short day of hiking in Joshua Tree (due to a late start, due to having errands to run in town), I set up my telescope for some observing. I also brought my "good" tripod so I could take some sky shots. I set up at the Boy Scout Trailhead, where overnight parking (but not formal camping) is permitted. In other words, it's the sort of place the Park Service would like astronomy-types to set up their telescopes.

This site is in the northern and somewhat western part of the park, so there's a couple of very visible light domes. To the north-northeast (where the first picture is centered on the rising bowl of the Big Dipper), the light dome from 29 Palms illuminates the horizon.

The second shot looks high at Orion, which is now pretty much due south (but high) by the time the sky gets serious dark. The third shot is looking due south, below Orion. Sirius is the bright star in that shot. This light dome is from Indio.

Fourth shot here is to the east-northeast, with the head of Leo rising over the Joshua tree.

This shot looks to the east, with Jupiter the bright object to the left-center-top, and Sirius the brightish star to the right.

Finally, a fuzzy shot of my telescope, silhouetted against Orion.

I took all or nearly all but the last one posted at ISO 6400, aperture around 5.6, and exposures of between 20 and 30 seconds. Even at 30 seconds, the stars start to trail a little bit.

This was a pretty nice finish to a short day of hiking (which I still need to blog about). Before I took my pictures, I looked at Jupiter and a couple of easy deep sky objects through the telescope with some rock climbers who flew out from Michigan for a long weekend. It's always fun sharing the sky, and of course, they were just happy to be where the temperatures were on the north side of zero!

I also spied the supernova in galaxy M82, which was a pretty easy sight, but appeared dimmer than estimates have been reporting.

I still need to blog my actual hike from yesterday, and maybe the Santa Fe Dam outreach event. With any luck, I'll get another hike in later today, too. A late start to my latest year of hiking, but still a lot of fun to get away from town for a little while.

Pictures from 2012

Well, 2014 is getting off to a very slow, non-hiking start. As I look at my work schedule, I may not be hitting the trail for another week. That's really sad. And annoying.

So, in the meantime, I finally got around to downloading some photos from my cell phone that I took back in August 2012. It was from a hike in Chino Hills State Park, where I forgot my camera. My phone battery was also nearly discharged, so I managed all of about six shots before it died.

I've also inserted these photos into that old post, and took out the references to having no photos from that hike. There are some pictures, though not necessarily very good ones.

The main entertainment from that hike was the large cow I ran into, and the large tarantula I ran into. Yeah, the cow was much larger than the tarantula. And, in fact, it was also scarier, because it's not like a tarantula can run you over if he gets pissed at you.

Chino Hills cows have built up a bit of a reputation for being ornery. Look it up.

Tarantulas, meanwhile, are usually known to be pretty sedate. I'm more scared when I see a lot of tarantula hawks flying around, on the assumption that their sting must undoubtedly hurt a lot. Haven't ever had to feel the sting, and I hope I never do.

In a day or two, I'll probably post some pictures from the Santa Fe Dam outreach event. It went pretty well, though the pictures there were probably less impressive than the ones from my phone 18 months ago!

Telescopes at the Santa Fe Dam Nature Center -- Saturday, January 11, 4:30pm - 7:30pm

If the weather stays clear, I'm scheduled to join a friend at the Santa Fe Dam Nature Center for some "sidewalk astronomy." The featured bodies are the first quarter moon and Jupiter, which is right now at "opposition" (meaning it's as close to earth as it'll get this year).

After everyone's had a good look at our featured objects, we may try hitting a few other targets. Obviously, the Orion Nebula is very well placed for viewing. Maybe the Pleiades star cluster, and maybe a few other showpiece objects. Haven't really sat down and tried to make an observing plan.

No matter what, however, if the seeing's good (no clouds, not too much turbulence), the view of the moon and Jupiter ought to be about as good a view as you'll ever see.

Meanwhile, if you're there at the start, before the sun's gone down, I may try to setting up my solar observing equipment, as well. It partially depends on how good I am at packing stuff in my car on Saturday afternoon!

That picture, by the way, is from a trip to the Mojave Preserve. I'm not sure which telescopes I'll bring to Santa Fe Dam. I'm leaning towards a large refractor, not quite as large as the one on the left in the picture. May bring a second, smaller refractor, too. I'd kind of like to bring my large SCT, but I don't think both would fit in my car at the same time.