Hike 2014.050B -- Antelope Overlook, Canyon de Chelly National Monument, AZ

There are several overlooks from the north rim of Canyon de Chelly; the first one your reach from the visitor center is Antelope Overlook. From that parking lot, it's about 1/4 mile to the rim. The trail along the rim hits several viewpoints, and gives a very striking look into the canyon.

This was one of only two overlooks I visited (besides the one at White House, where an actual trail into the canyon) (In fact, the *only* trail into the canyon un-escorted visitors can hike).

From high above Canyon de Chelly, the unaided eye can just make out a couple of white marks on the wall below. One looks distinctly like an antelope. The rest are generally not visible to the unaided eye. But use a telephoto or binoculars, and the wall comes to life.

In the pictures that accompany this post, the ruins are below the dark "fingers" of the wall; the pictographs are just to the left of the ruins.

When we visited (Sunday, September 28), the water was high. It had poured the night before, which made the last bit of driving east from the Las Vegas area quite an adventure. This was our first stop of the morning (after the visitor center), though I think the water stayed high all day. There were also a few showers during the day, but nothing like the night before.

Canyon de Chelly is about 1:20 minutes north of I-40. You'd exit at Chambers, then head north US 191, to Chinle. The park headquarters is maybe a mile east of US 191.

The park is entirely within the Navajo Nation, and has no entry fee. The monument camp-ground is run by the Navajo. A Holiday Inn is located in Chinle. We stayed in the Days Inn in Chambers, which is substantially cheaper than the Holiday Inn.

I don't know if it was the lighting or what, but the photos really look like they're of a minature. But that's the actual ruins, some 650 feet below the canyon rim. The canyon, I may have already noted, is quite dramatic. It was even more dramatic with the clouds gathering above.

From that first overlook, I we continued on the trail along the rim, to another dramatic overlook. In one of my shots, a crow cruised through my frame. That's him, at the bottom right of the shot.

After enjoying the view, we returned to the visitor center, then headed up the south rim road. At the end of that road paved segment of road is an overlook to Spider Rock. That'll be my next post, most likely.

Hike 2014.050A -- Meteor Crater, AZ

Hiked Saturday, September 27. First of a series of short walks and hikes that collec-tively compose my mere 50th hike of the year. Yes, I'm still annoyed by my lack of hiking opportunities!

Meteor Crater is located just a bit west of Winslow, AZ, and somewhat further east from Flagstaff, AZ, and a mere 6 miles or so south of I-40. Back in 2011, I drove both ways on I-40, but elected to visit nearby national parks (Petrified Forest) and national monuments (Wupatki and Sunset Volcano Crater). There were also sites in New Mexico I wanted to visit (El Malpais and Petroglyph, both going and coming), so I didn't feel I could spare yet another stop so close to all those others.

Still, the siren call of this scar from a 50,000 year old cosmic collision continued to sound, eventually drawing me back to Arizona. In this case, I combined it with a trip to Canyon de Chelly and Walnut Canyon. It was a lot of activity (and driving) to pack into a 3 1/2 day trip that started in the Los Angeles Area and detoured into Henderson, NV.

Just as a FYI, Meteor Crater is NOT a national park or national monument; it's not managed by any of the federal land management agencies, and your America the Beautiful Pass will not get you in free of charge. This place is privately owned, having been claimed and patented under the Mining Act of 1872. A guy named Daniel Barringer believed this crater was, in fact, created by a meteorite, and he believed he could acquire a tremendously large, very pure chunk of iron, by digging around inside the crater.

As it turns out, Barringer was right about this crater being meteoric in nature, but wrong about finding a large chunk of the impactor inside the crater. In fact, the parent body largely vaporized on impact, leaving the blast hole and the raised rim of the crater (that are very visible in some of the later, the later, departing shot, four pictures below.

Nonethe-less, you can acquire land under the Mining Act by working the claim, regardless of if you actually find anything. So it came to pass that Barringer gained clear fee title to the land around the crater that now bears his name.

Being a private facility, the entry fee is set by supply and demand. Currently, that balance is $18/person. Yes, comparatively speaking, that's quite a lot. But it is by far the best preserved meteor crater on earth.

There are several levels from which you can observe the crater, including one that is indoors. That means even foul weather will not keep you from getting a peek at the crater.

The crater is about one mile in diameter. That size is often lost in photos, because there's no sense of scale. So the sequence above gives you an idea: First, if you go up six shots, you're looking from the highest observation point, across the entire crater. Note the small white area near the center.

The next shot in the sequence was taken with my zoom set at 70mm, making it a modest telephoto. This is the same white area you sall in the previous picture. Now, go to the next shot. That one's with my zoom at 300mm. Finally, the fence surrounding the white area is visible.

On the fence is a cutout of an astronaut and a flag. The astronaut is six feet tall; the flag is 3x5 feet. And they're completely invisible in the wide angle shot, and not really visible with the short telephoto.

On-line reviews of Meteor Crater range from "It's awesome" to "It's a hole in the ground." Both are correct. Like a lot of science, you can't really appreciate what you're seeing until you can put this in context.

There's not a lot of hiking you can do here. I doubt I covered more than 1/2 mile, on the paved walking trails and stairs immediately adjacent to the visitor center. There are supposed to be short tours which I believe take you maybe a 1/4 mile away, but you're not allowed to circumnavigate the crater. That would speed erosion and destroy scientific evidence of the cosmic origins of this remarkable feature.

Hike 2014.044 -- Castle Canyon from Lake Avenue

Hiked Wednes-day, August 13. So back in the time machine, again. :D

This was a "bye" date in my jury duty, which I wrapped up back in mid-August. So I took a personal day off from work, and used this as a chance to clear my head.

We had deliberated on Monday and Tuesday, then had the previously-scheduled day off. It was a fortuitous break, as it gave everyone on the jury a chance to decompressed and think about the case we had just heard. Several noted that they were having trouble sleeping the past few nights. And, after hearing that, it occurred to me that I had also had some trouble sleeping. I was thinking it was due to an unrelated matter, but perhaps the case was weighing on my brain, as well.

It also felt good to be exerting myself a little. The problem with things like deliberation, after all, is that all the adrenaline is building up, and it's got no release. Hiking gave me that release.

So, as I hiked, I talked through the facts of the case, and by the time I got back home, was feeling very confident and certain about my decision on the verdict.

The perfect hiking weather helped. Well, having a little more daylight would have been nice. Because of my late start, I didn't have time to make it to Inspiration Point, as was my goal. But, as you can see, I got to within sight of my destination--Probably about 1/3 of a mile away before I had to turn around, and have enough time to get down before dark.

But, of course, when you're hiking, it's all about the journey rather than the destination.

As I was making my way back towards Lake Avenue, the clouds lit up nicely on the western horizon. I snapped several pictures in the deepening twilight.

Maybe eight miles for the afternoon. Perfect end to a a day.

The Sam Merrill Trailhead is at the north end of Lake Avenue, in Altadena. The Sam Merrill takes you up to Echo Mountain. From there, you can continue to Sunset Ridge, Mt. Lowe, or Inspiration Point.

I've linked one of my blog posts for each of those destinations above. Of course, some of those destinations were hiked many times. Just picked the first one that came up as an illustration.

Hike 2014.043 -- Shoemaker Canyon

Hiked Tuesday, August 12. One of numerous hikes from the past that I need to blog. Shoemaker Canyon is sometimes called the "Tunnel to Nowhere." Like its more famous cousin (The Bridge to Nowhere), this is a hike that takes you to a defunct road project.

In this case, the road was to be an additional evacuation route from the Los Angeles Basin. At some point, I guess they figured the road didn't actually serve any useful purpose, so it was shelved. What's left is a road cut and a couple of tunnels that combine to give you a nice four-mile-ish hike, high above the East fork of the San Gabriel River.

The trailhead is at the end of the paved portion of Shoemaker Canyon Road, which splits off from East Fork Road, just a few miles west of Glendora Mountain Road. In other words, if you've come up from CA-39 and you reach Glendora Mountain Road, you've gone too far. If you reach the trailhead for the Bridge to Nowhere, you've also gone too far.

On this particular day, it was a late afternoon hike I took, after jury duty (at the time, I was serving on a criminal court jury), with enough time for just a short stretching of the legs. But it had been a few years since my last visit, so it seemed like a nice time to return to the area.

The views today were great. The sun was low, the clouds were colorful, and the mountains were warmly lit with the long rays of late afternoon.

As I ap-proached the first tunnel, I heard rocks tumbling down the nearby cliff. After some scanning, I found the source--a couple of deer, trying to put some distance between themselves and me.

I took many pictures, but most were of the deer's hind-quarters. The shot above is the only one with their faces clear. The next shot is a crop of the previous one.

It being the middle of a long drought, and their obviously being not a lot of grass or water nearby, I felt bad for making the deer exert so much energy on account of me. So I turned around there, a little earlier than I planned.

On the way back, I practically walked right into the largest tarantula I had ever seen. I've seen a number, both in the local mountains and in the Mojave Preserve. But, really, this guy (or girl) was huge.

Continuing back to my car, I frequently passed the sound of many buzzing bees. They were forcing their way in to numerous blazing star flowers.

Got back before it was completely dark, and felt pretty good about my day's short little hike. Better than nothing, anyway.

Hiked 2014.048 -- La Madre Springs, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area

Hiked Saturday, August 30. Shorter hike than I wanted today. I didn't realize I had forgotten my sun block until I was on the trail, and didn't want to risk getting too burned.

Latest hike as of today, with several more still needing to be blogged.

Red Rock National Conservation Area is just west of Las Vegas. Of course, I've done a number of hikes in Red Rock the past few years: Turtlehead Peak. And Calico Tanks. Twice. Also Icebox Canyon. Also twice.
Also, the Calico Hills. That's all in addition to my pre-blog hiking; I lived in Las Vegas for seven years, so I probably hiked most of the trails in the park at one time or another, though definitely not with the sort of regularity I would have had after the hiking blog.

As an added incentive to hike in Red Rock, my America the Beautiful pass expires at the end of September, so I'm still trying to get my money's worth. I may even try to squeeze a trip to Bryce Canyon or Zion in this month. But probably not. They're long drives, and I also want to go to Great Basin National Park in September. This might be too much driving in a month.

But if not September, then maybe Zion in October. I'm hoping to catch the leave changing.

Given my previous time in Las Vegas, I probably hiked here before, but I don't have a strong recollection of being here. The vegetation was surprisingly thick, given the relatively low altitude of here versus up around Mount Charleston. Water clearly runs through the limestone and off the sandstone and settles some on the valley between these two structures.

There's also the occasional tree fighting to survive in the sandstone crags, and the trees that fail to survive elsewhere in the valley.

It's been a pretty good monsoon season, so even before I got to Las Vegas, I noticed the more greenery along the highway than one would expect, given the 105 degree temperatures. Fall wildflowers were not blooming as thickly as I had seen them last year, but there were definitely a lot of flowers blooming.

I didn't recognize their species, however. With the exception of the desert mallow, they were just "white flowers" and "yellow flowers."

They were only modestly thicker around the actual spring than they were elsewhere along the trail. The one that looks somewhat like Indian Paintbrush was practically hanging over the small pool the spring flowed in to.

You can see the spring in the background.

Meanwhile, the little white guys seem to have an interesting life cycle. After looking like little white flowers, at some point they turn into those stringy things you see below.

If there weren't some plants with both types of flowers on them, it would have been harder to realize they were the same species.

I began my hike at the Willow Springs Picnic area, which is off the 13-mile scenic loop. From the picnic area, I headed northwest, along the Rocky Gap 4x4 road. Had I my sunblock, I might likely have just headed on up there and to the top of the escarpment. But, having forgotten it (and not realized this until I was well on the rail), I knew I wanted to cut it short. So I turned at the sign indicating the way to La Madre Spring, which it said was about 1.1 miles from the spring.

Total distance for the La Madre Spring hike is given as 3.3 miles, though it did seem a bit further than that. The only significant climb I noticed was the last bit, as you climb past a couple of concrete pads and on up to the ravine where the spring resides.

I returned the way I came.

Hike 2014.046 -- Fern Dell and Mt. Hollywood Drive, Griffith Park

Hiked Thursday, August 21. Yeah, I'm not really catching up on my blogging, am I? This one was from last week. I had to head to the Observatory to do some paperwork, so I brought my boots with the intent of doing an afternoon hike.

Decided on Fern Dell, since it had been a while since my last hike there.

I was not optimistic, given how hot and dry it has been. But things still looked very bucolic down there. The waters still ran.

The yellow flower above was atop a stalk, a lone specimen on a small island in the water that runs through the lower reaches of Fern Dell.

These purple guys were right near by, on long vines wrapped around some trees. I don't know the species of either, but I'm sure neither are southern California natives. But the relative moisture and shade of Fern Dell lets them thrive.

These guys were at the very far southern end of Fern Dell. They were huge, draping, textured lily-looking flowers. I loved them.

Overhanging some water was this single purple flower on a bush, which I believe to be a Rose of Sharon.

After getting back to the upper part of Fern Dell, the plan was to head up the ridge to my west. I had seen a picture of the Observatory from pretty much due west, at Observatory level. Hadn't seen such a view yet, so I went in search of the photo perspective.

I climbed a non-trail which eventually intersected with Western Canyon Drive. Then I hiked up that road until i found a hill to climb to the west. The hill's trail was not posted as private property, so I headed up. Didn't quite get the perspective I wanted there, or any where else in the area.

Eventually, I headed cross-country, up a very steep incline that proved tougher than I expected. I made it back up and eventually joined Mt. Hollywood Drive. I guess that got me a perspective I would have missed had I headed straight back to my car.

I'll guess bout four miles for the day, though that's just a guess.

My previous visits to Fern Dell are here and here. Also, here. Obviously, it's a pretty photogenic place to go.