Must. Hike.

Some of us must hike, heat or no heat. The trails north of JPL have decent shade, and the streams still have water in them. The trails have recently been reopened after the Station Fire, though you'll find changes.

The cones on this bridge are lined up so neatly, don't you think? We couldn't figure out how they stayed that way until we checked. They're nailed down.

Canyon Depths

I think you should click to enlarge this picture.

The other day, Bellis (who often comments here) and I walked from Chantry Flat to Sturtevant Falls and back. (The road up from Sierra Madre is open during the day.) Our trusty pooches came along, too. The water is flowing clear and clean in Big Santa Anita Canyon alongside the Gabrielino Trail.

Bellis also showed me the trail that goes above the falls. High! Steep! Narrow! Wonderful. There's everything to love about a hike like this one--tall trees, a flowing stream and a waterfall, forceful now after the rain.

This place is extra special, perhaps because of 81 historic, privately-owned cabins, some of which you'll stroll by as you walk along the canyon floor. The cabins are what remain of the original 350 that were built from the 1890's to the 1920's.

I found myself envying the cabin residents but I have to be realistic. It takes a special kind of person to live there. Few of the cabins have central heat, plumbing or electricity (though we did notice some solar panels), and phone service is limited. Not only that, but unless you're a mountain biker with the thighs (and knees) of an Olympic athlete, your home is accessible only by hiking into and out of the canyon.

It's so beautiful there, for a minute I thought I could get used to it if I could heat with solar panels. Later in the summer this stream will be dry, or close to it. But right now it's heaven.

Then I thought about carrying the groceries.

The Litterin' Low Life

The Sam Merrill Trail gets a lot of weekend trash. So does the west end of the Gabrielino Trail, north of JPL. These spots also get a lot of graffiti, especially on the lower reaches. The preponderance of litter and graffiti on the low paths is because getting up high on the mountain requires effort and agility, and these are activities of the lazy.

Here's a sampling of what Boz and I found on a short walk Sunday from the west end of Altadena Drive to the ranger station, a 30 minute walk if you're not in a hurry. As you can see, our litterers are athletic (Gatorade), watch their weight (light beer), care about their skin (Neutrogena lotion) and occasionally indulge in candy. I notice one wrapper got out of my little arrangement. Perhaps litterers like to follow their Bliss.

The litterers might disagree with my low opinion of them. Obviously, they have a high opinion of themselves. But I'm right and they're wrong. They're lazy, slothful and stupid. How do I know this? Slothful: self-evident. Lazy: I found a good deal of this trash within about thirty feet of a garbage can. Stupid: See the cigar wrapper in that pile? And I didn't even pick up the cigarette butts. CIGARETTE BUTTS. WHAT ARE PEOPLE THINKING? (At first I thought, oh gee, maybe it was the coyotes, but wait, no, coyotes are too smart to smoke cigarettes in the middle of a forest full of dry tinder, which is more than I can say for some people.)

There's no sense complaining to you, you don't litter. You don't paint meaningless code words on rocks where only lizards can read them. Yet I want to vilify these trash-dropping mofos. Do they decorate their homes in early twenty-first century Garbage Dump? (Yes.) I'd like to scream and swear at the halfwits who think their spray-painted gangspeak--the secret language of morons--actually enhances a rock or a bridge or even so much as a pile of dung.

But I also call myself a writer and writers are supposed to be inventive with language. Supposedly we don't need to swear to express ourselves (though The Seven Words come in handy).

Let's see what we can do. Today I invite you to invent incendiary invective in the comments. Rail! Accuse! Vituperate! Tell the litterers how big a pile of offal you'd like to force them to sort, by hand, at gunpoint. Let the taggers in on your plans for their edification in a federal facility. Or perhaps you'd have them clean, under the hot sun, with a toothbrush, every inch of wall they've ever defaced. See how vicious you can be--without using The Seven Words. In fact, if you use one (or a variation of one) I'll delete your comment. But anything else goes. And I do mean anything.

And while you're at it: tell the Station Fire arsonist what painful punishment you have in mind for him (or her?). Heated words are welcome, my friends. Go ahead and get mad. But please: no swearing.