Martin's DW

The heat wave finally broke today, which naturally was the day I had to head home. Still, I figured I could get a decent amount of peakbagging before leaving SoCal. I figured the best plan was to leave the hotel fairly early and cross Los Angeles before the traffic got bad. I was able to just cruise up I-5 without worrying about any clever traffic avoidance routing and, soon enough, made my way across Tejon Pass. And then I exited.

See, the plan for the day was to bag three HPS peaks in the San Emigdio Mountains. First up was, well, San Emigdio Mountain (7492'), which is an easy drive-up except the drive entails three miles of dirt road. Not a big deal, but a bit exciting for me as this was the Baby Bronco's first off-pavement excursion. It, unsurprisingly but satisfyingly, handled the bumps and divots with aplomb. (The most exciting moments of the drive were the vehicle that had to back up to allow me to pass on ascent, and the hikers I startled on descent.) From the parking area it was a nine-minute walk to the tree-covered high point. The best views were actually from where I parked. I logged the ascent and drove back down to Apache Saddle, where I crossed Mil Potrero Highway and headed back up the other side of the San Andreas Rift. This time it was all pavement to the top.

The top, in this case, is just outside Campo Alto Campground (I parked outside to avoid the $10 day use fee), which is located right at the top of Cerro Noroeste (8280+'). It took all of three minutes to tag the summit. Fortunately I had an actual hike planned to cap off the day's peakbagging, and started down the road to the Mt. Pinos Trail's terminus. It's signed as 4½ miles to Mt. Pinos, but I wouldn't be going that far today—I had previously stood atop both Pinos and Sawmill. Grouse Mountain (8582'), however, was the one peak on the ridge that I had yet to surmount.

From the road, the trail dips further to Puerta Del Suelo at 7708' before steeply climbing again to near the top of Grouse, reaching 8400' before turning away. (I encountered a pair of hikers who said they got a mile in and turned around due to the steepness.) The cross-country is easy from there, particularly with a GPS device such as a cellphone. At the top I encountered a pair of hikers, arriving shortly after I did, who came from Sawmill. We signed into the rodent-nibbled register, chatted for a bit, and took each others' pictures before I headed back. The ascent took an hour and 32 minutes; the "descent" (which included almost a full re-ascent of Cerro) took just nine minutes less.

I got back to the Baby Bronco at 2:24pm. It was warm, but not uncomfortably so like it had been on Saturday and Sunday. Just before I reached my parking spot, a man driving out in a red pickup truck asked me whether I had seen any snakes. He seems surprised that I responded in the negative. I'm not anti-serpent but I can't say I'm unhappy about not being surprised by a rattling tail this trip.

And then it was all over but the drive home. In total I drove 1083.4 miles this trip for a total car time of 23 hours and 41 minutes over five days. At this point that's a significant proportion of the Baby Bronco's total mileage. I'm very glad to have had the break even if things didn't quite go as well as I'd have liked. It's not like the mountains are going anywhere....

Welp, I checked the forecast before going to bed last night and the temperatures were all revised upwards for today. My original plan had been to hike a couple of easier peaks up in the northeastern part of the Angeles National Forest, but I decided that the best way to beat the heat would be to add some elevation. So I set the day's objectives as Winston Peak (7502') and Mount Akawie (7283') and went to sleep.

I woke up early, got everything ready to go, hopped in the Baby Bronco, and told Google Maps to take me to Cloudburst Summit on the Angeles Crest Highway. Google said it couldn't find a route. Well, it wouldn't be the first time Google Maps had been confused about the current state of the roads this trip (it thought that Glendora Ridge Road was closed yesterday, which it was not), so I pointed myself at Highway 2 in La Cañada Flintridge and headed up. The drive was smooth right until I got to Red Box Picnic Area. Turns out the Angeles Crest Highway is still closed between there and Vincent Gulch Road, well past Cloudburst Summit.

It was 6:45am. I didn't want to burn a bunch of morning hours driving somewhere else to hike, so today's objective was going to have to be something close. I ran through various thoughts in my head (including just driving the five miles to Mt. Wilson and hoping there was cellphone reception or Wi-Fi; Wilson itself is a trivial drive-up, but while I suspected as much, I did not know that for sure) when, wandering at the western edge of the parking area for the Haramokngna American Indian Cultural Center, I got just a bit of reception. The nearest HPS peak was Mount Lawlor (5957'), which I had skimmed over last night but passed on in favor of higher game. I was able to quickly download route information from the HPS site as well as a map. Figuring 6 miles round-trip and 1300' of gain shouldn't be too bad, I set out at 7am.

And lo, the Strawberry Trail was really quite pleasant. While there were stretches that were a bit too vegetative for my taste (I'm not really a huge fan of narrow trails with bushes on both sides that are higher than my head) the shaded sections—and that includes the hedge tunnels—were actually pretty temperate. I was feeling good enough to take a quick detour to Point 5166, immediately opposite the firebreak that forms the most direct route up Lawlor (HPS guide: "This ridge is very steep and very loose. A high degree of care is required on this section." No thanks!), took some pictures, and then continued on my way. This led to a long stretch of trail that was actually shaded from the sun by Lawlor's bulk. I felt pretty great hiking up that part, and even when the trail emerged from Lawlor's shadow I was still quite content at 8:15am when I reached the Strawberry-Lawlor saddle at 5200+'. I allowed myself momentarily to entertain the thought of adding Strawberry Peak to the day's agenda before dismissing it as a bad idea given the lack of beta I had on Strawberry and my limited water supply.

That brought me to the crux of the hike, which was the steep use trail out of the saddle up onto Lawlor's ridgeline. The first part was the steepest, but overall this was the most exhausting part of the hike, not helped by being in direct sunlight the entire time. There were quite a few moments when I was grateful for a nearby rock formation to hold, and there were also a fair number of stretches where the trail—though always present—involved close encounters with vegetation, on both sides. (And that also meant spiderwebs.) It took me maybe fifty minutes to navigate the ridge, and by 9:06am I stood on top of Mt. Lawlor. Surprisingly, the views from the summit weren't actually the best of the hike, except maybe east to Barley Flats, due to the large flattish area on top. And that area is covered in seeding plans that worked very hard to get into my socks, so I didn't want to wander around too much. I took my pictures, chugged some water, and headed back down.

The ridgeline went a lot faster on descent. The steep parts were mercifully not as bad as I thought they were going to be and the vegetable parts were actually quite fun because they were a preventative against falling off the ridge. When I got back to the saddle, I came across a pair of hikers who asked me where the Strawberry Trail led onwards. I gave some guesses but emphasized that I didn't really have information past Lawlor. I really do need a paper map of this area.

Unfortunately the Strawberry Trail—while still easy—was much less pleasant now that the shadows had fled. By the time I had reached the final stretch of the trail, past Point 5166, I was just focusing on getting to my air-conditioned vehicle. It was too hot! It only took me an hour and twenty-one minutes to descend, and when I reached the Baby Bronco I stopped my GPS trackers, slung my backpack into the back, loosened my boots, and fired up the AC-powering engine. It was just before 11am, and I had no desire to be out in the heat any more today.

On the way back to the hotel I stopped by a couple used bookstores (nothing of interest, although I did make the unpleasant discovery that Montrose was having a vintage car show that was extremely loud) and Atomic Comics in Artesia, which had a bunch of the Dixon-era Robin issues that I'm missing. Including #46, which I've been hunting for annoyingly long.

Today was supposed to be the first day of Westercon 75, and I, quite foolishly—in an attempt to save money—booked a slightly off-site hotel room at a nonrefundable rate. Well, the convention canceled due to lack of memberships, but I wasn't going to let my hotel reservation go to waste. Plus I haven't been out of the Greater Bay Area (I'm counting Santa Cruz here, sorry) since last year's Worldcon. That was nine months ago. Yeah, I've been getting a bit stir-crazy.

The drive down from Sunnyvale to Anaheim was uneventful up through the Grapevine. Frankly, I had forgotten just how dull I-5 through the Central Valley is given that it's a couple of years since I last made the drive. I stopped for gas right before heading up into the mountains, although that might have been unnecessary given how large the Baby Bronco's fuel tank is. Still, better to be safe than sorry.

Once over the Grapevine, the drive became an exercise in dodging traffic. There's no way to avoid all of it but continually grabbing "faster routes" from Google Maps was a fun exercise in alternate routes through the L.A. Basin. I ended up routing 5-210-2-5-10-710-60-(surface streets)-5. Altogether it took almost exactly seven hours of driving from Sunnyvale, with nearly three of them being after my pit stop.

I'm here through the Fourth of July. The plan is to bag some Hundred Peaks Section mountains over the next few days. I suspect it will be too warm to go after Santiago Peak, the Orange County high point, but there's certainly easier objectives to mount.

It is rather difficult for me to focus on an author's reading when a small child decides to simultaneously monologue.

I'd been procrastinating this one for a while and I really shouldn't have. Children of Memory culminates the author's exploration of what precisely it means to be sentient, both by introducing one of the author's trademark advanced Earth animals (in this case, corvids—and as Sunnyvale can attest, even the base corvid can be pretty smart) and by adding some other wrinkles. Not only do we have Miranda's whole deal (and of course, Avrana Kern) but there's the big reveal at the end about the mysterious signals on Imir. ( Major spoilers for the ending )

I'm reading pretty much anything Adrian Tchaikovsky puts out now. (Ogres was on my Hugo ballot this year.) Good shit.

Knocked another 2.9 miles off the Bay Area Ridge Trail today. This was a dull subsection, finishing up the Mussel Rock to Lake Merced section that I started last Memorial Day but ran out of time to complete before sunset. (The joys of relying on public transit.) It's entirely along the streets of Daly City until you get to cliffs overlooking the beach at the end. This was the nicest (if chilly and windy today) part of today's events, but I'm not convinced it'll even be part of the final Ridge Trail alignment seeing as the Ridge Trail sign at the end of Skyline Drive points south—yet the Ridge Trail map (which I followed) goes north to the Mussel Rock parking lot.

En route to Daly City, the Baby Bronco hit the kilomile mark, which means the engine is now officially broken in. Just in time for next month's Los Angeles roadtrip, I suppose.

( A mild Action Comics #1055 spoiler )

Justice Society of America (vol. 4) #4 (“The New Golden Age, Chapter Four: Fates and Fortunes”): I see we are doing Cryptic Foreshadowing for future arcs that may or may not happen anytime soon. It was cuter back when Johns books could keep a schedule. That being said they’re almost certainly more interesting than the Batplot. (The non-Huntress JSAers took steps towards actually doing something this issue!)

Tim Drake: Robin #9: Tim getting distracted by his boyfriend being topless was funny. Tim managing to tick off both of his friends, less so.

Got another 1.1 miles of the Bay Area Ridge Trail down today in Skylawn Memorial Park. It's frankly not a very exciting section, and not really a trail either—the official route is along the road. There's no sidewalk, either. This doesn't matter much when you're in the cemetery but the official trail route starts at Highway 92, so you've got to dodge automotive traffic between the highway and where you get to the graves. I imagine there are some decent views that aren't just of dead people when the park's not fogged in like it was this morning.

At the north end of the Ridge Trail segment, the road leaves Skylawn Memorial Park, narrows, and parallels the watershed fence. While the area inside the fence is signed for No Trespassing, there's no visible indication that the road itself is restricted, as the Ridge Trail map claims it is. Still, I decided there was no point in pressing my luck today.

Well, I suppose actually winning the draft lottery was too much to ask for, but at least the Sharks didn't drop from fourth (which had a roughly 2/3 chance of happening). I don't think they can fuck up a choice between two of Leo Carlsson, Matvei Michkov, and Will Smith.

Fuck Chicago though.