Back to California

I had originally planned on heading back to California via the Grand Canyon (northern Arizona), however, I spent too much time stopping and taking pictures, and so I missed my schedule by a couple of hours---instead of catching sunset, it would have been already dark. This is coupled with the fact that I caught quite a bit of snow starting at the New Mexico/Arizona border.

My father gave me a GPS device that he no longer used, so the following will be enhanced by longitude and latitude numbers! Click on the links, and you will go to Google maps---you can then look at satellite views or (to give you a sense of scales) the topological view.

Gila National Forrest.

I spent the night in Silver City, NM, after hitting US 180 off of I-10 at Las Cruces. The drive into Silver City was straight and flat, and the drive into the Gila National Forrest was coming into the foothills of the Rockies, officially the San Francisco Mountain Range. My first stop was the Alfred Leopold Vista (33° 11.014' N 108°49.739' W, Elev 5197 ft).

I got out of the car and quickly realized how cold it was. I had to change into a sweatshirt as I took some pictures.

After leaving the rest stop, I traveled a few miles and saw a turnoff for the "Catwalk Whitewater Picnic Ground" (33° 22.342' N 108°50.547' W, Elev. 5131 ft.) . Luckily, the water wasn't TOO white, as the park would have been rendered inaccessible:

It was a very nice little picnic area, about six miles off the highway, with a small river running behind it.

And, of course, I had to try my fancy camera out. This is a small aperture and long exposure picture of a piece of driftwood in the water, doctored just a bit with Picasa.

US 180 continued through the mountains, with steep drop offs to one side, and sheer cliffs to the other. This is a turnoff at 33° 32.604' N 108°56.122' W, Elev. 5950 ft.

Apache National Forest.

I began to climb further and further into the mountains, and at about 7000 feet it started to snow. And, even more beautifully, they hadn't scraped the highway. Now, my truck has 4WD and a manual shift option (which makes engine braking a breeze), so I had no trouble navigating the roads. In spite of my Texas licence plates, I do know what I'm doing when I'm driving in the snow, but there are a lot of idiots around. I pulled off of the interstate at a pass (33° 43.945' N 108°56.101' W, Elev. 7835 ft.) and took a few pics.

I had to be quick, because it was a bout 25 °F degrees outside.

The Painted Desert and Petrified Forest.

As I came into Arizona, it was increasingly clear that I wouldn't make the Grand Canyon by sunset, so I decided instead to hit the Petrified Forest (34° 47.670' N 109°53.445' W, Elev. 5397 ft.).

Now, I was imagining a forest of trees which were petrified, as the name implied. If the name of the park was truly descriptive, it would be called "A Forest Once Existed Here, but all the Trees Died and Fell Over, and now They're Rocks", but I imagine that it wouldn't have fit on the sign.

I came into the park through the western entrance, and as I drove down the main road there were the fossilized remains of many ancient trees.

The ranger at the entrance to the park assured me that it rarely snowed in the park, and getting to see it in such a state was a real treat. Maybe it was a treat for her, but because it was cloudy, it was hard to see all of the colors for which the park is famous.

If I had to guess, I think that there used to be an ancient river which ran through this part of the country. The river deposited various sediments at various times, lending their colors to the sand.

This is a formation called the "Teepees".

I would have liked to have stayed a while longer, but it was getting late, so I had to move on.

I stopped for gas once I got back on the interstate, and found this dinosaur in Holbrook, AZ (34° 56.272' N 110°07.900' W, Elev. 5268 ft.).

Meteor Crater.

The final stop was Meteor Crater (35° 01.971' N 111°01.309' W, Elev. 5590 ft.), outside of Winslow, AZ (which is more than just a line in an Eagle's song). 50,000 years ago, a meteor hit the Arizona desert, leaving a crater about 1 mile in diameter.

It's a little hard to appreciate the scale of this thing. I'd suggest going to Google via the link above and looking at the satellite picture of the crater. It is really impressive.

To give you SOME idea of the scale, the rock I labeled in the picture is about the size of a house. That's the claim, according to the meteor people.

This is a piece of the guilty party...

All in all, I have to say I quite enjoyed my holiday. I got to see a good chunk of America, I learned some masonry, and I got to see Lefty. I also started a fossil collection, which (I'm sure) I'll post about in the future. There were TONS of fossils in Arizona, and even quite a few roadside shops which sold them. And, of course, Bryanne bought me a beautiful fossilized megalodon tooth for Christmas. But more on this later!

Santa Cruz Mountain Expedition: Purisimia Creek Redwoods

I'll take a break from blogging about Moneterey Bay Aquarium to post some pictures of my hike this Sunday. The biggest thing that I learned from the whole experience is that you should break in your hiking boots before hiking, and that mountain lions aren't pussies:

This is the first (hopefully) in a series of installments about some hiking adventures in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I decided, somewhat on a whim but mostly in a rational and well thought-out manner, to go for a hike this afternoon in the mountains. Palo Alto is flanked by mountains---I see the Santa Cruz Mountains to the west every day as I drive to work, and I have been promising myself for six weeks that I'd get out and get my shoes dirty.

After doing a bit of research, I decided that I would go for a nice 3.6 mile hike in the Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve. The trail that I ended up taking was a 7.1 mile hike that took me along the North Ridge and down into Whittemore Gulch. After going west along the gulch, I hiked back up the side of Harkins Ridge, back to my truck. The route I took is here. I highlighted the entire route.

Redwoods.

The namesake of the park is the redwood tree, a conifer for which California is famous. We've all seen grainy, black and white pictures of the giant trees that must have awed the first generation of white Californians, but it is an entirely different matter to stand with your chest against one looking up, to appreciate the true breadth of these organisms.

Some of the trunks that I encountered were several tens of feet in diameter, at least, supporting massive limb systems which arched up, mostly out of view. The trees gave off a fragrant, cedary smell, which permeated the air entirely as I made my way down to the basin.

Do behold the King Sequoia! Behold! Behold! seems all I can say. Some time ago I left all for Sequoia and have been and am at his feet, fasting and praying for light, for is he not the greatest light in the woods, in the world? Where are such columns of sunshine, tangible, accessible, terrestrialized?

John Muir, 1870

Other Plants.

This isn't the prime time of the year for plant watching, even though it's more or less always springtime here. There were a few covering plants, along with a compliment of native grasses and mosses.


This next picture is a Coyote Bush, I think. I spiced it up a bit with Picasa, a picture editing app from google. I like how it turned out:

As I got to the bottom of the gulch, the air turned progressively cooler and more humid, and it soon became apparent that there was a creek at the bottom. Not only was there a marked increase in moisture, but there was much less ambient light (an artifact of the boreal canopy) and a gentle mumur as the creek made it's lazy way to the Pacific. This change in conditions meant that new species of plants thrived.

Whittemore Gulch.

My truck was parked at roughly 1800 feet above sea level, and the bottom of the gulch is around 600 feet above sea level. After making my way down the side of the North Ridge mostly in the sun, the shade and quietly babbling creek were a welcomed change.

Now I pause for a random picture of poop:

This is a banana slug, the namesake of University of California, Santa Cruz. The rumor is that you can lick them to get a "tingly sensation" on your tongue. "Tingly" seems like a stupid reason to lick a slug, to me. I would go for "mind altering", but "tingly" sounds a bit lame.

Mostly Up.

Once I got to the bottom (400 feet above sea level), I had a tough choice to make. I had overshot my turnaround point about 2 miles back, and was now standing at the trailhead for another trail along a parallel gulch. A ridge of mountains (Harkins Ridge) separates Whittemore Gulch from Purisima creek, so I could either climb back up the face of the North Ridge (which I had already seen), or take a different route up Harkins Ridge. Either way, the return trip was mostly up.

The road back up was definitely difficult in some places, and I had to take several breathers along the way. The route up Harkins Ridge was shorter, but that only meant that the elevation changed more quickly.


Vistas.

Of course, you may be wondering where all the mountain pictures are, in all of this. No matter how many little features your 10 megapixle camera has, or how many angles you take a picture from, it is simply impossible to capture the majesty of these scenes with $200 of plastic, glass and circuitry.

What you can't see in this picture is the Pacific, which was shining passively beyond the far mountains.
This is the best zoom that my camera can do: here you can see Half Moon Bay, and the town of Pacifica, I think.
In all, I would recommend spending a Sunday in the mountains to anyone who couldn't spend it on the beach fishing---even if your hiking boots aren't 100% broken in. Trust me---the blisters are worth it.

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains of the moon.

JRR Tolkein