The Tale of a Beard, Four Paws and a Forest
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Dungeons of Maptitude Review No. 5: Harrison’s 2014 Sespe Wilderness
Earlier this year, backcountry cartography stalwart Tom Harrison released his revised Sespe Wilderness Trail Map, updated for 2014. For those who tread the Sespe Wilderness and its immediate environs with any frequency, the Harrison map is the only area map worth having in your kit.
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National Public Lands Day: Ortega Trail and Horseshoe Hill
Late in coming, I know, but following is the short account of a service project I led for the Los Padres Forest Association this past National Public Lands Day (weekend) on September 28th. The official USFS press release read thusly: A work crew 72 volunteers deep descended on Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center, the lower Ortega…
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When Lion Roars
I’d been up Lion Canyon just a few weeks prior, looking for a Depression-era diversion dam that I believed had been used to supply water to the old CCC camp at Piedra Blanca (aka Lion Camp). And on that day the cobble-strewn creek had been a dry, sorry affair. (You know, like nearly the entire…
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Chumash Service
The latest issue of the Condor Call, the local Sierra Club newsletter, includes a short article about a service project fellow VWRs Kim Coakley and Bardley Smith and I led this past Spring in the Chumash Wilderness. (Read it here.) So naturally, you must wonder who did the work. Perhaps you’re asking yourself: did they…
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Far East Camino Exploratory
Some years ago, the Resident Science Officer and I hit upon an idea to spend 40 days and 40 nights in the Los Padres in the Fall of 2013. But you know what? Real life always gets in the way of our crazy plans. So instead, we opted for 3 nights along Kennedy Ridge and…
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The Tale of the Two Iron Horses, Part 1 of 2
Indulge me now some idle date-convergence musings. For many Americans — myself included — July 4, 1939 is known as the date Lou Gehrig gave his famous farewell address at Yankee Stadium (“… today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”). The “Iron Horse” has always been my favorite player,…