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Geography Course 198

Some highlights from my camping trip.

Millard Canyon Hike

I like to sleep in until 10am when there's no class I have to push myself out of bed for, but I woke up at 6:22am this Sunday morning ready to go hiking in Altadena near JPL.

The day had a rough start. There was a group of us going in a small bus, but two of my friends went on their own and got desperately lost, never making it to the canyon. Although from what they described, they did have an exasperatingly hysterical adventure of their own, getting lost in the canyon and having a run in with a Jet Propulsion Lab security guard (never to be messed with) and getting mistaken for house maids in a gated community. But that's definitely a whole other story.

Those of us on the bus headed out from Pasadena City College in the right direction thankfully. Along the way we passed the haunted/Enchanted Forest where my friend described the morbid details behind the forest's notoriety. Evidently, there used to be a meat processing plant underground, somewhere in the canyon wall I suppose, where two men dragged their victims to their deaths. Though now teenagers and college students dare themselves and their friends into the canyon during the dead of night, keeping an eye out for ghosts and scarily enough, the cops. The bus rumbled on and we passed near Gravity Hill where, as the story goes, the ghosts of schoolchildren from a horrible accident push your car up the hill while the car is in neutral. We passed the places of these (could be true) urban legends and headed into Millard Canyon.

We had reached the Millard campgrounds and gotten off the bus before I, mortified, realized that this wasn't the place we were meeting the volunteers from another organization. The bus was about to leave stranding us, but my friend signaled the driver and let him know that this wasn't the right place. We boarded the bus again and headed down the canyon towards JPL finally reaching the right road.

We had planned to join with a local environmental organization called the Arroyo Seco Foundation, but found that they had headed up the canyon trail before we got there. However, one of the organization volunteers was thankfully notified that we were trying to reach them and so came down to meet us.

Once in the canyon we wound our way through jutting rocks and the small streams sheltering the small frogs that call the canyon home. We passed over makeshift wooden planks over larger streams, careful not to let any one of us fall into the water. One of volunteers had smartly brought his rain boots and was able to make his way through the course of the stream without fear of getting wet.

Can you see the frog??

In addition to frogs we also found a salamander that was accidentally startled when one of our participants passed a little too close to it prompting the salamander to hurriedly make it's way up the canyon from the stream.

The main reason we went in the hike though was to pick up trash and so as soon as we met up with the rest of the group, which consisted of a couple girl scouts and boy scouts earning their badges with their parents, we got some trash bags and those metal trash picker uppers whose name escapes me and began to look for any trash around the canyon.

It was a really fun time. We learned a bit about the plants around and how it was used in the past. For instance, the Native Americans used mule fat for bows and arrows because of how straight it is. Though it's called mule fat because miners on their way up the canyon would feed their mules the plant to keep them nourished.

The air was fresh and brisk and there were only a couple of people on the canyon trail with their dogs. Though it felt isolated and was quiet, at the top of the canyon to the side were houses, which might have explained a rusty sink we found at the bottom of the canyon.

Bonus: There's a couple great bike paths near the canyon that go alongside the stream and JPL.

I will definitely be returning soon.

A Walk Up The Mountain

We were preparing for the long hike: 11,760 feet to Kersage pass carrying our sleeping bags, tents, crunched up food in two bear canisters, a lot of water, a small propane powered stove, propane canisters, tools, clothes and other small items like chap stick. My father and brother were carrying about 30 pounds of equipment on their backs.  I was only carrying 15 pounds though because they were gentlemen and in no way could I manage 30 pounds, having exercised a little to none within the past months.  Our breakfast was cookies and water.  We left the car in the parking lot and started up the path.

My brother and I take a rest

I was keeping up at first, but I began to tire after the first mile.  The backpack began to dig into my shoulders and where before I was breathing calmly through my nose, I now was gasping for air.  The wind cooled my face, but my harsh breathing burned my throat.  I didn’t say anything yet though, because my father and brother didn’t seem to be struggling and I didn’t want to be the one to hold them up.  I reassured myself that I wasn’t weak.  I was suffering from jet lag, having come up northeast 239 miles, which wasn't much I realized, but anything to reassure my ego.

We had reached the first lake and took a break at a giant boulder, setting our backpacks down.  I grabbed a Tiger Milk bar while my brother glared.  At REI, he made it clear that the Tiger Milk bars were his and that I could have the PowerBars.  I ate the Tiger Milk bar in front of him.

The wind went whistling through the mountain pass.  It was cool and dry.  There were a couple of other straggling backpackers making their way up the meandering pass.  I had been to Yosemite National Park before and the contrasts between this part of the Sierra and the other parts forming Yosemite is incredibly stark.  Yosemite is swarming with not only state and national backpackers and campers, but also international people too.  Here, I've seen maybe 10 people pass by us.  

Rain shadow east of the Sierra

We were on the east side of the Sierra Nevadas, near Owens Valley, an already desolate place due to the rain shadow of the mountain.  I learned in my geography course that when the westerly winds confront the west face of the Sierra, the winds rise up the mountains creating uplift, which in turn, produces rainfall and snowfall.  However, the east side, without the westerlies, becomes a desert or steppe climate.  As we were driving up from Los Angeles, passing the valley I thought that the city had an abandoned feel to it.  “There’s Manzanar,” my dad said at one point.  It looked like nothing more but a skeleton of what remained of the barracks.  As we passed Manzanar I thought, what a lonely place.  It’s a desert, barren and bleak.  But actually, it wasn't exactly so.

Manzanar Pilgrimage April 2011

Through my school, Pasadena City College, I recently got to go the Manzanar Pilgrimage.  I witnessed a vibrant community surrounding the event.  Taiko drums call out resoundingly and people of many faiths come together at the event.  Colorful paper cranes hang at the foot of the monument near a man playing the bag pipes.  

Pothole Lake created from glaciation millions of years ago

I stared at the still waters of the lake thinking about Manzanar and Owens Valley left to dust after the LA aqueduct.  The water of the lake weas trapped in what looked like a giant pothole, which explains its name big Pothole Lake, created by glaciation that once covered the Sierra with 100 miles of ice during the Pleistocene Epoch.  Gradually, my breathing steadied and I finished the last bit of the Tiger Milk bar.  This isn’t so bad, I thought.  Then, my father strapped on his backpack and suggested we go on.  

We walked mostly in silence.  My father's a man of few words, not that he's emotionally distant though.  We talk aplenty when there's something to talk about, but when there isn't we succumb to our own thoughts.  My brother was lost in his own reverie, and was about fifty meters away so I couldn't speak to him.  

The path incline became slightly steeper.  I could hear only the crunch of the rocks under my shoes.  I stopped frequently with the pretext of needing a stretch, turning right to left while trying to catch my breath.  I fiddled with the backpack adjustments until my dad said, “Only a few hundred meters more.”  


"What’s that in feet?” I asked.  

“Like six to eight hundred,” he replied.  I sighed resignedly, but began counting the steps I took, looking forward to the moment I reached six to eight hundred. 

A view from the top

As I was counting the steps to the top, I realized I didn't mind that we didn't speak.  The quiet and loneliness of the mountain was stoic and serene.  I was dying from the effort of hiking up this mountain, but I felt somewhat amused at my physical struggle.  There was no mayhem apart from the one raging in my muscles and in my head.  The hike wasn’t a trek into desolation, but peaceful, silent reflection.

 When finally we got to the peak we could see the Sierra Mountains all around us. The view was gorgeous. Snow capped mountains surrounded us.  The valley lay below along with the stunningly deep blue lakes.  I breathed in fresh, crisp air and looked forward to the long hike down.

What lies on the other side

Polarized sunglasses, Flashlights, and Hiking boots.