canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
My blog about our hike Sunday at Russian Ridge Open Space unexpectedly grew large— just like the hike itself more than doubled in length based on choices we made on the fly— so I've split it into a second blog entry.

I left off in part 1 of our hike at Russian Ridge with us angling up a wide-open hillside just beneath the ridge. After climbing gradually for a while with 180° views across the mountains to the Pacific Ocean (not that we could see the water, it being totally socked in with thick fog) the trail dipped under tree cover and began descending.

Stop to smell the roses? No, that's poison oak! (Russian Ridge Open Space, Nov 2023)

Hey, look, fall foliage! Is it time to stop and smell the roses? ...No, wait, that's poison oak! 😰

Shortly after this photo op we reached the next trail junction. This is where I thought we'd loop back up to the ridge and then back to the trailhead, making a nice little hike of just over 2 miles for the day.

"How about we go further, to the Hawk Trail?" Hawk suggested.

It would not only more than double our mileage but add at several hundred additional feet of ascent. The weather was nice and we were enjoying it, so I agreed.

We even saw an actual hawk on the Hawk trail. 😂

Russian Ridge Open Space (Nov 2023)

Usually when we hike the Hawk Trail at Russian Ridge we loop around so that we're hiking down it. Sunday we went up. It's steep! Going up it makes it a different kind of challenge. Going down it's all ankles and trying not to slip on the dry, dusty surface. Going up it's all cardio and muscle tone.

Finally we got up to the top. ...Not that the top is even the top!

Russian Ridge Open Space (Nov 2023)

From atop the Hawk Trail there's still plenty more hiking, including another few hundred feet of ascent. On the whole day we hiked over 5 miles, more than we estimated even when we made the choice to extend our hike. By the time we were done we were tired and sore. But it was a good kind of tired and sore! It's been too many weeks— six of them, now— since we got out like this. Hopefully we won't wait another 6 before doing something like this again.

canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
North Carolina Travelog #13
Pisgah National Forest - Thu, 21 Sep 2023. 4:45pm

After visiting a bunch of waterfalls on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge Mountains today, most recently Log Hollow Falls, we drove up to the ridge itself. Here the Blue Ridge Parkway traces along the crest of the mountain for an amazing 469 miles. We will only drive about 20 miles of it today, from the junction with US-276 to the junction with NC-215, then back down the mountain and looping along US-64 back to our hotel in Brevard. Elevations along this stretch of the parkway rise above 5,000 feet.

In this 20 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway we're driving today there are several points of interest marked on the map that caught our attention. One was Graveyard Fields. Despite its very metal name it wasn't actually our top interest, more like maybe #3 instead... until from 1/2 mile away we caught a glimpse of a big waterfall there. Then we knew we had to stop.

So, what is Graveyard Fields? Before arriving I guessed, based on the name, it's a place where some early settlers died trying to cross the mountain in a harsh winter storm, kind of like how Donner Pass in California is named for the doomed Donner family emigrants. Nope, I was wrong. It's actually about trees. This sign in front of the namesake Graveyard Fields explains:

Graveyard Fields on the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina (Sep 2023)

A strong windstorm hundreds of years ago knocked down all the trees in this area, leaving them looking like a huge graveyard. Then a fire in 1925 burned away all the fallen trees. Now, 98 years later, the area has completely regrown and looks nothing like a graveyard. I'm amused by the irony that the fix for one natural disaster was another natural disaster. 😅
canyonwalker: Driving on the beach at Oceano Dunes (4x4)
North Las Vegas Travelog #15
Desert National Wildlife Refuge - Mon, 19 Feb 2023, 1pm

After our morning scenic drive beneath Mt. Charleston (previous blog in this series) we ate a quick lunch in the northeastern corner of Las Vegas then drove back out to the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (DNWR). At the visitor's center they had a nice display about Bighorn Sheep.

Sheep display at Desert National Wildlife Refuge (Feb 2023)

The Sheep Range is the principal mountain inside the park, so would we see any bighorns? Alas, no. They're generally reclusive animals, and the high desert is a tough environment that doesn't encourage them to take extra risks. We've seen them up close in other places, though, so we'd have to satisfy ourselves with that plus the fact that they'd like be watching us from well hidden positions.

While we scoped out DNWR for today's adventures thinking we might go hiking, it turned out that the hiking was lame, so we switched to Plan B— actually Plan C, as taking that scenic drive below Mt. Charleston was already Plan B— and chose to drive the Mormon Well 4x4 road through the park.

Driving the Mormon Well Road through Desert National Wildlife Refuge (Feb 2023)

Mormon Well Road is 41 miles of gravel and dirt road between paved endpoints. Would we make it in our rented Toyota Rav4 AWD cute-ute? The rangers at the visitor's center thought the road was in fairly good condition, but I could tell from their wording and body language that they really didn't know. I chose to trust in my skills at offroad driving that I could get through more challenges than most people and also know when to turn back if necessary.

The first many miles of the road, at least, were easy going. We started with a few miles of climbing up to Yucca Gap at elev. 4,000 ft. The road surface, as you can see in the pic above, was graded gravel.

Driving the Mormon Well Road through Desert National Wildlife Refuge (Feb 2023)

The exposed rock in Yucca Gap features a lot of fossils. We drove down a short side trail and parked the car while Hawk went exploring on the rocks.

We're a little worried about time on this trip so we didn't stay too long. The time issue is that we've got to get back to Las Vegas for a flight this evening. To do that we need to be off this trail by 5pm. To be done at 5pm we have to... well, that depends on how long it takes to drive 41 miles. 41 miles offroad is not like driving 41 miles on pavement. Here we're doing well if we're averaging above 10mph. And that's not counting time we want for stops like this one.

A Joshua Tree forest along Mormon Well Road in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge (Feb 2023)

Our next (brief) stop was in a Joshua Tree forest. This pic doesn't look very forest-y, does it? That's because we're in high desert, at 5,000 ft. elevation. There's not a lot of water here. These Joshua Trees— yucca brevifolia, also called Yucca Trees— are hardy, but this is the best even they can manage in this austere environment.

The adventure continues
! Read about our drive through Peekaboo Canyon.


canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
Hawaii April Travelog #30
Puakō - Fri, 15 Apr, 2022, 5:30pm

We took it easy around the resort in the morning and the afternoon today in exchange for going out later. Our first plan was to visit Puakō Beach, recommended by semi-local friend, Dave. Then we saw on the map a petroglyphs reserve and decided to visit that first. So the beach would be our second plan. Well, first plan, second act. 😅 Anyway....

The petroglyphs area was near a beach parking lot. At first we wondered, "Is this really the right place?" as all we could see facing away from the beach was The Floor Is Lava.

The Floor is Lava @ Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

This is part of what I described as my first impression upon landing in Kona-Kailua earlier in the week. The floor is lava. Here at least it's only a small patch of lava. There are also trees around the edge of it.

A gravel path wound through the piles of lava rock. It all looked... a little too manicured. There were a few stones with etchings on them tilted up on display. An informational sign openly cast doubt on whether these were genuine artifacts or... modern reproductions. I thought about giving up on this park as being hokum— it was clearly a concession created by a high-dollar resort nearby in exchange for permission to build— but then the trail turned sharply and narrowed as it ducked into a thicket of trees.

It's like the Blight at Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

When I say these trees were thick, I mean they were thick like the stunted trees of the Blight in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. Their trunks and branches twisted around in crazy patterns. We had to duck and dodge in many places, and even with many of the trees being scorched by fire and mostly bare, the canopy overhead was so thick we sometimes couldn't tell what color the sky was.

Suddenly the thick stand of stunted trees gave way to a volcanic clearing.

Large field of petroglyphs at Puako Petroglyphs Park (Apr 2022)

Here the lava rocks were oddly smooth and all tilted in the same direction. Petroglyphs were carved into most of the "tiles" separated by surface cracks. And they all seem oriented toward the Kohala volcano.

What do the sigils mean? The signs say we don't know. That's really sad because it's not like the Hawaiian people disappeared 800 ago. Hawaiians still live in Hawaii. And even the last Hawaiian royal, Queen Lili'uokalani, lived until 1917. Coudln't we, uh, ask Hawaiian people what these Hawaiian symbols mean? Well, we can, but that's where the sad part comes in: they don't really know, either. Through the 19th and 20th centuries foreign powers (Britain, US, and Japan) sought to control Hawaii. One form of control was to replace their education with colonial schools. Even Lili'uokalani learned in a school run by Christian missionaries who sought to suppress her cultural heritage as being primitive and ungodly. Now we're all poorer for it.
canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
We made our hike last Sunday a twofer. Not only did we hike through Corte de Madera Open Space to the Tafoni Monolith (aka SKULL ROCK); after that we visited the Methusela Tree. It was right next to where we parked, so in that sense us parking at the "wrong" parking lot to hike to Sku— I mean,Tafoni— wasn't really wrong.

The Methusela Tree near Woodside, CA is over 1800 years old (Jan 2022)

Methusela is a reference to the biblical character Methuselah, in the Book of Genesis, who lived 969 years. (The name is spelled various ways in English because it's translated from a language with a different alphabet. In Hebrew it's מְתוּשֶׁלַח.) This particular tree has lived almost twice as long as that patriarch, an estimated 1,860 years.

This tree is a California Redwood. While 1,860 years is very old for this type of tree— really for any living thing— it's not like the Bristlecone Pine. A grove of Bristlecone Pine on Wheeler Peak in the Great Basin desert are 3,000+ years old. A grove in the White Mountains of California has Bristlecone Pine trees over 5,000 years old. Even other redwoods, especially the Sequoia Redwood (different species from California, aka Coastal, Redwood) can live to 3,500 years old.

While Methusela here isn't the oldest tree, she's the oldest in the area. Most other redwoods around here are thought to be only several hundred years old. And because this tree is a redwood it's big. She topped out at 225' tall before a storm in 1954— a few month ago, in her life span— damaged her top, and it broke off. The base, where you see us standing in the pic, is 14' diameter.

canyonwalker: My other car is a pair of hiking boots (in beauty I walk)
North Coast Roadtrip travelog #5 
Crescent City, CA - Sun, 28 Mar 2021. 8pm.

We've had a busy day out here on the far northwestern coast of California. But busy in a good way: less driving to places and more doing stuff once there. Today we've taken short hikes to a few waterfalls, walked through old growth forest among huge redwood trees, and driven miles on the beach to collect rocks.

In between all that we did drive, of course. The odometer shows 120 miles for the day. But that's way less than yesterday's 305 miles and even Friday night's 155 miles. Not having to drive so much is the benefit of staying in one place on a trip. Tonight we're staying at the same oceanfront hotel in Crescent City as last night. Tomorrow, though, it's time to head home, and the miles will pile up again. We'll drive at least 400 miles tomorrow; maybe more if we take a side trip out to the Mendocino coast.

Where's the Pics?

Waterfalls, redwoods, and sand dunes sound great; So where are the pictures? you might ask. It takes time to review them, select the right ones to share, and clean them up. Doing that is the main reason why my travel blogs tend to fall days behind, even for short trips. [Already this blog is 36 hours behind - Ed.] I'm blogging the outline of the trip now; I'll come back with pictures and details later. Stay tuned!

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