4 posts tagged “california”
The grassy swale: Consider this wonderful pursuit, perfectly combining function and design. A drier version of the marsh wastewater treatment plants such as that used by the City of Arcata, CA, they give us the option to do something good for the environment and, by extension, ourselves. Not to mention, they also provide some welcome landscaping.
Looks like it's catching on! It reminds me of my last doctor's visit, when whole wheat bread was recommended. Yet another innovation popularized by that group oft reviled as "hippies"!
What will we see next -- a Scientific American cover story about how solar energy can supply the bulk of U.S. energy needs? Compare that to the traditional response -- trillions for massively destructive warfare and strategic blunders in oil-rich areas such as Iraq. Well, looking at it from the perspective of a couple of the chief decision makers, why think when it hurts and you can get others to do the fighting you avoided when it was your turn, all to increase your influence?
Just a stone's throw into the hills from the bustling "Silicon Valley" of Santa Clara County, California lies a microregion seemly untouched by the tides of change below. Cycling along Stevens Creek Canyon road, which tracks Stevens Creek for about four miles, yields some juicy atmosphere. Conjuring images of Appalachia, it's a welcome break from the plastic wealth on display in the valley below.
The arboreal junkyards of rusting machinery by the road, with the dark dampness. give kind of a Halloween feel to the place. Truly, one enters a strangely isolated zone as one travels upstream. Throughout the area, tall trees (often redwoods) shroud everything in a seemingly permanent shade.
One time I took a buddy up there. A native inhabitant rolled by in his roaring 70s-era 4wd pickup. Both of us must have looked like skinny (well, by comparison to the local population) little colorful bug-guys in our colorful cycling gear with biking glasses that really make us look entomological: Bugs flying in from another world. So, taking advantage of the extra lookee-see time of the road curve we were on, he let out an unforgettable "hoooodllee".
Seeming quite out of place in my cycling gear, I made sure not too tarry to long while I took these photos:
The access road depicted leads to the lower parking lot at Jet Propulsion Labs. At the road's beginning, it is paired with another road that leads directly into the Angeles National Forest!
The road becomes a tree-lined trail above a (very low in Summer) river, where bear sometimes come for water. However, the trail climbs almost immediately into a dessicated landscape, pockmarked by a few hardy, small pines here and there. At the time of the photo above (August 2007), the area had only seen three inches of rain in the past year! Open areas, the likes of which are normally covered in golden, dried grass in Northern California, are barren with all matter turned to powder, leaving the soil there (of a decomposed-granite base) baking in the sun.
The soil there is very crumbly and dusty. Jogging the trail up into the mountains, I noticed how even the prickly-pear cacti had some pads that were wrinkled due to lack of water. I also imagined that the trail would be a veritable dust-storm when the Santa Ana winds come in November. If you jog or run here in these conditions, be sure to take advantage of electrolyte supplements and plenty of water. Don't even think of going out into these conditions without being fully hydrated.
The views are incredible from this trail. A few miles in, one can even see the Los Angeles skyline! Importantly, and unlike some of the other trails in the area, it is wide enough to afford a fair bit of warning to the intrepid jogger in the event of the presence of a rattlesnake. I jogged this trail back in Spring, when it was misty and damp, and the clouds near the higher parts of the trail were very refreshing.
