The Second Saint: San Jacinto

The last two weekends were pretty full. My plan was to finish off climbing Southern California’s three Saints: Mt. San Jacinto, San Grogonio and I have climbed San Antonio (Baldy) a number of times.

I went for a scouting trip on Saturday and got a permit to San Grogonio, then drove to Palm Springs to size up San Jacinto. What a monster of mountain that one is. I wanted to take the long route from Palm Springs, which is called the “Cactus to Clouds” route. Thank god I didn’t. If the rattle snakes don’t kill you, the heat and thirst surely will. The ‘oven’ at the start of the hike quickly gets up to 95 degrees at 10:00am. By noon it’s 105. A lazy and often tardy hiker like me stands no chance, starting at 1:00 pm.

So I cheated and took the aerial tram on Sunday which took me up to 8500 feet, in a cool 65 degrees temperature, well out of reach of all but the most hardy and ambitious of rattle snakes. I saw none of those.

The video documentary is here.

An Open Letter to My Desert Nemeses

Dear Rattle Snakes:

I understand you are a native American species and I should respect the natives, albeit I am yet to see a legitimate birth certificate. There is no reason for you to lay around all day, be a burden on society and terrorize the unsuspecting, in my case very suspecting, hikers.

I know you have had a rough childhood. Hatching must have been a terrifying experience. I can only imagine what thoughts crossed your mind when you hatched and looked at yourself. "yay, I am alive, hooray...wha...hey...WTF? No arms! No legs! What is this? Some kinda Devine joke?" You must have just wanted to crawl under a rock.

But with passage of time and in your early puberty, you noticed your tail and started playing with it. "Oooooh, this is rather fun!" Yes I know your perverted minds. You were warned that you could go blind, but you couldn't stop and that's how your troubled life began.

It is not too late to stop. You could still be a contributing member of the society. Look at Hellen Keller! Sure there are lots of jokes about her. If only she could look at you and see how terrible you are, alas she is no longer around, even if she were, well she couldn’t see or hear you. Anyway, just stop, please! Can’t we all just get along?

San Gabriel to Intervene

Here is a Peter Gabriel tribute to this magnificent  mountain, San Jacinto, holding the line between the ridiculously artificial life style of Palm Springs on one side and the life of the Apache Indians on the other. 

Sinko de Afflatus

Well, it’s cinco de mayo and I am missing out on the big party back home. Talked to the gang and they are all happy that they don’t have to endure my “sinko de mayo” story this year. It has to do with the sinking of the titanic that was also carrying mayonnaise to Mexico.
I went to Laguna last night with a couple of work buddies and did a stroll down the main street and hit a couple of watering holes. I was sitting at the bar, nursing a beer, when I heard “You have a transformer in your backyard that is really hurting your energy” addressed to me. I looked over, a black haired, older woman sitting close by was talking to me. “Hmmm…interesting pick up line,” I thought, “I wonder how often it works.”
The odd conversation started. She was in ‘energy’ business. In other words, she was a spiritual teller that made a  living by talking to Mother earth who gave her an afflatus every so often, such as the backyard transformer hazard. She ventured to tell that I had two children, sons. No, one of each. No, daughters, but one was a tom boy. Alrighty then. She kept giving me stark warnings about the transformer though. The remedy was for me to buy a bag of tobacco, sprinkle it on the ground beneath the transformer and tell mother earth to be at peace.
I looked for my friend, Bill, who was standing a few steps back and signaled him to come to my rescue. I excused myself to go to the restroom. Before leaving she told Bill “Your mom is here!” He grinned and said “She is?” “Yes, and she has a message for you. She loves you very much. And there is someone else here too. Another close person to you. Maybe your brother.” Bill’s face went dark. His brother died of cancer a couple of years ago. He talks about him often. Bill seemed more annoyed than awed. I left; he humored her for a few minutes and excused himself too.
Yes, there is a transformer in the woods in our backyard that blows up every winter and takes the neighborhood power down for days. Bill has a deceased brother. I guess in this game, if you throw enough noodles at the wall, some are bound to stick.  I always humor the spiritualist who talk about being in the ‘energy’ business. “I am too.” I say “electric cars.” “Oh don’t be so closed minded and skeptical.” I always hear back.
I am not uncomfortable with ignorance. After all, I am ignorant of about 99.99999% of what goes on in the universe and how it all works. But I hope mine is an enlightened ignorance that understands that there are things beyond our current level of comprehension. Heck, it understands that perhaps there are things beyond our total capacity to comprehend. The problem with the ‘spiritual’ ignorance is that it gives up any attempts to understand and uncover the mystery of how things really work; it simplifies everything to mundane and cliché levels of mother earth and father time. As we find out more about our world on a micro and macro level, we realize that the real ‘material’ mother earth and father time stuff is far more strange and mind boggling than the unstudied and lazy spiritual renditions of them.
No I don’t think I’ll be sprinkling tobacco under the transformer in the backyard anytime soon. I will not mediate to levitate either. Though Niel DeGross Tyson qualifies this by saying “…you could perform this stunt if you managed to let forth a powerful and sustained exhaust of flatulents.” An astrophysicists with fart humor, how great is that?!

The Trouble With Taking the Roads Less Traveled

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—   
I took the one less traveled by,   
And that has made all the difference.

And the difference is a torn quad muscle!

Last weekend's hike was fantastic. Headed to the mount baldy ski area and stormed up the trails. On the way back, I noticed a steep gravely slope on the side of the trail down to the ski lift canyon and started to contemplate bounding down the trough. It was about 500 foot of elevation loss that I could do in a minute. The grade ran to the bottom of the ski lift.
A few hikers walking by stopped and asked if I had dropped something down that slope. I told them of my intentions and they shook their heads in disbelief. "That's crazy!" The word 'crazy' is so often used in the English language. “I am thinking of leaping down this 75 degree gravel trough.” “That’s crazy!” Not “wow, that would be fun! We’re going down too!”
We chatted for a few minutes. They had their cameras out for the AFV or a viral YouTube video of a guy killing himself, with a heavy backpack. They asked for my phone number or some next of kin info, just in case I didn't make it. I just laughed, and leapt.
The gravel was deep and my feet sank in; it was a much steadier descent  than it seemed. After the first few steps I began to bound and jump, each step close to a free fall, covering twenty foot of distance. Some gravel was getting into my shoes, but not bad enough to stop me. Soon I was at the bottom, took my hat off and waved at the cheering skeptics at the top. I got cheers from the ski lift riders overhead too, who had their cameras out, somewhat disappointed that I didn’t tumble and make a funnier video.
I was charged and continued the leaps and bounds down all the way to the bottom of the ski lift and crashed on a bench in the parking lot and drank a full bottle of water, had a banana and a couple of cucumbers. A group of ski lift riders came by and said they had me on video and would email it to me. No emails from them yet.
The next day my legs were surprisingly fine. “I am sooo ultra fit!” I amazed myself. But yesterday the swelling of my right quads began and last night the pain kept me up. Today I was limping and could barely walk. Had to lift my leg with my hand to get in the car. Tonight, it’s a cocktail of painkillers and keeping my leg elevated that lets me type. I am not sure when the damage was done and why such a delayed reaction but I shudder at the thought of not being able to hike this coming weekend. I have gotten a permit to Mount St. Gorgonio, the tallest peak in SoCal, a 16 hour round trip hike and just can’t afford being injured.
The moral of the story, spare the cheap thrills and save the legs for another hike!