So I'm back from my first (and probably last) camping trip. Since it was such an epic and unusual experience for me - not to mention a source of amusement for all you who know my family just doesn't camp - I've decided to chronicle my journey in detail.
I've discussed the camping trip a couple of times recently - like HERE, for instance - but if you missed it, you should know that I'm really only doing this because it's worth about 10% of my semester grade for Crises of the Planet (Geo 108) which fulfills my lab science credit. Only 170 of us, or about half the class, came on the trip.
Professor Lawford Anderson teaches this class. He's an endearingly insane, impossibly loud, and ridiculously hilarious individual. He also tends to speak in the third person when he gets excited, which made for an interesting weekend. He's just a character.
The picture really does not do his personality justice. You have to meet the guy to get it.
Anyway, the night before the trip, he emailed us this map of the stops. Before this, none of us had any idea where we were going.
9 am Saturday morning we all piled on some charter buses and we were off...Our first stop was HENNINGER FLATS (1), in Eaton Canyon above Altadena. We explored the bottom of the canyon first. Dr. A pointed out some rocks over two billion years old, and then informed us this is where we would be taking our "little jaunt up the hill" (let's just be clear, we're at the base of MT. Wilson).
Of course, because of Dr. A's whole third-person-thing, it was more like "Come with Dr. A!! He'll show you the way up this LIVING, BREATHING, EARTH!! Just a little jaunt up the hill! WHOOP, WHOOP!" (You know those people who ALWAYS sound like they're yelling? Dr. A's one of them.)
Here is a terrain photo of the "little jaunt up the hill." We trekked all the way up the Old Wilson Trail (dotted line) from where it connects to the curve of Pinecrest Drive.
It was a hot, dusty, miserable march along 2.7 miles of a steep, shade-less trail. A ridiculously steep climb. Dr. A, in his short sleeve button down and jeans, just started forward at this brisk pace and didn't look back. He is marathoner, though, and no one should ever follow a marathoner anywhere remotely outdoorsy, because it only ends badly for us regular people.
It took me about an hour and forty minutes to make it to Henninger Flats, with the huge second wave of students. We arrived about a half an hour behind Dr. A and the first few students (who really shouldn't count, being athletes/marathoners/triathaloners themselves). Several dozen never made it all, and just dropped down on the hot, dusty, steep trail along the way.
The photo makes the trail look wimpy, compared to reality. Refer back to the GoogleTerrain image to remind yourself of the ridiculousness of it. I honestly can't believe I made it, let alone in the time that I did. Check it out though -- no shade, and totally dusty. And of course, steep.
The Flats was kind of a bummer though. It wasn't of any geographical interest; Dr. A just thought it would be "fun" to hike up and eat lunch there. The worst thing was the view. Dr. A had really hyped it up, but it was disappointing and actually kind of gross due to the heavy smog cover of the day.
I pulled this off the internet. Our view that day was about four times hazier, no joke. Not a rewarding sight after that hike. Oh, hey, did I mention how STEEP that trail was? :)
The next stops were relatively quick, after the 4-5 hours we spent at Eaton Canyon.
We checked out RUBIO CANYON (2), right nearby, and Dr. A gave us some background on it. Apparently there were some gorgeous water falls at the top of the canyon, as well as a resort, but all that got filled in by a crazy landslide in the 1920s. The whole area is prone to landslides like that. Those slides create "scree chutes" in the canyon. Here's one in Rubio Canyon:
Next we checked out the TILTED ROCKS (3) along the Templin Highway. Along one side of the road are ridges, and the other looks out into the scenic canyon. When the buses pulled up, there was a white Escalade parked at the look out, and the people inside were clearly enjoying much more than the view. Dr. A was sure to point that out (laughing, and at the top of his lungs) before he started explaining the significance of the silt.
Apparently, the different layers and composition of the sandstone and shale indicate that the whole area used to be in the shallows of the Pacific Ocean about 30,000 years ago. It just goes to show you that even those ordinary rock formations along the road have something remarkable to say about what happened to this planet.
The fourth stop was at some FAULTED SEDIMENTARY ROCKS (4) nearby, and those told a very similar story.
We had to cut the fifth stop, the RIDGE BASIN (5), because an stop at Ralph's (between 3 and 4) that was supposed to be 20 minutes went way too long (don't even get me started) and we needed to get to the campsite before dark to set up the tents.
But the weekend was hardly over...
NEXT POST: The Overnight
