Pax Nortona – A Blog by Joel Sax
From the Land of the Lost Blunderbuss
Whiting Ranch Wilderness 7
Posted on June 7, 2003 in Biomes Hikes and Trails Photos
Garnette and Donna were sure that I was heading to my death as I walked the sandstone ridge depicted at left. They yelled to me from the main trail: “Joel! Come back! That’s not a trail!” Eventually I did, but I just had to walk out to the last scrub oak that hung over the sandstone cliff that I saw every time I passed along Santiago Canyon Road.
We were out on one of our Writer Walks last week with Donna and Garnette. I was making a report for Localhikes.com on the Borrego Trail. Weather reports had projected an overcast day. This did not happen. The clouds broke and sun stabbed through the brain of everyone who didn’t wear a hat. Donna wanted the wind blowing through her short brownish-blonde hair and stuffed the cap we gave her into her backpack. A quarter mile into the open Red Rock Trail, she said that things were starting to look a little funny. We put a hat on her head and fed her water immediately: the symptoms disappeared.
Lynn and I had learned our lesson on our first vacation together. She didn’t listen to me at Lava Beds National Monument. Out by Fleener Chimneys, where the lava rock bristled and the sun slammed hard, she developed a case of heat exhaustion. I spent the entire night sponging her down and feeding her salt water in a tent.
I had to strip her down. “I’d do the same for you, Donna,” I teased. “Or for anyone.”
I had a bit of a scare today while hiking at Riley Wilderness Park near Coto de Caza. I was whiffling through the grass along the Pheasant Run Trail when I suddenly saw the fat body of a snake in the grass next to the trail. I jumped back and hollered. The snake disappeared into the wild oats and foxtails. The pinkish tint and the lack of a rattle identified it as a red racer.
I’d seen these before in the wild: they are quite common. Two summers ago, I took Lynn for a drive down Waterman Canyon in the San Bernardino National Forest. One of these glided across the asphalt, a levitating ribbon. By the time I braked, it had disappeared into the underbrush on the other side.
Lynn thought I made quite the scene when I jumped. Neither she nor the ranger to whom I reported the incident blamed me, given that it was rattlesnake country. Still, I wish she’d been videotaping my short climb. I would have loved to watch me in my panic.
Click on the picture to view today’s gallery.
