A Hiking Diary of Catalina: Hermit Gulch Trail (the Cub Scout version)

Date: 18 February 2012

Who Hiked: Me, Hubby, Thing 2, and two other Cub Scouts

Route: Hermit Gulch Trail (out and back)

Time: afternoon -- didn't much keep track of time

Weather: sunny, clear, warm (70s)

Distance: probably a bit less than 2 miles roundtrip

Did you know that California public schools celebrate both Lincoln's birthday and President's Day? Isn't the point of President's Day to roll the whole Lincoln/Washington thing into having one holiday rather than stealing two days from the shortest month of the year?

I vote that we convert Lincoln's birthday to "Darwin Day" -- they were born on the same date after all (yes -- day, month, and year) and then I won't be so annoyed by the whole thing and the kids will still be happy with their two days off during February.

What does this have to do with hiking? Yeah, I'm getting to that...

Silver bush lupine (?)
(Lupinus albifrons)

I am the den leader for Thing 2's Cub Scout den (a combined Wolf/Bear den) and Hubby is kind enough to help out. We have meetings on Mondays after school -- and we miss two Mondays in February because the schools are unwilling to combine Lincoln's and President's Day. To make up for this, we decided to do a Cub Scout Day on a Saturday.

Our morning was spent at the Catalina Conservancy Nature Center, followed by a gourmet lunch of hotdogs and poorly sliced vegetables, followed by s'mores -- all made by the boys themselves. After lunch, we went on a short hike up the Hermit Gulch Trail.

The plan? To hike until they wanted to turn around.

It turns out that at least one boy wanted to rest every thirty feet or so, and we had to amend the plan to one in which we would hike until Hubby and I wanted to turn around. We coaxed the boys up the trail for about a mile, stopping to talk about various "Be prepared" kinds of things along the way (e.g. "What should you do if you are in a school bus accident?"). Not a hike for the record books, perhaps, but there were some wildflowers blooming (shooting stars and lupines especially) and the boys got to suck on a lemonade berry.

Not-quite-ripe lemonade berry fruits
(Photo from March 2011)

[An aside here: Now that I see that lemonade berry is in the Family Anacardiaceae, the same family as poison ivy and mangos, I'm thinking twice about the wisdom of having each boy put a fruit in his mouth. The knowledge that I (and my children) have done this before without any negative repercussions and the entry on lemonade berry (or sumac) on Wikipedia -- for what Wikipedia's worth -- makes me feel a bit better.]

The Evil Genista linifolia

The flax-leaved broom (Genista linifolia) is in full bloom now. It's pretty, but the lovely flowers carpeting the canyon belies its invasive nature. All of the plants on the island descend from a few bushes planted near the St. Catherine's Hotel -- and today they are taking over the canyons in and around Avalon. The Catalina Conservancy is trying to control its spread on Conservancy lands, but populations inside Avalon city are off-limits to their efforts.

I think everyone under the age of nine had to go to the bathroom at least once. Thing 2 had a brush (literally) with poison oak (another member of the Anacardiaceae), but he appears to have escaped relatively unscathed and I hope the same is true for the other boys. I received no phone calls from angry parents anyway. I had fun -- and as you can see, I think the boys had a good time too!