West End Tour

Date:  5 May 2011

Click to enlarge elevation profile

Who hiked:  Me

Where:  Boushay Road - Silver Peak - Trans-Catalina Trail

When: 0915-1440

Weather:  sunny, clear, lt breeze; temps in low/mid 70s

Distance:  9.3 miles (measured on GPS)

Elevation range: 59 ft (trailhead) - 1708 ft (Silver Peak)

Visitors to the island can access the trailhead by getting a shoreboat to and from Emerald Bay.  There is a campground at Parsons Landing, which is about a mile from Emerald Bay. Check out my "how to get around" post here.  Click here for camping information.

The fun part of today:  new GPS (Garmin GPSmap 60CSx).  The map of the hike is generated using that data.  I am also fiddling with an altitude profile -- look for that in the coming days.

I drove from the house out the West End Road (an adventure in itself) toward Emerald Bay.  The goal was to hike up the Boushay Trail, pick up Silver Peak Trail, drop down toward Starlight Beach, and come back via Parsons Landing on the Trans-Catalina Trail (TCT).  A quick look at trail maps indicated it should be around nine miles.

Calcite Mine Hike

Date:  24 April 2011

Who hiked:  Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2

Where:  Calcite Mine, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

When: 1130-1400

Distance:  4.2 miles (from "101 Hikes in Southern California")

Weather:  sunny, clear, windy; temps in low/mid 80s

Do you like sand in your lunch?  Turns out, neither do we.

Borrego Palms Canyon

Ocotillo in bloom

Date:  23 April 2011

Who hiked:  Me, Hubby, Things 1 and 2

Where:  Borrego Palm Canyon, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park

When: 1300-1700

Distance:  5.5 miles (according to GPS)

Weather:  sunny, clear, windy; temps in low/mid 80s

The Things had their spring break this week, so we decided to see the desert in the spring.  Our destination?  Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Bolsa Chica #2

GBH at Bolsa Chica

Bad pic of a reddish egret, taken through my binocs

Where: Bolsa Chica Ecological Reserve, Huntington Beach
When: 16 March 2011, 0830-1030

I was on the mainland last month and decided to bird at Bolsa Chica.  I walked a similar route to my previous post, so won't go over that again.

The most exciting find was a reddish egret...

Twelve Months: Twenty-four Hikes

I've been contemplating how to motivate myself to increase my hiking mileage.  I've been reading a lot about how public announcements of resolutions make people more likely to follow through with them.  So here it goes:

Over the next twelve months (April 2011 - April 2012), I will hike 24 times.

That's right, my "spring resolution" is to average two hikes every month. Sounds easy enough.

But then, I remember that I also have to supervise homework for two boys, get both of them to and from Scouts in Avalon, nurture my freelance writing career, continue to pursue a part-time job in science, keep healthy food in our house, make sure we have semi-clean clothes to wear, and not let the Catalina dust bury everything we own.  I have help with this stuff, but still.  It's a tough gig.

So wish me luck and stay tuned for MORE HIKING in 2011-12!!

Shout it out: "I AM A DAY HIKER!"

Tom Mangan, of Two-Heel Drive, has a great post affirming the value of day hiking.  Check it out at his blog.

I am a day hiker, not a backpacker. For years, I've thought that "backpacker" is what I should aspire to be.  That is "real" hiking.  But over time, I've come to accept that I'm not going to make the transition from hiker to backpacker.  And I'm good with that.

I'm lucky to be a hiker at all.

Parsons Landing toward Starlight Beach

Date:  23 January 2011

Who hiked:  Hubby and I

Where:  Parsons Landing toward Starlight Beach and back

When: 1120 - 1430

Distance:  5.75 miles (measured on GoogleEarth)

Weather:  sunny and clear, temps in low 70s

View of Parsons Landing from atop the waterfall

On Saturday night, Hubby and I ran into a friend, Mrs. Great Dane, who has a son the same age as Thing1.  She invited both Things to their home (farther out on the west end of Catalina) for Sunday afternoon.  Hubby and I viewed this as a prime opportunity for us to do some hiking together sans Things and took her up on her kind offer.

Sunday morning we motivated the kids to finish their Sunday jobs with the promise of a day with Great Dane boy and their new Great Dane puppy.  It was not a tough sell.  We set out for the West End, along the treacherous West End Road, dropped the Things off at Camp Great Dane, then proceeded to the bargate before Parsons Landing.  Our plan was to hike along the Trans Catalina Trail (TCT) between Parsons Landing and Starlight Beach.  We didn't intend to reach Starlight, though we were curious to see how far we could get before we needed to turn back. 

The trail was very nice, with steep uphill portions at the beginning (and even some switchbacks!) that flatten out after rounding Stony Point.  From here, the trail follows the eastern edge of Catalina with lovely views of the water and the western end of the island. 

Lemonade berry flowers

It is a beautiful time on the island, with lemonadeberry in bloom and toyon in fruit.  There are some wildflowers, but not many yet.

I have blogged about Parsons Landing before and won't belabor that portion of the hike here.  We hiked on the road, taking the fork that leads uphill (away from the beach).  In about 0.6 mi, we reached the Trans Catalina Trail (TCT).  After about 0.4 mi, the trail snakes up the face of the hill and leads to the top of a seasonal waterfall in about 0.5 mi.  The creek bed is a good place to look for amethysts and I found a nice one.  From the top of the waterfall, it's only about 0.2 mi to Stony Point, where the trail flattens out.

View of Black Point from our lunch stop

After Stony Point there are only occasional climbs, most of the walking is nice and flat.  And lovely.  We found a picturesque place for lunch and took a breather.  Then we continued until we were above Black Point (about a mile from Stony Point) where we turned around and retraced our steps.

On our return, we decided to take a side trail that forked off the main trail just beyond the seasonal waterfall.  The trail was obviously less used -- shrubs encroached on the path and grass grew at our feet.  We followed this footpath for about 0.2 mi to a makeshift bridge crossing a stream (complete with running water), and then the trail led us downhill.  There were old timbers of a hunting lodge here, which had been used by pig hunters during the boar eradication program of the 1990s.  

We picked up the road again a short while later, and crossed the TCT in about a quarter mile to continue to the beach at Parsons Landing (a distance of about 0.4 miles).  After a brief stop in the port-a-potty, we walked back to the road via the trail between Parsons Landing (about 0.5 mi) and the road that we had used on our previous hike here.

We are looking forward to hiking this with the Things -- they will really like the flat bits.  Perhaps for an overnight to Starlight Beach?

Birds:  Catalina quail (large coveys), Northern ravens, Red-tailed hawk, Western gulls, Orange-crowned warblers (heard), Spotted towhees (heard), Bewicks wren (heard)