Checking on Caches

Today, I went on a hike up in the Claremont Wilderness Park. It was the first 5 mile hike doing one of the loops in several months and it really felt good to get out on the "trail." You'll notice I put the word trail in quotes. Park of the trail, as you can see here is a maintenance road leading up to a microwave tower on the hill overlooking this part of the wilderness park. When I hike, I always come up that way as it's pretty slippery and I'd rather slip going uphill as opposed to downhill. I very rarely take that particular trail downhill for that reason.

Anyway, part of the purpose, besides just getting out and enjoying the 75 degree January weather we're having, was to check on some of my caches along the trail since I hadn't been up this way in awhile. I'm happy to report that the ones that I checked on, all were right where they should be. 

I used to always worry about cache maintenance a lot and didn't have many cache hides, because I felt that if I had a lot of cache hides, then all my time would be taken up in cache maintenance and not cache finding. But over the years, I've gotten a different attitude regarding caches. First, you don't have to check on all of them all of the time. Second, pick an area and just check on the ones in that area. It works for me now and I'm still able to maintain a good balance between the two aspects of geocaching.

After checking on the caches along this part of the trail, I then headed into the interior of the park. Most of the hard part, the uphill slog along that slippery road was done and the rest of the hike was predominantly downhill on good dirt fire roads. I got to enjoy the views and the good weather. 

As I started working my way down the other side of the canyon, I descended into one of my favorite parts of the trail. It follows a stream that is intermittently wet and dry depending upon the season. There's lots of sycamore trees lining the creek bank which means it's usually cool, green and shady in the summertime, but today I could see lots of sky since the sycamores have dropped their leaves. I've also encountered several snakes and other wildlife in this section, but saw none today. Even the lizards which seem to be everywhere were only venturing out in the really sunny areas and this part wasn't sunny because of the lateness of the day.

I noticed some of the first weedy plants were starting to grow in this area too. I was particularly intrigued by the patterns on the leaves of this plant. I'm not sure what kind it is and I'm sure I wouldn't want to bushwhack through it. Look closely and you can see some nasty spikes on the end of each lobe of the leaves of this thing. Whatever it is, it definitely wants to protect itself, although, I seriously doubt it would stand a chance against a deer if they wanted to partake in eating it.

With more rain expected in the area in the next 10 days, the next time I get up on that part of the trail, the growth will be substantially lusher and taller. That's perfect, in my estimation.

June Bugs in July?

We've had lots of June bugs this summer for some reason.  It's probably because we had such a wet winter.  I actually saw a photo today, that said it was a good thing they only eat plants.

Every so often, I like to take photos of insects and creepy crawly things.  Most of the people on Facebook already know this.  I like spiders.  Insects, not so much, mainly because they're pests.  They fly in your face and annoy the heck out of you.  They suck your blood and spread disease. And so I like spiders and bats, because they eat lots of insects.

However, insects do provide many important things for us. They pollinate the flowers we love to smell and they pollinate the flowers of all of our food we eat. We need to be thinking very clearly about bees in the future.  Actually, we need to be acting on bee welfare right now.  We run out of bees, half of our population of people worldwide will probably disappear due to mass starvation.  That's a sobering thought.

And so I leave you with this June bug on some Hydrangea flowers. Yes, I know this post is in August, but I took the photo in late July.

Leaves of three, let them be

Today I went on a hike in Marshall Canyon, which is located a little northwest of me in the town of LaVerne.  I have many geocaches hidden up there and it was a nice day to walk up and check on them.

The trail is notorious for having a lot of poison oak alongside of it and it didn't disappoint today at all.  In fact, with all of the rain we've had this year, I was anticipating on seeing a lot of it.  Hillsides were covered in it and there was plenty of it on both sides of the trail, but whoever is maintaining the trail is doing a good job of keeping it at bay.  Not once, while I was hiking, did I ever feel like the poison oak was encroaching onto the trail.

However, the poison oak is very healthy.  Looking at the photo, you can tell those leaves are about the size of my hand.  They usually don't grow that large, but this has been a really good year for rain, and thus most vegetation.  I guess you can say, it's more food for the deer.

And if you guessed there's a geocache nearby, you would be right.  It's not one of mine, but to find it, you have to gingerly make your way around that particular bush, then lean out with one hand on a tree trunk to view around the other side to get the cache.  Fortunately, I didn't have to do that since I've already found that particular cache.  

I just wish other people would be more cognizant about where they put their caches so you don't possibly have people walk directly into the stuff.  I know what it looks like, but I'm sure a lot of other people don't.  It's one of the reasons I don't pet dogs on this particular trail.  It's too easy for a dog to brush up against it and transfer the oil of the plant to their fur.  Then, if you pet the dog, the oil is now on you.  Not something I'd want to get.

Nature finds a way

Hiking in the woods, you see some very interesting things. We walked by this tree and just marveled at the tenacity of the tree as it clung to the side of the cliff with its roots running in several different directions looking for nourishment and stability.

If you look closely, you can see several plants growing in the roots of the tree.  Soil had obviously collected there and seeds from other plants were growing in those tiny pockets of soil.

Eventually, more erosion will happen and the tree will lose some of its support and probably fall.  But for now, life goes on and it seemed to be doing quite well.