Photo Essay: Hellhole Canyon, Anza-Borrego

I didn't do a very good job of planning my most recent trip to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, mostly because I've been too busy with work to pay attention to anything personal. So I kind of hoped I could just, you know, show up and let the desert speak to me.

I managed to hop onto a park-guided group hike on Saturday morning despite only four hours of sleep, and when one of my fellow hikers asked me what I was going to do on (Easter) Sunday, I said, "I don't really know. I don't really have any plans."

It's not like me to be spontaneous in the desert - a landscape so unforgiving, you have to plan and pack (water, toilet paper, sunscreen, snacks, GPS, compass, maps, etc.). So when he said, "You should go hike Hellhole Canyon. It's not too far, and it's a good one," I immediately inherited a plan.



Hellhole Canyon's first two miles or so are straightforward enough, a relatively level walk straight in to the canyon mouth.



Most of the lower regions of Anza-Borrego near Borrego Springs are missing their signature wildflowers this year (though they do contribute to a more lush landscape up in the highlands)...



...but the farther in you go, the more blossoms you can see...



...particularly on the blooming red ocotillos.





Into the canyon, the trail becomes more circuitous...



...following an old creek bed lined with blossoming cacti...



...leading to a palm oasis.





The path gets wetter as you go, leading to a grotto and, in the spring, a waterfall just over five miles in.



On the way back, a bit later in the morning with the sun beating down even more than it was before (hot even at an 8:30 a.m. departure time), more buds open, pushing their petals up for sun-bathing...



...bug-crawling...



...and bee-feeding.



It's an impressive view of the valley below, which you thankfully get to see on an out-and-back hike, since most people don't turn around to see what's behind them when they're backpacking onwards.



And it's a great time of year to visit, when even the spiny sort of plant is flowery...



...though no less spiny...



...and colorfully, staggeringly beautiful.



Related posts:
Photo Essay: Wilson Peak Via Pinyon Ridge
Photo Essay: The Wildflowers of Anza-Borrego

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

Photo Essay: Wilson Peak via Pinyon Ridge

When I first visited Anza-Borrego in 2008, I wasn't much of a hiker yet. In fact, I wasn't a hiker at all. I limited my desert travels to vehicular tourism, and when Edith suggested we get up early and take a little walk on a hot September morning, I thought, "Ick, who'd want to do that?"

Despite my disinterest, we got up early and tried anyway, but we couldn't quite find the trail. And it was hot.



I returned last year to check out the wildflowers, a bit early in the season, a bit overcrowded with camera-toting tourists, and embarked on my first real hiking of the park. I was intimidated. I got lost.



This year, I returned during peak wildflower season, and, still intimidated by the vastness of the park and the solitude of its less flowery trails, joined a group hike of the highlands, where the wildflowers are blooming more in this off-season than they are down below, where most of the tourists hike, just outside Borrego Springs.



Lucky for me, our hike was guided by park volunteers who knew their fair share of botany and could point out the various flora and foliage that surrounded us, much of it relatively subtle underfoot, closed buds in the early morning waiting until the later afternoon hours to open.











We even found some last remaining edible fruit hanging off branches, including the yellow jujube...



...whose thin, drying skin was sweet and chewy like a date.





The nine-mile hike went relatively quickly with companion chatter to pass the time...



...and staggering views as we gained elevation to dazzle the eyes.



Besides, the rainbow of colors beneath our feet - though somewhat sparse for the season - kept us delighted throughout the seven-hour hike.





We passed a few pinyon pines, the namesake of the ridge we traversed...








...and followed an old Jeep trail up through fields of gold...

...until a wooden pole marked the end of it.



We then began the real hike up to the peak of Pinyon Ridge, bouldering our way up to a lovely vista...





...and squeezed and slashed our way through scratchy brush - me with my bare legs hanging out of cargo shorts, subjected to the menacing cholla - up to the second highest peak, Wilson.



It was a hike I don't think I could have ever done by myself, and probably up to this point would have never attempted, being the longest distance I have ever hiked (surpassing my Death Valley archaeological excursion).

The thing is, the whole time, I was kind of wishing that I was alone...away from all the gossip and the local drama, uninvited intruders on my rendez-vous with nature.

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

Underslept

It used to be that when I visited the desert, my day was done as soon as the sun went down. I was terrified to drive down the unlit highways of Death Valley, or subject myself to sidewinders slithering through the darkness. So I began a routine of watching the sun go down, eating dinner, doing some writing or reading, and ending my day.

It was a nice change of pace from my New York City life, when the day often started with the onset of night, having spent most of the day in bed hungover, or in the office chained to my desk.

And so going to bed at 10 or 11 at night allowed me to wake up with the sun, feeling fully rested, clear of mind and headache-free, ready to drive, hike, and write my way through the world.

This was a routine I continued when I lived in Joshua Tree, and pretty much every time I've returned to the desert for vacation (even Palm Springs, with the exception of one epic, fateful night which rendered me three hours' sleep and I still got up at 6 a.m. to go hiking).

For some reason, I haven't been able to maintain that schedule while living in LA, maybe because once again I am chained to a desk during the day, and still being new in town, I can't bear to go straight home, eat dinner and go to bed. I obsessively go out, hoping to meet people, hoping to make friends who'll last for more than one night.

And yet, by and large, I refuse to spend any days in bed recuperating. If I am dehydrated, headachey, overtired or underslept, I simply push through it. When given the choice, I always opt to do more rather than do less.

And so when I went back to Anza-Borrego Desert State Park this weekend, a trip I crammed into my hellish work schedule which doesn't allow any days off right now, I was still driving there when the sun went down. I arrived in the dark, stomach howling with the coyotes, necessitating dinner, a beer, and frozen margaritas sipped on a patio by a fire pit with a friend, a rare commodity not only on vacation, in the desert, but right now, in life in general.

I got four hours of sleep, got up at 6:30 a.m., and hiked nine miles for seven hours in the sun.

Stomach growling again, I shoveled in a late lunch, stopped for a complimentary frozen margarita at my motel, brought it with me for a quick dip in the pool, and then hustled over to California Overland (surprisingly only 10 minutes late) for a moonlit ride through the desert, replete with a hot dog- and s'more-cooking campfire.

When the night ran long, I insisted we keep going so I could see 17 Palms under the eerie cast of the full moon, though I was so exhausted, I dozed off riding shotgun in the military-grade truck that was tumbling over the off-road terrain. I was so sleepy, Joe had to lift me out of the front seat and set me down on the ground, legs buckling, arms thrown around his neck. I would have liked to have stayed for a nightcap, but I had to go.

And so with another four hours of sleep, I got up again in the morning to hike five more miles, swim one more time, and drive three and a half hours back home to LA. I could've stayed longer. I could've hiked more. I could've seen more. But I was exhausted.

I drove westward into the sunset, arriving home before the dark, cooking dinner and lying in bed.

But I could not sleep. Not right away. There was still too much to do.

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

A Little Housecleaning

In the last couple of months, I've twice discovered that I'm no longer friends with someone on Facebook, even though I thought we were still friends in real life.

I'm sure I've been unfriended before, but I hadn't noticed because perhaps I'd hidden that person from my newsfeed, didn't care that much, or just didn't pay that much attention.

But these two were of the rare sort who qualified an actual visit to their profiles to check and see how they were doing and make sure I hadn't missed anything. They were important.

The first occurred a few months ago. It was shocking at first, but I immediately credited it to a mistake. "How did we become disconnected on Facebook?" I texted.

"Long story. Nothing nefarious but I'll explain next time I see you," he replied soon enough thereafter.

Hmph. That was the last text message - or any sort of communication - I received from him for months.

About a month ago, the same thing happened a second time, only this time it was a person I was much closer with. It was also a person who had recently asked me to stay away and stop lingering. At the time, he said "for a while," but upon discovering our digital disconnection, the separation felt more final.

Still, maybe it was a mistake?

"Did you mean to defriend me on Facebook?" I wrote.

"Yeah sorry," he wrote back a bit later. "Nothing personal, as weird as that may sound...but Facebook is out to get me! It's sabotaging my relationship...So I had to do a little 'housecleaning.'"

I gasped. I sobbed. The word itself - "housecleaning" - holds a tearful resonance for me, having been forced to give up prized possessions as a child by my OCD mother who was curiously both a knick-knack hoarder and a compulsive purger (a scenario I have always likened to the scene in The Virgin Suicides when Lux is clutching onto her crate of records that's been forcibly cast out on the curb). I also spent most of my childhood literally cleaning house, locked away from the outside world, dustrag in hand, Windex mist in my eyes, dutifully scrubbing the finish off surfaces that had not been given time to get dirty since their last cleaning.

"Well you must be relieved to finally be fully rid of me. I'm sorry you see me as a piece of dirt."

It never occurred to me that the month I'd spent without him was anything more than a break, giving him a respite from the drama that I'd caused in his relationship, in his own mind.

But now, the permanence of the matter was heartbreaking, shocking, and tragically clear.

"I didn't mean it that way..." he replied, and in a gesture of little consolation, continued, "You weren't the only one to go, but I can see how it may seem callous and unfair to you, and again, I'm sorry."

Those are the last words he's probably ever going to say to me. After nearly two years of friendship, closeness, and something undefinably more, I've been cast out onto the curb.

So now, I find myself even more friendless than I was before, still being new in town, and now losing not only him (who I'd foolishly made into one of my best friends in LA) but additionally all of his friends that I'd tried to appropriate as my own.

So when the first Facebook unfriender got back in touch with me, I agreed to a dinner date.

We sat down at the table, and skipping all small talk catchup, I said, "So tell me what happened on Facebook."

He stammered a bit: "Well, I just had to evaluate some things and focus on what's important, so I just had to--"

"Do a little housecleaning," I interrupted.

"Yeah. A little housecleaning. You weren't the only one..."

Uh huh.

"So what happened?" I asked. I couldn't figure out what I was doing there. I couldn't figure out what we were to each other. I couldn't figure out what he was trying to do.

"I just...missed you," he said.

Uh huh.

We had a lovely dinner. Afterwards, I dropped him off at the valet stand to retrieve his car, and walked home alone in my high heels, headphones blaring, eyes welling.

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

Photo Essay: Burbank Water and Power Eco-Campus

I have to admit it. It's weird. I love infrastructure. I love public works.

I love governmental (and military) buildings.

But unfortunately, those are often the ones that are under-appreciated, underfunded, and - as in the case of Brooklyn Navy Yard - often decayed, demolished, or otherwise lost.



Burbank Water and Power - which is about to celebrate its centennial - is a rare example of the triumph of historic preservation for a government building, and, intriguingly, a forerunner in the movement towards water conservation and environmental sustainability.

I mean, shouldn't it be? Shouldn't the public works departments set a good example for their corporate and residential neighbors?



With its LEED Platinum certified administrative building (and more buildings to come)...



...green roofs...



...creative uses of outdoor space...



...solar panel-topped carport...



...and employee courtyard, a striking and creative example of adaptive reuse (turning a 1930s lattice work industrial ruin from a former substation into a trellis)...



Burbank Water and Power has turned its utility yard and surrounding facilities into a real eco-campus, and for me, a veritable tourist attraction.











Renovated in close consultation with a landscape architect, the BWP has led the charge in not only capturing local stormwater (which normally just runs off into the Pacific Ocean), but also filtering it and recycling it throughout the city, maximizing the usability of non-potable water within the municipality's public spaces (for irrigation, and so on).



Oddly, in the snowmelt-driven society of Southern California, no one else is bothering to capture the little rainfall we do get.



Unlike the impervious clay that is ubiquitous throughout Los Angeles (causing massive flooding after not-that-heavy rainfall), the Burbank region has particularly permeable soil, allowing the city to recycle 8% of its water supply, partially by allowing much of it to become reabsorbed into the ground water supply rather than being discharged out to sea.



And the eco-campus, while also functional, is also quite beautiful to visit.



Related Post:
Photo Essay: Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.

Excuses, Excuses Part 2

When it comes to explaining why I'm single, why I don't have a boyfriend, why I've never been married and why I've never had serious relationship, everyone's got an opinion.

I usually say, "I don't know," or, "You'll have to ask him," chalking my conundrum up to the whims of the guy (whichever guy) rather than to something I'm actively doing or not doing, or some signal I'm putting out there.

I think I've already come to terms with the fact that it's not because I'm not hot enough.

But other people, other people love to find ways to blame me.

It starts out supportive enough...

"They're intimidated by you."
"You're too smart."
"You're too pretty." 

But eventually, the criticisms become more pointed.

"You're too picky."
"You're too busy."
"You don't actually want a serious relationship."
"Have you ever thought that you might be too available?"

Sure, I can imagine a scenario in which I'm too sexually  available - free milk, cow, etc. - but is there any such thing as being too single? I'm not scrambling to get married and have kids. My biological clock is not ticking. I simply just don't want to be alone anymore. And for years I was afraid to show how I felt to guys I liked, guys I dated, for fear of scaring them off. And then they criticized me for not knowing what I wanted. So now I want to be able to say "I really like you" if I really like them, even though people tell me that's something I should never say.

And then those people, in some feeble attempt to try to help me, become downright hurtful.

"Maybe you're a bad kisser."
"Maybe you're a bad lay."

Really? I spent all this time in my 20s spreading my cookies around New York City, trying to make up for lost time, trying to learn how to do the things I was expected to do, trying to become good at them regardless of who I was with, and I still might be a sexual failure? And that might be the reason that no one has ever wanted to make a life with me?

But what about all the bad kissers I've kissed, who've found love elsewhere, gotten married, had babies...? To what can we credit their romance success - simply good fortune?

I've spent too much time trying to figure out what is wrong with me. I thought I had come to terms with the fact that it just never happened.

Why are others so relentless in their investigation into the cause? Why can't they just let it go?

Related Post:
Excuses, Excuses

To become a fan on Facebook, click here.