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Drive to Fix California State Park Funding

A Tom Stienstra article at SF Gate reviews an initiative to fix the gross funding problems with California State Parks. The governor and the legislature have used this California legacy as a gambling chip for the past couple of years, and it has to stop. The parks are too valuable to the state in so [...]

Left is Right. Up is Down. In is Out. And Schwarzenegger to be honored for protecting state parks!

According to the LA Times California’s incompetent lame-duck governor who threatened to close most state parks, later backed off and only wanted to close some, and eventually played a huge cut in park funding as a positive thing…
“… will be honored Oct. 29 with the National Park Trust’s Bruce F. Vento Public Service Award in [...]

“Perfect Time to Beat the Crowd”

A Tom Stienstra piece at SFGate reminded me about a September truth: at just the time when fewer and fewer people head to the outdoors, the outdoors is becoming a more and more attractive place to be in many ways.
School is (mostly) back in session and after this Labor Day Weekend (which the news reports [...]

Ten Lakes Basin – a quick photographic pack trip

Earlier this week I spent a few days in the Ten Lakes Basin area of Yosemite National Park. Although I’ve backpacked widely in the high country of the park over the past years – OK, decades… – this was actually the very first time that I visited this popular backpacking destination. I think I had [...]

El Niño? Time for weather junkies to begin speculating!

Starting about this time of year, many of us outdoor types are susceptible to speculations about the upcoming winter weather. Most of us are looking for something “interesting” – as in record-breaking rain/snow, an unusually early start to the season, and so forth.
Those who enjoy the seasonal speculation will appreciate the reports that El Niño [...]

Over at my photography site – another epic two-day sierra shoot

I spent the weekend shuttling around areas ranging from Yosemite Valley to Mono Lake to Mariposa grove. The story is posted at my photography web site.

Support California State Parks

The Governator of California, among a number of other bizarre recent “decisions” has recommend closing almost all California State Parks. This is just plain nuts for a whole bunch of reasons. (How do you close a public park? how do you protect the parks from vandals and marijuana growers and off-road vehicles? What happens to [...]

California Spring Flowers

Despite the concerns about low rainfall this year in parts of California, there are some hopeful signs of a decent and perhaps even quite good spring wildflower bloom. A few notes:

I have visited Muir Woods twice during the past few weeks (some photos at my other site) and last weekend spectacular trillium flowers were just [...]

A Good Sound on the Trail

Today, for the first time in almost a year, I heard the sound of running water during my hike in the Calero Hills. Here in dry California that is a special thing!

Big Basin Quick Hike Today

This afternoon I headed over to Big Basin for a few hours of hiking and photography. (This evening it occurred to me that I’m, well, lucky to be able to drive a bit more than an hour and hike among coastal redwoods.) I arrived at the park in the early afternoon to find that a) [...]