A rainbow over San Marcos Foothills Nature Preserve Tuesday afternoon.
As of this writing, San Marcos Pass Station atop the Santa Ynez Mountains is reporting that 3.88 inches of rain have fallen in the last 48 hours.
This marks the most significant rainfall event in over twelve months for this patch of the drought-parched Los Padres National Forest.
Mother Nature celebrated late Tuesday afternoon with a full rainbow spanning San Marcos Potrero.
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The hike to Eagle Cliff Cabin.
The cabin was originally built and occupied by miners sometime after 1890 at the site of Eagle Cliff mine, which is located in Joshua Tree National Park. The makeshift shelter was cobbled together in a naturally occurring hollow of one of the ubiquitous granite outcrops in the area.
The floor plan is roughly similar to the letter “p” with a longish entrance ending in a small room with a single window. Off one edge of the room opposite the window is a remarkable natural addition in the form of a low room with a gravely floor perhaps used as sleeping quarters.
Looking at the rock pile under which the miner’s cabin is hidden, concealed behind desert scrub.
Look a little closer through the trees and it comes into view.
A look inside showing the same window. A stove can be seen frame right with an opened rusty tin can on top and a stone and mortar chimney.
The nook that would make a decent bedroom. It is fairly spacious despite how it appears here in this poor photo.
Stone work in the short walk between the windowed room and the cabin front door.
The view standing beside the rock work in the previous photo and looking out through what was the door to the cabin.
The approach to the front door, the windowed room just inside the shadowy cave.
Coldwater Camp lies in a meadow under a large oak tree along Lower Manzana Creek Trail, and is rimmed by hills. A detailed profile of the camp can be seen at Hike Los Padres – Coldwater Camp.
The camp was presumably named due to the usual availability of water in the creek nearby during most conditions, when the rest of the area is dry. This remarkable feature of the land must have been appreciated by the pioneering Pratt family who staked a claim in the area.
In the vicinity of Coldwater Camp, with a clue or two, one might find the initials of the Pratt’s stepson, Eddie Fields, who carved them into a tree near the site of the family’s homestead some 100 years ago.
Another site is hidden here center frame under the trees, somewhat on the opposite end of the meadow. The same sign is seen here as in the first photo above.
Various triatomine bugs in all life stages. (Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)
Recent news reports echoing across the Internet tell of the so-called assassin bug having now been found in at least 28 states. Known also as the kissing bug, or by their scientific name triatomine, they are a parasitic insect that feed on the blood of mammals, birds and reptiles and are endemic to Santa Barbara County.
The primary host of triatomine bugs are packrats, also known as woodrats, which are commonly found in chaparral oak woodlands like those of Santa Barbara’s Santa Ynez Mountains.
They are called kissing bugs because of their proclivity to bite people around the mouth. The bugs are primarily nocturnal and so tend to bite people while they sleep.
They are also called assassin bugs because some of them, but not all, carry the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which causes Chagas disease and can be deadly. However, “the transmission of Chagas from a bug to a human is not easy,” notes the CDC. The parasite that causes the deadly disease is found in triatomine feces, which must enter the human body through the bite wound or the eyes or mouth. According to the CDC the risk of getting Chagas disease in the United States is low. Santa Barbara’s Sansum Clinic states that Chagas is not common in the states.
Aside from contracting Chagas disease and the threat of death, bites from certain types of triatomine bugs can also trigger allergic reactions. The CDC notes that these reactions may include “severe redness, itching, swelling, welts, hives, or, rarely, anaphylactic shock.” Allergic reactions do not mean a person has been infected with Trypanosoma cruzi.
“The protozoan parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, causes Chagas disease, a zoonotic disease that can be transmitted to humans by blood-sucking triatomine bugs.” —CDC
A study published in August 2012, “Do Bites of Kissing Bugs Cause Unexplained Allergies? Results from a Survey in Triatomine-Exposed and Unexposed Areas in Southern California,” suggested a “possibility of a causal link between these symptoms and triatomine exposure.”
However, the study was not conclusive and “despite the plausibility of a causal link between living in triatomine-exposed areas and unexplained allergic reactions, laboratory tests are required to confirm such a link.”
The aforementioned study was “concordant with a previous study in Santa Barbara County.” The previous study “looked at 120 inhabitants of the foothills in Santa Barbara County and found elevated levels of IgE antibodies to Triatoma protracta in 8 (6.7%) persons.”
Triatomine occurrence by U.S. state, as per the CDC.
Kissing bugs have apparently been a known pest for a long time in the Santa Barbara area. The following news brief was published in the Los Angeles Herald in 1899. Readers may note, however, that the last sentence does not seem to agree with the title, and also that the man was bitten during the day though triatomine bugs are primarily nocturnal.
The rocket stove was developed by Dr. Larry Winiarski in the early 1980s. (A detailed explanation and design principles of the rocket stove: PDF)
Nearly one hundred years ago an enterprising butcher in southern California fabricated a stove from a steel box or “can” which was once commonly used to freeze water into blocks of ice before the days of widespread refrigeration.
The wood burning boxes became known as “ice can stoves.” They were distributed, circa the 1920s, throughout the lands which would later be known as Los Padres National Forest. (Blog post: The Ice Can Stove: A Brief History)
I don’t believe there is a substitute for today’s tiny backpacking stoves and small fuel canisters. They’re light and take up little space in a backpack and and don’t require the time and effort to find dry tinder, kindling and wood and stoke up a fire hot enough to do the job. They work with little effort virtually anywhere in all conditions.
But what if there was a backwoods onsite alternative reminiscent of the old ice can stoves, but vastly more efficient? A wood burning stove for the new century. A stove of this sort does exist and could be out there.
Joe and his dog Sierra atop Cerro Alto in San Luis Obispo County. (Photo courtesy of Joe Ramirez: Joe’s Hiking Adventures.)
It’s the rocket stove. A miniature, highly efficient wood burning device specially designed to make use of small caliber branches and significantly less fuel when cooking. What otherwise would serve as little more than tinder and kindling in an ice can stove back in the day or an open flame campfire is all that’s needed to fuel a rocket stove. Cook full meals or boil water with nothing more than twigs.
The wood burns so hot and so thoroughly in the insulated combustion chamber that virtually no smoke is emitted and the volatile gases, which otherwise escape from a campfire or traditional stove and are lost and wasted, are burned up as well. Because of its exceptional efficiency it’s possible to avoid blackening the bottoms and sides of pots and pans.
It seems to me that rocket stoves could be installed throughout the forest at backcountry campsites much like the old-time upcycled ice cans had been a century ago. They could be crafted onsite using nearby rocks and sand to form the exterior body of the stove and the interior insulation surrounding the burn chamber.
The metal parts, light and relatively small, could easily be packed in. The mortar used to seal the exterior stone body of the stove would be the heaviest component to transport. Perhaps such a project might be worthy of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts or other groups and volunteer associations.
Such a device would provide a tool with which backpackers could cook hot meals and drinks and purify water without need of the industrially produced propane-butane fuel canisters and stoves commonly used these days; gear that in its production, transport and sales releases a significant amount of pollution.
The rocket stoves would be fueled instead by a renewable and thus sustainable resource produced naturally at the site of use and of which there is no shortage in the forest, wood. The burning of wood in this manner is, arguably, carbon neutral or carbon lean. While burning fossil fuels like propane and butane releases into the atmosphere carbon that has been sequestered for millions of years, burning wood only releases the carbon which had been absorbed by the tree or bush during its short lifespan.
A rocket stove would have a few notable disadvantages, however. It would require more time to use than a pocket stove in that a camper would have to forage for wood fuel and work to kindle a fire rather than merely turn on the gas and spark a flame.
With winter rains such fuel might tend to be moist and less inflammable and more difficult to set alight. Perhaps the greatest problem would be that the use of such stoves would be prohibited during extended portions of the driest times of the year, in summer when official fire restrictions are in effect throughout the forest.
Yet it might be a worthwhile endeavor, if enough people would be willing to forgo a little time and convenience for sake of carrying a little less gear in their pack and reducing, if only a little, their share of pollution and trash.
Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure 