Tag Archives: Outdoors

Bending the Map in Bear Canyon (Sespe Wilderness)

Falls “Whenever you start looking at your map and saying something like ‘well, that lake could have dried up,’ or ‘ that boulder could have moved,’ a red light should go off. You’re trying to make reality conform to your … Continue reading

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Lazy Day in the Hills: A Canyon Hike Called Off

View of the sunrise on my way up Figueroa Mountain and into Santa Barbara’s San Rafael Wilderness. I left the trailhead at 7 am, but was already back by 3 pm. Lack of sleep and fatigued combined with shriveled enthusiasm … Continue reading

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Finding Frontier in the Forest Conquered

“Superficially, the world has become small and known. Poor little globe of earth, the tourists trot round you as easily as they trot round the Bois or round Central Park. There is no mystery left, we’ve been there, we’ve seen … Continue reading

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Project Sespe Creek: Stage III, Piedra Blanca Beyond Devil’s Gate

Coltrell Flat beside Sespe Creek “Free is the bush, and the desert, and the woods, and the mountain ranges for whoever likes to camp there.” B. Traven, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre I plod along the dirt footpath of … Continue reading

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Gray Fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus)

I flushed this sucker out of the bushes a few days ago when stomping through the brush. He trotted out into a small clearing and up onto a low rise in the land, where he then sat and watched me … Continue reading

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