« March 2008 | Main | May 2008 »

April 11, 2008

Laura's Anza Borrego Adventure

I am a newer Juniper Ridge employee; camping in Anza Borrego was my first official Juniper Ridge company outing. On our first full day in the desert we decided to tackle a scenic hike that would wind us through views of amazing wildflowers, several palm groves and up tall peaks that would allow us to see the Salton Sea.

Here we are at the start of the hike. We are well rested from a night of sleeping out in perfect weather under the stars. At this point we are also still fully hydrated and curious about our surroundings, so we are asking Hall lots of questions about the beautiful wildflowers and plants along the way.

We all hiked for several hours and arrived at one of the palm groves. They were beautiful in a surreal way - palm trees in a little cluster in the middle of the dry desert. I thought this was an image only dehydrated cartoon characters would see, but they were there, they were real, and they were beautiful. We enjoyed a nice rest there and relaxed for a bit in the shade

We hiked on a bit further and then, in a unified subtle wave, all of the seasoned Juniper Ridge employees decided to turn back and head home. Myself, the eager new employee, and Micky (a dear friend to Juniper Ridge), decided we would continue to follow Hall - our fearless leader - up a steep, cactus-filled mountain under the heat of the desert sun.

Everything around us was beautiful - with the exception of one thing - Teddy Bear Cholla. I made this photo huge for a reason; these little "jumping cholla" were an ever-present part of my Anza Borrego experience. The name Teddy Bear Cholla is really a bit insulting to those of us who were repeatedly outwitted and attacked by these teddy bear plants.

We hiked up and up - finally my Midwestern legs which developed on flat flat land, said no more so I sat on a rock with Micky and enjoyed the spectacular view as my boss galloped towards the summit.

An hour passed, Hall reappeared, and Micky and I were now rested enough to slowly stumble down the mountain. We enjoyed the views for a moment longer and then began our descent.

Here Micky is arriving back on flat ground again! The timing was rather perfect, we strolled towards our campsight at dusk and arrived just as the last bit of light disappeared.

I spent the rest of my Anza Borrego experience enjoying the wildflowers from a chair by the campfire. What a beautiful, beautiful place.

Posted by laurasweitzer at 3:37 PM | Comments (1)

April 9, 2008

Big Sur in the Spring - Part 1

The last thing the world needs is another beautiful picture like this of the Big Sur area. Yes we all know it's unbelievably scenic with its 5000+ foot peaks rolling down to the sea, and yes it's largest block of coastal wilderness on the West Coast, and yes Ferlingetti, Kerouac and all those beatish types famously hung out down laying on a patina of literary mystique to the embarassment of natural riches already present - but like one of those sumptuous Beach Boys songs that you've heard too many times and think you're sick of, the fact is, no matter how many times you may have heard about how beautiful it is, it really is all that and more. What can you do? All those car commercials and movies, it's like the Grand Canyon, you think you've seen it but you just don't know how beautiful it really is until you're there.

Sometimes you just get lucky and sometimes you make your own luck, and I did the latter when decided to ditch my plans to race back to the Bay Area after our trade show in LA and take the slow road. I wanted to bust back home, but I was pulling out of LA and it was just too beautiful. LA is unbelievably gorgeous on those early spring days after it's rained and the air is sparkly and clear. Mt. Baldy, San Gregornio, San Jacinto - everyone always talks about the mountains in Denver, Sante Fe, Salt Lake City but what about LA? It ain't all OC and Costcos people, you've got a ring of 10,000 foot + peaks surrounding this city. In fact, to get a little nerdy and geographcially confrontational here, in terms of relative elevation from city to peaks that you can actually see from downtown, there's no other city in U.S. that has this kind of visual drama - sea level to 11,500 feet with over 20 peaks in the 8000 ft+ range? Denver, Santa Fe, SLC and their ilk don't even come close. And as I drove out of the LA basin the views were practically bringing me to tears, so I decided that rather than blasting home on the I-5, I'd take my time and see something real.

So I cut over the mountains and stopped in Santa Barbara for the night so I could take my time winding up the coast the next day. I spent the night in the Motel 6 of my youth. This is the Motel 6, the very first one ever built in 1962. It's right next to the beach, and when I was a kid my parents booked a room here for 2 weeks every spring, and we'd drive all night from Portland through the rain and wake up in this sunny paradise by the sea. You have to know how much it rained in pre-global-warming-Portland to understand how magical this alchemical transformation of rain into sun was. Me and my brother would go to sleep in the backseat of the car with rain pecking against the windows, and wake up with palm trees, sunshine and the ocean - it was sheer magic in that way that things are magical when you're a little kid and I'll never forget it as long as I live. I have to say, it's kind of strange to have an emotional attachment to something as sterile and ubiquitous as a Motel 6. It looks pretty much the same as all motel 6's, but it must be a little different because every detail was reverberated in my brain - the texture of the fake stucco walls, the open outdoor stairway, the curves in the thimble sized pool. Suddenly I found myself thinking of my Dad getting ice from the ice machine, our boogie boards drying outside our room, jumping up and down on the beds.

The next day I got up and headed north. I stopped at the Salmon Creek trailhead with the intention of just walking in a mile or so to see what was there, and almost instantly I came across this beautiful swimming hole. This is all of a 1/4 mile from the road, and no one was here - what the hell? All those RV's racing by, and right next door the cool clean water, the waterfall and sun, this is heaven on earth. So I did what any semi-intelligent simian with half a brain stem would do, I stripped down and swam. And I've come down from the mountain and I'm here to tell you that it was delicious my people. There are moments in life when everything comes together and you say this is what it's really all about, well, this was one of those moments. Thank you Jehovah or Shiva or Gaia or whichever one of you deities sponsored this cathartic moment for me.

So of course after my swim I was energized and decided to follow the trail up the hill for a ways, and it was unbelievably beautiful - the wildflowers, the sunny day, it was just intoxicating. Stay tuned to part 2 to hear about the wildflowers and the rest of my hike up to the ridge of the Santa Lucias.

Posted by Hall at 8:31 PM | Comments (0)

April 6, 2008

Juniper Ridge manager checks into cheap Cabins with the most beautiful view ever - Steep Ravine cabins

These cabins are only $70.00 a night (there is camping nearby which is also beautiful) and they are right off Highway 1 about a mile up from Stinson Beach. I went with my friend Kelly. I have known her since freshman year of highschool. She knows everything about me, so I find hanging out with her very restful. I love her.

I also love her because she reserved this cabin for three nights and invited me to stay with her. We both have husbands and kids but we left them at home.

Reserving Steep Ravine cabins is practically impossible, and reserving a campsite or a cabin there is a byzantine process which defeats all but the most dedicated. The central mystery is: when you camp there or stay in a cabin, you see only about half the cabins and campsites occupied.

Something is very fishy and if I were an investigative reporter I would investigate....it seems very very odd that the cabin reservations are incredibly hard to get and yet the cabins are always half empty.

I need no words, really

At night I sat here, wineglass in hand, looking at the stars, listening to the ocean

You have to drive down to the Steep Ravine area on a little road. It is gated with a combination you get when you reserve.

Here we are, Kelly the blonde one, and I, with our wheelbarrow we used to cart our stuff to the cabin. I was so happy there.

Posted by Laura at 2:35 PM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2008

Anza Borrego wildflower bonanza!

Oh man did we get to witness a nice little desert wildflower bloom on our company camping trip in Anza Borrego State Park. The best I ever saw down there was the El Nino winter of 1998 when wildflowers carpeted the desert from mountains through the valleys, but this was certainly a better than average year and the best since the relatively wet winter of 2005.

Of course wet is all relative. In the Northwest where I grew up, 60+ inches of rain was the winter norm, but down here there are years when the total rainfall is measured in the the hundreths of an inch. This year Anza Borrego got about 3 inches of rain - wow, that's a mild winter evening in Portland.

If you're not interested in plants, you should stop reading right now because I'm done with my intro chatter and I'm going to get downright nerdy and boring now as I go through roll call of stellar desert wildflowers ...

Desert Dandelion

Beautiful Ocotillo! We were a little early for the full on explosion of these blossoms in the valley area, but some were going off like this one

Ephedra virens - this is in the same genus as Chinese Ephedra (E. sinica) known as Ma Huang in the TCM pharmacopia, but has only a fraction of the speedy ephedrine found in that plant. You know what Ephedrine is, right? Ephedrine and Pseudoephedrine are the basis of countless diet pills and are used in to make Methamphetamine, but it all started with this innocuous looking little plant. Isn't it weird that a plant would make something that would mimic human adrenaline? How does that happen?

Oh and the desert poppies (Eschscholzia gyptosperma)! Desert poppies are so sweet and small compared to the their siblings the more robust and showy California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica). Desert Poppy is sorta like the weaker but sweeter art student twin of frat boy/captain of industry sibling.

Fiddleneck (Amsinckia spp.) Classic indicator of a good wildflower year in the desert, very common in washes and open valley areas

Desert Chicory (Rafinesquia neomexicana)

Desert Willow (Chilopsis linearis). You know you've got it good when you wake up in the morning and see a Desert Willow above you - I love this tree! You only find this in those sweet, lower elevation deserts of far Southern California and Arizona, and it's blossoms are some of the sweetest and intoxicating of any plant anywhere. I just love this little part of the world, all these fabulous plants that you just don't find anywhere else, or at least in the U.S.

My wife Laura Boles with Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa)

Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis). This is the same Jojoba that is so popular in bodycare products these days. In fact, being the trend followers that we are, we use this in our soap. The was is extracted from the leaves and has excellent anti-oxidant/moisturizing properties.

Desert Monkey Flower (Mimulus ? come on all you wildlower nerds, you know what this is, let me know). Continuing with the common desert wash/valley wildflowers, I'm used to the big bushy Monkeyflowers that you find in Coastal Chaparral throughout California, but this is such a tiny, cute little monkeyflower - it's all flower and no plant.

Popcorn Flower (Plagiobothrys spp.)

Desert Pincusion (Scabiosa columbaria)

As I climbed higher and higher towards Sombrero peak, I began to see more Chaparral plants including Scrub Oak, White Sage and this majestic Manzanita

Here some Mountain Mohagany (Cerocarpus) near the peak

I'm so happy here! It's been so long since I've been in Anza Borrego. I've hiked the whole park south to north from the Mexican Border to I-10 in Mecca, Ca, and I just love it here, it's one of my favorite places anywhere and to see it in bloom like this for the third or fourth time in my life, I just felt high as a kite the whole time. Thanks to all my employees and friends who came on this trip - it was a magical little time for me, and I was so glad that all of you got a little taste of that sweet desert beauty. Some of you had never been in the desert before, and it's such a pleasure to be able to share this little slice of heaven with you, there's nothing else like it.

Posted by Hall at 8:17 PM | Comments (0)