Cahuenga Peak - www.savehollywoodland.org

The first blog I ever added to this page had a picture of me standing amidst the desolated acres just below the ridge of Cahuenga Peak. I had come up a brutal animal trail just off the water tower at the end of Wonder View Drive, one turn off of Lake Hollywood Drive. We started there, in nearly 100 degree weather, and nearly killed ourselves busting ass to the ridge. From there, the view was breathtaking. When you open the link below, you will see the one lone tree just waiting on the ridge for you to sit under him, and take in the silence.

Just over the ridge is the burn area of Griffith Park (looking towards Forest Lawn). I was shocked. I wonder, two years later, what it looks like today. I can recall standing in that wash, looking up the hill, with nothing but charred remains of trees, no flowers, no green, no life. The only color in the picture is myself, standing in the middle of it all, looking up towards the ridge that hid the Hollywood sign. There was no noise....complete silence. We were geocaching, and what a find to discover the ammo box rusted, but alive, all the contents intact. We started back up the hill along the trail we had come down, hit the ridge, and followed a narrow game trail towards the Hollywood sign, popping out right at the "H' and the asphalt. We may have taken the road down, but we had seen much more than those souls who had sadly taken the road up.

Get out! Explore! Find new ways to do old things! Life is full of discovery-don't let it pass you by!

http://savehollywoodland.org/

April flowers.....bring a Whitney Permit!

Easter has come and gone and another paddling season has commenced. after today I will have logged 6 days out of the last 7, and 7 out of the last 9 on the water. A little obscene? Maybe, but it feeds my soul.

I have been contemplating the soul recently, and how much I need to fill it up, after I was draining it for so long. I need to get back out and grab the mountains and hold fast to them. I can't wait to breathe in some more crisp air and sit silently while the word drives hurriedly by. Poor, empty souls that are simply going through the motions of life. Do they ever look up and wonder what the view is from the top of those jagged peaks they pass nonchalantly by. The world is our playground and those who don't seek to challenge themselves are only living half the beautiful life they are handed by Him. Dare to take the trail that keeps you climbing higher....


"The mountains are calling and I must go." -- John Muir

And two years later...

Well it's been 2008 since I started the blog. Still in California, still punching numbers, still paddling, still living the dream. I recently re-discovered my love of the trails, soft rolling hills and stark jagged peaks. If the view is unmatched, the hike is well worth the climb.

Next weekend we will be knocking off San J from the easy side, nearing the completion of the Sierra Club WBC class we have been taking. After this, the paddling season begins and the weekends will be filled with miles on the water or miles on the trails. Baldy and 9Peaks in May, San Jacinto from Marion (hardest) in June, Kearsarge Pass and Cottonwood Lakes in July...all in the hopes we will be hiking Whitney this summer.

One way or another...Whitney will commence this summer!

"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams, wandering by lone sea-breakers, and sitting by desolate stream; - world-losers and world-forsakers, on whom the pale moon gleams: yet we are the movers and shakers of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties we build up the world's great cities, and out of a fabulous story we fashion an empire's glory: One man with a dream, at pleasure, shall go forth and conquer a crown; and thee with a new song's measure can trample and empire down.

We, in ages lying In the buried past of the earth, Built Ninevah with our sighing, and Babel itself with out mirth; And o'erthrew them with prophesying, to the old of the new world's worth; For each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."