Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

AC100 Trail volunteers, between Charlton Flats and Shortcut Saddle in the burned-over Angeles Crest  of the San Gabriel Mountains. The Purple Poodle-Dog Bush has started to come in— the creepy sage/reefer-like bushes in bright green. April 16, 2011. While in the San Gabriels, you will, sooner or later, encounter  Poison Oak  and  Purple Poodle Dog Bush ( PPDB) .  I've been friends with poison oak for over 30 years.    PPDB  re-appeared after the 2009 Station Fire. I'd never seen it before. The PPDB lies dormant for years, until fire conditions burn off chaparral and manzanita. It then reappears, First it looks like a cross between marijuana and sage with oily lime-green leaves. As it grows, it sends up a stalk that can top out at 9' high. Watch out for the pretty purple flowers, which look like lupine, but stink like natural gas or decay.  Do not touch . When the flowers die off in late spring, the stalks have dried fibe...

Trail Porn®™ Can Label. Courtesy of D&L Industries 1995 People have asked me "how did you train back in the day, and keep your strength up?" The secret ingredient: Trail Porn . And now, for the first time, the ingredients are visible for all. Load Up Like A Peasant, Light Up Like A King™ TrailPorn®™ has been America's Number One Favorite free-range pre-race loading and unloading dietary supplement for as long as we've been making it. Now the same great taste and chewy mouth-feel is here in the new, modern TrailPorn Lite®™ . This nutritionious, savory, and versatile product is a virtual-reality accompaniment to every part of your culinary experience, from pickled cabbage to vanilla ice cream. Look for the single-serving tetra-packs! Preparation: Serve either hot or cold, as a first course or canape supplement or appetizer. Stove top, micro-wave or tail-pipe friendly.Some settling may occur as this product was packed at full-volume while you wait. Hey now! Ingredie...

Father’s Day dawned with not a clue of what was to transpire. The Original Plan was to drive up into the mountains, and extract a meaningful run from the trails. And thus I would honor the Billions of Unborn that had sprung from my loins into the aether. However, Fate intervened. CalTrans had closed Highway 2 just above the sleeping and complacent exurb of La Pinata. A blinking sign notified the hordes of suicidal rice-rocketeers that there was a brush fire in progress, so kindly go elsewhere. But as not to discriminate, this aviso was extended to the general public as well. I put the Squirrel into a 180-drift, and lost only one of the 40” spinnies I’d put on last week, and continued down to the Windsor/Arroyo parking lot. I wedged in amongst all the agitated Velo-Bobs, and began my Final Preparations. And so were they, anticipating a crankin’ drive up to Mt Wilson-Phillips, and then to hurl themselves off the top from Red Box, and like be ragin’and shit down through Switzer’s Camp, ...