Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

Sawtooth Peak from the back side Mineral King had already experienced hard-rock mining, timber extraction, sheepherding, and somehow managed to stagger into the mid 20th-century relatively intact. Its been way too long since I've been back up there. I've been there backpacking, trailrunning and backcountry ski-touring. Next to King's Canyon, its the best California has to offer. The proposed Disney Mineral King ski resort would have been an environmental catastrophe. In 1989 I took a ski avalanche workshop from Dave Beck, one of the original snow rangers Disney hired to do snow survey. Mineral King is an avalanche zone from any angle. Dave said that half of the slopes in the main L-shaped valley were unstable on a good day. The few cabins and mule-barn are located in the few stable areas. Secondly, the valley and surrounding peaks create an inversion layer that would trap all smog and particulates from the proposed resort. The geology of the valley would also not be able to...

Its what you need, what you need. My pre-race crystal visions were shattered at 0445 by Norteña music. From 300 yards away, the musicians plaintively elucidated all the primary infinitives of estar, cantar, llorar, mandar and so on. For this I waited 10 years since my last ultra? I silently thanked el Profesor Mauricio for bringing me two steps further into knowledge. Slowly, I began firing on one cylinder, which took a while. After bleeding the master-line, I synchronized my watch from a sundial, because gnomon is an island unto himself. Due to the mist, my astrolabe was useless, but it mattered not.  The parking was now filled by cars with "26.2", "140.6" and similar stickers on them. This alerts thieves that they can steal skanky socks and shorts that smell like ass if they only wait.  RD Luis Escobar, in full authoritative charro regalia, gave an epic hellfire & damnation notification after the orientation speech—"If you come to me saying I go...

(one of an occasional series from the archives of the "Journal for Crypto-Ethnology" Spring 1991) by Dr. Roccardo F. "Dick" Quadde; RfP, SoQ, AmF. The long winter passed uneventfully, a slowly leaking bladder full of inert gas. I was occupied greatly by the continuing investigations into the previous summer’s disastrous expeditions to the lofty and distant Dorkolithic spires. But as the days lengthened and the snows began to retreat from the the alpinid meadows, I became anxious and eager seek a remarkable vanished remnant of Hellmouth’s glory-hole days during the fabled Kaopectatum Boom. The object of this quest was to locate the remains of a startling aeronautical prototype that had literally gone in a blaze of glory from the small mining hamlet of Hellmouth back in the summer of 1909. Wherefore the shift from coprolytica to aeronautica? One typically blustery and cold November afternoon I had been doing research in the Archival Manuscript Section of the He...

Millions of Californians went to the Super Tuesday Primary polls. You just fell asleep reading that. Too bad. You would've been wide awake voting for the I-96 "Whole Foods Casino Initiative". I-96 completely redefines gaming here in California. Ratifies amendment to existing gaming compact between state and Free Range Wholistic Bands of the Wasichu Nation(s); amendment would permit tribe to operate 3,000 additional slot machines in each central location of Santa Monica, Brentwood, Montecito, Hillsborough and Marin—with other locations to be determined. Omits certain projects from scope of California Environmental Quality Act, except the part about second-hand bong smoke; amendment provides for Tribal Environmental Impact Report and intergovernmental procedure to address environmental impact. BYO yoga mat. Specifies where revenue paid by tribe pursuant to amendment deposited; amendment requires tribe to make $20,000,000 annual payment and pay percentage of revenue ge...