Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

FIRST, A COMFORTING BROMIDE Best way to recognition and applause in ultras is to finish last. All the people who weren’t there at the beginning will be thrilled to see you—because you didn’t wander off the course while jabbering into your smartphone and so on. But I get ahead of myself. SPOILER ALERT: NEW MATH Take note of the following numbers. 9 + (5 + 3) x 2. Not written totally correctly? Too bad. Santa Barbara Nine Trails ; thirty-five miles of asskicking vert. Luis Escobar, RD, now hosts this classic race, the gold standard in ass-kicking since 1990. Anybody who sneeringly references “California Carpet Trails” is welcome to try this race on for size. It climbs and plunges in the mountains above Santa Barbara. Technical out the ass; in both sunny and shady varieties. The smooth sections are on the various sections of Edison roads. They pitch up and down too. No character-debilitating shade here either; its photon-fury at its best. Wear that black t-shirt and be prepar...

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, ...

Cougars are a fact of life here in Southern California. As the pressures of urbanization increase on the foothill and mountain communities, human interactions with mountain lions are bound to increase, often with unpredictable results. Recently there have been several highly-publicized encounters between the cougar and humans. Some have been fatal for humans. Mountain bikers, runners, and casual hikers are becoming more aware of the cougar's presence in the mountains. The following talk was delivered at the Quarterly Proceedings of Anthropomorphic Zoology, Spring 2004, by Erasmus Binkster. The symposium was held in the Ayn Rand Asbestosterium, located on the Pyroclastic Community College campus, Puta Vista CA. ===== Southern California Wildlife: Year of the Cat "Hello...Hello...I think my PowerPoint Presentation is having a few problems [tapping sounds]...while we're waiting for the AV techs to work this one out, let's get started...oh! there it is! In Farsi and Punjab...

Dr Casino Bingo reads a map in a rising whispering wind. VisionKwest 4.0: "Passion of the Sliced " Joshua Tree National Park 3/27/04 31 miles LEFT-OVERTURE The Fourth Annual VisionKwest Invitational was held this past Saturday, Mar 27 at Joshua Tree. This annual 31 mile run across the rugged, stony landscape of the unique environment had many rewards and surprises for all the participants. The VisionKwest appeared as simultaneous revelation to the two unindicted co-originators, Casino Bingo and Draw Poker in 1999. The then-upcoming Millenium was stimuli to deep thinking on the subject. After consulting sacred texts [Morrison:1967, Page & Plant:1971], and channelling bardic entities, the VisionKwest was born. The course has had many starts, and several finishes, usually a dusty matte. The main route has always involved The California Riding and Hiking Trail. Play your cards right, and there will never be enough shade. There is no freely occurring water on the course. The r...

Dearest Phillip S: On the subject of manners and mannerisms I will endeavour to elucidate the answer least appropriate to the strictures of time, space and convention. The Valley Forge trail is not popular with mountain bikers, which limits recreational tipping opportunities for the trail runner. There is something inherently satisfying about the sound of the wind in the trees, birds and squirrels having running feuds, and the fading shrieks of a mountain-biker going over the side of a trail after they've tried to run you down. It's times like these when I feel very close to Nature. How much does one tip mountain bikers? 15%, 20%? Or does one try to tip them all? The percentages refer to the leading-edge velocity [analogous to a helo-rotor] of a Powerbar, rattan cane, or 15" Braunschweiger sausage at the maximum hitting point. Top speeds vary from 125mp to 600mph. Therefore even 15% of either of these speeds striking a witless MTB'er will cause a trajectory dislocation...

Misty Mountain Double-Donger: Ontario & Cucamonga Barking Duck Expedition   DATELINE: SEPT 14, 2003 ICE HOUSE CANYON, CA   "Morning had broken, like it does for infidels" as once was sung by Cat "Jihaadi" Stevens hung in the air like a cheap coat. This uplifting canticle set the tone for the Late Season Ontario & Cucamonga Barking Duck Expedition. The mandate of the expedition was clear: to seek out and destroy new worlds of understanding in the rugged and vertically-challenged peaks above the Ontario Mills Mall and Jail-Bait Recreation Zone.  The Crack Team was assembled in the gathering light: Dr Casino Bingo, Mr Trail Safety, and "Micah White" [not his real name]. It was to be a lightning strike, an unsupported scientific enquiry into the lives of the secretive and reclusive San Gabriel Barking Duck.  The Expedition would insert at Ice House Canyon, make a rapid upward foray up the [Roy] Chapman [Andrews] Trail to Ice House Saddle. Pausing ...

JT 3.2 Joshua Tree VisionKwest 3.2 .69 CEUs PRE-REQUISITE: Basic Knowledge of VisionKwest Study Materials. ESSENTIAL READING LIST: Shakira, Heidi Klum, Saul Alinsky, Maxim. FACULTY: C Bingo & D Poker Become as One with the Indifferent Vastness of the Sonoran/Colorado Desert Interface as you accompany Professors Casino Bingo & Draw Poker on a select scenic running tour of the Joshua Tree Nat Park. Seminar begins at Boy Scout Trail and ends up at Split Rock. Landmarks encountered along the way include but are not limited to Cap Rock, Geology Tour Road, chubby boy Scout Leaders, sweating German tourists, Pine City, Queen Mine, corpulent RV drivers, Dildo's Cave, and sweating poodles running in circles around parking lots. Runner expected to provide own pickle-brine and chorizo. 1 mtg: Sat Mar 22, 0700. =======SECTION CLOSED======= My hands shook as I read the course description. Where was mention of awards, prize money, permits and short-course PRs???? I hadn't been this n...

My Half-Assed Culo Gordo The Homage to the epic Culo Gordo 50k was run yesterday in the Santa Monica Mountains. It followed the canonical route as laid down in the last century by the renowned "brujo-dybbuk" Devi Reinstein. I was late to the start due to an early morning drop off at LAX. I supposed if I hadn't flipped off the security goons and waved the gun I might have gotten there earlier. But I wanted the front-runners to have a fair chance. The morning was clear and sharp--nippleaciously perky in fact. The rain clouds of the night before had gone on to other locales. As I blundered up the trails out of Will Rogers State Park I wondered "Where's Meg Ryan when you need her? What's a tranquil Sunday morning without a loud cell-phone?" At the Backbone/Sullivan Cyn trail jct I could feel the heat of the front-runners. Their subtle imprints in the dirt led down into the canyon. I followed the yawns and butt-flares of the bobcat and cougar. At the bottom ...