The GeekHiker

(Another rambling BlackBerry post that I’m just putting up tonight.  Maybe it’s because I work with computers all week, but I never seem to pull out the machine to do posts on the weekend…)

I’d come up to the Angeles today with the intention of hiking. Instead, I find myself sitting near a roadside pullout, writing this and happy as a clam about it.

Why the change of plans? A couple of reasons:

One: My lazy, lazy ass. Maybe it’s just something about holiday weekends, I don’t know. Whatever the case, I slept in, watched CBS Sunday Morning (the park-your-butt-on-the-couch version of the Sunday paper), and didn’t get my keister and on the road until about 10.

Oops.

Two: The reopened section of Highway 2. Closed by storm damage, its been closed at Islip Saddle for years. When I discovered it was open, my game plan for the day changed.

So instead of a hike, I picked up a turkey sandwich in La Canada Flintridge. I stopped a little while later at Chilao Flat for a picnic lunch and visited the newly re-opened visitor center.

The remainder of my day, thus far, has been spent moseying along the road, re-familiarizing myself with it, and scouting trailheads I’ve not seen in years.

At the moment, I’m sitting by a little creek, listening to it descend the canyon and occasionally dipping a hand in the ice-cold snow melt water.  As a matter of fact, this creek:

I think I like this better than the ocean, but that’s a post for another day.

So, despite my name, there will be no hike today. Just a slow ramble along Highway 2.

I’m pretty okay with that.

* * *

A bit further down the road now, and I’ve found the reason the road was closed for so long (well, I’m not sure that they needed as many years as it took to install a new bridge, but whatever). I just drove over a new section of concrete bridge, leaping over the rockslide from years ago:

New concrete bridge, note the rockslide below

* * *

At Vincent Gap, I turned off on a forest service road. I wanted to see the bridge from the canyon below, and here it is again:

Looking up at the new bridge spanning the section that slid away

Well… okay, I wanted to see the bridge from below and do a little driving in 4wd mode.

‘Cuz it’s fun. 🙂

* * *

These posts done on the run are kind of interesting. But I’m pretty sure I’ll still never Twitter.

Heading back to the city, down through Wrightwood, taking a friend up on an invite to see Wolverine…

* * *

Oh, man, did that movie suck!

Which is a pretty lousy way to end a post but, well, some days are like that, aren’t they?