Roam
The 11-mile-long Jasper Trail-Grapevine Canyon route takes hikers and all sorts of wheeled travelers -- on mountain bikes and motorcycles, or in off-road-capable vehicles -- down a series of inclines from Anza-Borrego's cooler western margins …
Forged by local uplift of the seafloor roughly two million years ago, today's Palos Verdes peninsula lay surrounded by the ocean for hundreds of thousands of years. Later, the alluvium that covers today's Los Angeles …
Some of the most geologically instructive vistas in San Diego County can be seen by walking the narrow strip of sand and/or cobbles below the Leucadia (northern Encinitas) sea bluffs. If you want to avoid …
Happy Camp Canyon, near Simi Valley and Moorpark, nuzzles in a crease between two long, rounded, oak-studded ridges -- part of the many caterpillar-like, parallel segments making up Ventura County's share of the east-west-trending Transverse …
Lunar eclipses, often overlooked in favor of the more spectacular solar eclipses, deserve more respect than they get. Unlike the rare total solar type of eclipse, which is visible only along a narrow track sweeping …
Schabarum Regional Park in Rowland Heights (eastern Los Angeles County) features a green-grass strip extending nearly a mile into the Puente Hills and lots of steep, brushy hillsides affording some great panoramas of the San …
The shape of Banner Canyon is due to ruptures along the Elsinore Fault. This splinter fault of the San Andreas is the most extensive fault system in San Diego County and is believed capable of a major earthquake.
"Think globally, act locally." The Friends of Ruffin Canyon group in Serra Mesa have taken this slogan to heart by launching a prototypical effort to preserve one of San Diego's several dozen undeveloped urban canyons. …
Weir Canyon Regional Park forms a belt of open space along the south edge of Anaheim -- not the familiar Disneyland/convention center/stadium part of that city, but the Anaheim Hills section, where new and newer …
As day breaks on many a September or an October morning, cone-shaped Mount Helix floats like a desert island above the cool, sopping-wet marine layer. While walking up along the mountainside on mornings like these, …
The San Jacinto Mountains, like many other mountain ranges in far Southern California and Baja California, are characterized by gradually sloping west slopes, and more steeply plunging east faces. The Palm Springs Aerial Tramway lets …
Climb Black Mountain in Rancho Peñasquitos for an inclusive view of San Diego's ancient marine terraces.
As I rambled down the Morgan Trail one crisp early-autumn morning before dawn, the crackling of oak leaves underfoot played counterpoint to the drone of a hundred crickets singing in unison. Dozens of cold blue …
Lake Murray's paved (closed to cars) perimeter path is near East County's most pleasant and most popular place to gulp some fresh air on a summer morning or late afternoon. Unfortunately, the recreation path ends …
The nearly completed Backbone Trail rambles some 55 miles along the crest of the Santa Monica Mountains, from Pacific Palisades to Point Mugu State Park. Most sections of this trail traverse dry highland terrain, but …
Startling changes seem to be occurring at an ever-increasing pace in downtown San Diego -- or "Centre City" as it is sometimes known. Back in 1972, when I first arrived, I'd bicycle over from San …