inspiration point

-self portrait at the top of the trail

-view of glendale and eagle rock from the top of mt verdugo

so..i wanted to hike to inspiration point. i was discouraged, though, by hiking blogs that warned of the hike being rigorous and taking the good part of the day.

i stuck to verdugo mountain, which is closer to home. the blogs also reported a more slight change in elevation and a shorter round trip time.

it was o.k., but i wish i would have done the mount lowe hike. i've been waiting to do it all week, but the rain has been relentless. verdugo mountain was easy. it only took two hours roundtrip. i hiked at a brisk pace and felt no burning whatsoever. it was also quite boring. it was a fire round and there was just some bare chaparral plants on the fringe of the trail. although the griffith park trails are lame and touristy, they make for more interesting hikes because of the non-native plants that people have brought into the park. yes, that proved disastrous in the last fire, i know. apart from an elderly couple that didn't seem to make it very far, there were no signs of life.

well, i will hike mt. lower and maybe even henninger flats before my break is through.

break

we call this the "edge of the world." i think that everyone else calls it "fermin state park." anyhow, it is one of our favorite spots. when we first met, we stayed up all night and decided to come here for the sunrise. i remember that there were about 30 or so mangy cats ascending from the bottom of the hill in a pack. we finally realized that a crazy woman in spandex was feeding them out of her van. we couldn't stop laughing for some reason or another.
yesterday, we made a kite out of newspaper. it did quite well and i was able to retrive it in one piece. i want to make some different designs. i've read that trash bags also make good kite material.

we went to claremont today to check out the converted packinghouse. it was a nice day to eat a turkey sandwich and take a stroll around an east coast-ish college town, but the packinghouse was sort of a let down. i wanted to ask the people at the prison book project if they needed volunteers, but noone was present. i worked at a similar project in olympia. i probably devoted twenty or so hours a week when the rain season was in full swing and when i didn't have any spending money. that was pretty much the entirety of our stay. i'll try again.