From a run at Ahmanson Ranch (now Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve).

Mt. San Jacinto (10,804') from the Mt. Wilson pavilion parking lot, just before sunrise, the morning of the 2008 Mt. Disappointment 50K and 50 mile Endurance Runs. San Jacinto -- the large peak left of center -- is 84 miles distant.

Related posts: Mt. Disappointment 50K 2008 Notes, Room with a View

Updated 8/20/08. Added Split Rank listings (PDF) for 2007 50K and 50M, and related comments.

Winding down the precipitous Mt. Wilson road, I thought about the run ahead. To my left granite and pine glowed golden in the morning sun, and to my right the mountain plunged in long shadows, 2000' into the canyon of the West Fork San Gabriel River.

In a few hours I would be somewhere down in that canyon, plodding along sun-baked Red Box road. By then the temperature would be in the mid-eighties, but in the full sun it would feel like a hundred. That would be around mile 23. I kicked a pebble and winced as it almost hit the heel of the runner in front of me. Only at mile 1-something, there were a lot of miles to go.

Or did the Curve Fire trigger a lightning strike?

These trees -- on a section of the Pacific Crest Trail east of Windy Gap -- were burned almost six years ago in the 20,857 acre Curve Fire. According to the Curve Fire Burned Area Emergency Report Implementation Plan, the source of ignition for the devastating fire was "a ritual involving the use of fire (candles) and animal sacrifices." The fire started the afternoon of September 1, 2002.

However, in the document An Exercise Involving Flash Flood and Lightning Potential Forecasts, an alternative ignition source was suggested -- an "out of the blue" lightning strike. Forecasters observed a "single positive lightning strike northeast of the Mount Wilson Observatory" about 1:00 PM PDT (2000Z), near the time the Curve Fire started. According to NWS Lightning Safety Outdoors, such bolts from the blue have been documented to travel more than 25 miles from a thunderstorm cloud.

While there is compelling evidence that the blue sky lightning strike occurred, the time of the strike suggests that it was not the initial source of ignition of the Curve Fire. This UCLA Solar Towercam image is time-stamped at 12:58:58, about the time of the strike. It shows the Curve Fire already underway, with a well-developed smoke column. The photograph also shows the cloud development over the San Gabriel Mountains.

An intriguing question comes to mind. Was the lightning strike a coincidence, or was it somehow triggered by the fire, or the smoke?

According to "Forest Fires: Behavior and Ecological Effects" By Edward A. Johnson, Kiyoko Miyanishi (Academic Press, 2001) large scale lightning detection networks have revealed an association between forest fires and the electrification of thunderstorms. Further, "a shift from negative to positive ground flash prevalence in association with fires and forest fire smoke" has been documented.

So it looks like lightning did not start the Curve Fire, but the Curve Fire may have triggered the positive lightning strike observed by the NWS!

The photograph of trees burned in the Curve Fire is from Sunday's Islip Saddle - Mt. Baden-Powell South Fork run.

Technical papers:

CLOUD-TO-GROUND LIGHTNING DOWNWIND OF THE 2002 HAYMAN FOREST FIRE IN COLORADO
Timothy J. Lang* and Steven A. Rutledge
Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado

Enhanced Positive Cloud-to-Ground Lightning in Thunderstorms Ingesting Smoke from Fires
Walter A. Lyons, Thomas E. Nelson, Earle R. Williams, John A. Cramer, and Tommy R. Turner
Science 2 October 1998 282: 77-80 [DOI: 10.1126/science.282.5386.77] (in Reports)

Technorati Tags: lightning, forest fires, San Gabriel Mountains

Maybe because it's been in the news recently,  but when pondering how to characterize today's trail run, I couldn't help but think of the JFK quote, "We do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard..." This loop is arduous, adventurous, and challenging. While the difficulty of this route is one of the things that makes it interesting, it isn't just the difficulty that makes it appealing.

Part of the appeal is the mix of trails and terrain, and the contrasting environments. The high point of the route is 9,399' Mt. Baden-Powell. Cool, airy and alpine, it is the home of ancient Lodgepole and Limber pines. The low point of the route is 4,560' South Fork Campground. On the margin of the Mojave Desert, it is often hot and sometimes torrid. Midday temperatures here can reach well over 100°F. The route encompasses life zones ranging from the Upper Sonoran to the Hudsonian, and passes through a variety of plant communities. The San Andreas Fault Zone runs along the base of the mountains, torturing the area's rocks, and producing a complex and fascinating geology.

From Islip Saddle the route descends the South Fork trail to South Fork Campground, then climbs 5000' on the Manzanita and Pacific Crest trails to the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell. From here it follows the PCT back to Islip Saddle. In general, the part of the route that is on the PCT -- above Hwy 2 -- is well marked and maintained. However, on the South Fork and Manzanita trails -- below Hwy 2 -- you are on your own.

There are rock slides on the South Fork trail, and there are steep, washed out erosion gullies on the Manzanita trail. Recent thunderstorms have further damaged the eroded sections of the Manzanita Trail. In addition, the Manzanita trail crosses boulder-strewn washes that can make the trail difficult to follow. It is not a trail I would want to be on when there is heavy rainfall. The South Fork and Manzanita trails are part of the High Desert National Recreation Trail.

Google Earth images and KMZ files, and more info about the loop can be found in the posts Complications, Wally Waldron Lodgepole Pine, and Heat Wave.

Lowland blues got you down? Are you repeatedly measuring the elevation gain to your third floor office? Are you beginning to think faux pine tree cell towers aren't that ugly? Do you gaze longingly at distant mountains and then realize you're looking at a billboard?

When I feel that way, one of the close-to-home hikes/runs that satiates the alpine craving is the Falls Creek loop on Mt. San Gorgonio. The 'Falls Creek up, Vivian Creek down' route has been a high mountain favorite of mine for a number of years. It is as rigorous as it is beautiful. About 24.5 miles long, it gains approximately 6600' on the way to the 11,499' summit of San Gorgonio...

Incense cedar on the Burkhart Trail in Cooper Canyon. From Sunday's Three Points loop.

Lemon lilies and sneezeweed accent this lush mountain meadow on the south side of Waterman Mountain in the San Gabriel Mountains. From Sunday's Three Points loop, just before it started to rain.

If you spend much time in the mountains, sooner or later you're going to get caught in a severe thunderstorm. I don't mean you're going to hear a little thunder and get a little wet. I mean you're going to find yourself in the middle of a heart pounding, ear splitting, ozone smelling, sense numbing storm that drenches you through and through and wrings the nerves from your body.

Having been caught in such thunderstorms while climbing in Yosemite, running in the San Gabriels, and running at Mt. Pinos, I do my best to avoid the beasts. Sometimes, it is not an easy thing to do.

We were making good progress up the gargantuan north face of University Peak (13,632'), climbing carefully and doing our best not to knock loose rocks down on each other's heads. We were also doing our best to ignore the gathering clouds -- and the unnerving rumble of distant thunder.

Yes, it would have been better to sleep at the trailhead and get an early start. Especially with a 20% chance of isolated thunderstorms in the forecast. But we didn't. When we should have been taking our first steps on the Kearsarge Pass trail we were eating breakfast burritos in Mojave. So it goes.

Now we were about half way up the 2200' class 2-3 face, and it would take another hour of climbing to reach the summit. That would put us on the summit right around the time of maximum daytime heating -- a bad time to top out if you're trying to avoid a thunderstorm.

Off to the northwest there was another long, rolling, rumble of thunder. Streamers of rain could be seen twining from darkening clouds. Smoke from one or more of California's many fires hung in the valleys to the west of the crest, producing an unnatural and eerie mixture of clouds, smoke, rain, and orange tinted terrain.

We paused in a jumble of broken blocks of granite, hemming and hawing, and otherwise hesitating to make THE decision to descend. Avoiding the issue and pondering the sky, we wondered which fire the smoke was coming from, and -- half in jest -- whether the smoke could have seeded and enhanced the thunderstorm we were watching. Those questions, it turns out, had surprising answers.

From another excursion up and over Kearsarge Pass.

Poised on a glacial bench a dozen miles west, and few thousand feet above Independence, California, Onion Valley is the starting point for many a Sierra adventure. Kearsarge Pass provides relatively quick and easy access to the heart of the Sierra, and the more technical passes south and north of Kearsarge can be used by mountaineers to access peaks along the crest, or basins on the west side of the crest.

It is an area that is dramatically alpine, and I have returned again and again to climb peaks such as Independence Peak and University Peak and to hike, run and explore. One Summer Phil Warrender and I did a trans-Sierra hike that started here and took us over University Pass, Andy's Foot Pass (13,600'), Milly's Foot Pass, Longley Pass and Sphinx Pass, ending at Cedar Grove. We went superlight (about 15 lb. packs w/o ice axe), did as much cross-county as possible, and climbed a few peaks along the way.

Today Miklos, Krisztina and I were doing a reconnaissance hike/run up and over Kearsarge Pass, and down into the Kearsarge - Bullfrog - Charlotte Lakes basin, and back. The idea was to pick a time when the Kearsarge Pass trail would be mostly free of snow, but when much of the surrounding terrain would still be accented in white.

What a day! Perfect temps, little wind, excellent trail conditions, super scenery, and absolutely outstanding trail running.

Here are a few photographs:

Big Pothole Lake from the east side of Kearsarge Pass. Nameless Pyramid (right) and University Peak (left) on the skyline.

View west from Kearsarge Pass over Kearsarge Lakes and Pinnacles to Mt. Brewer (left), North Guard (middle) and Mt. Francis Farquhar (right) on the skyline.

Kearsarge Lakes and Pinnacles from the north.

Miklos and Krisztina above Bullfrog Lake. East Vidette is the prominent conic peak. Deerhorn Mountain is at the head of the recess to the right of East Vidette.

Scrambling above the John Muir Trail about a mile from Glen Pass. Charlotte Dome is in the distance.

Here's a Google Earth image and a Google Earth KMZ file of a GPS trace of our route.