View of rock formations along the escarpment between Boney Mountain and Sandstone Peak from the Yerba Buena segment of the Santa Monica Mountains Backbone Trail.

Related post: Balance Rock.

When I heard the news reports of snow in the Santa Monica Mountains along Kanan-Dume road near Malibu, I hoped to find a little snow or hail up at Sage Ranch Park on my afternoon run.

The isolated snow showers, hail and sleet were produced by convective cells that developed as a result of instability associated with a passing upper level low. Some of these cells also generated some lightning and thunder.

There was no snow on the ground at Sage Ranch, but the low angle rays of the setting sun did highlight a snow shower over the Rocky Peak Park area. In March of last year there was snow at Sage Ranch and Rocky Peak.

Related posts: Chumash Trail Snow, Oat Mountain Snow, San Fernando Valley from Rocky Peak.

Hillside oak and trail near Laskey Mesa. From a run in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve (formerly Ahmanson Ranch).

An ant forages among the florets of a wreath plant.

I've run past wreath plants thousands of times in the chaparral of local open space areas. At a glance, the nondescript wiry brown plant isn't very appealing. But, it's one of a few plants you'll see blooming in the chaparral in the Fall, so on a run this last November I took a closer look. This revealed a lavender-tinged composite flower that is anything but mundane. And, as I was to discover, a case of probable mistaken identity, and an example of one of the ways new species occur.

The open space areas in which I run would normally be lush and green by this time of year, particularly when there is an El Niño. But in the past 231 days (including today) the official weather station for Los Angeles has recorded only 1.31 inches of rain, and the hills remain a dank sun bleached gray-brown.

Chaparral Mallow (Malacothamnus fasciculatus) from a run at Sage Ranch Park on November 2, 2006.

In addition to the Chumash-Hummingbird loop, another good trail run in the Rocky Peak Park area is the Chumash-Las Llajas loop. Both loops are about 9.2 miles long, have a mix of dirt road and technical single-track trail, and include some strenuous climbs. The Chumash-Las Llajas loop has less elevation gain/loss, and if you run the loop counter-clockwise, the downhill in Las Llajas Canyon makes for a fast-paced 4 mile descent.

On the South Fork American River is a tree high on a ridge that rafters and kayakers refer to as the Lollipop Tree. It marks the beginning of the Gorge run and the class III rapid "Fowler's Rock."

When I run on the "main drag" at Ahmanson Ranch (Upper Las Virgenes Open Space Preserve) there is an oak tree that sits on a hilltop near Laskey Mesa that reminds me of the S.F. American tree. The Ahmanson lollipop tree can be seen on the skyline south of the main drag about a mile from the Victory trailhead.

This photograph was taken on an exploratory out and back run to the headwaters of Las Virgenes Creek on Christmas Eve.

Note: Jon Sutherland nicknamed the main road that connects the Victory trailhead to Las Virgenes Canyon the "main drag." Jon has run out at Ahmanson for more than 30 years. He is second on the Running Streak List for most consecutive days run. As of September 1, 2006 his streak was 13,613 consecutive days (37 years 99 days), and still counting!

I paused for a moment on a narrow section of the Backbone Trail that zig-zags down a steep, eroded slope and then crosses a bridge over a narrow gorge before continuing down Rogers ridge. Below, a hiker stopped on the bridge to contemplate the canyon, and a mountain biker briefly walked his bike and then cranked up the switchbacks past me.

Updated Wednesday, May 14, 2008.

The Goggle Earth image above shows two GPS traces. Here's a larger image. The red trace was created using a Garmin Forerunner 201, and the yellow trace was created with a Forerunner 205. The course is comprised of a mix of fire roads and trails, through a variety of terrain and cover. The better tracking of the Forerunner 205 is clearly evident. Here is another view of the same course with the two traces.

I've had my Forerunner 205 since March 2006, and in my experience, it is a huge improvement over the 201:

• It is more compact and less obtrusive.
• Tracks are more accurate, and it almost never loses reception.
• It accepts routes for sequential navigation.
• Uploading and downloading data is easier and faster with the USB interface.
• The GPS chipset firmware (as well as unit firmware) can be updated.
• It has multiple customizable data screens that are easily displayed during a run.

The performance of the GPS receiver in the Forerunner 205 continues to amaze me. It is tenacious. I was wearing the Forerunner 205 when I got caught in a fierce thunderstorm running in the Mt. Pinos area in July. Even in the middle of a thunderstorm, on a north facing slope, in a fir and pine forest, the unit did not lose reception. Here's a Forerunner 205 trace of the run, exported from TOPO! Note that the traces going out and coming back very nearly overlay each other. The only exception is a real deviation between Sawmill Mountain and Mt. Pinos where I wandered off the trail to a minor summit. Also note that the trail is incorrectly marked on the topo map in the vicinity of Grouse Mountain.

In my experience there are some cons:

As mentioned in the post North Backbone Trail Revisited, in early October 2006, I had a problem with not being able to power on my 205 after it was charged. Garmin promptly replaced the unit, under warranty, without charge.

In June 2007 the replaced unit began to experience an intermittent issue where it would suddenly start to rapidly cycle through display screens, beep, and not respond to key presses. The only way to stop it was pressing the power + mode + reset keys. Garmin promptly replaced the unit, but charged a flat rate $79 repair fee. Oddly, when the unit was returned, the history included a few runs from the London, Ontario (Canada) area from late February and early March 2007.

It's been almost a year since the flat rate repair/replacement of my Forerunner 205, and I've had zero problems. One apparent improvement is that the contacts on the back no longer get corroded from sweat. This used to cause problems with the USB connection and transferring data, and I would need to clean the contacts from time to time with a pencil eraser.

In my opinion the Training Center Software is still poor, and for that reason I continue to use SportTracks, which has been recently updated to version 2.0. 

Note: The course is the run from the end of Reseda Blvd to Trippet Ranch described in the post Musch Trail Mule Deer.

Technorati Tags: gps, Forerunner 205, Garmin

Glistening in the morning sun, the wet trunk of a manzanita glows in iridescent shades of orange and red, pink and purple. Decorated with raindrops, the chaparral, and all within, breathe a deep sigh of relief. It has rained!

Prior to Saturday night's storm Los Angeles had recorded only 0.5 inch of rain in the last six months. Even by Southern California's arid standards, this is a meager amount.

Usually when there's an El Niño, wet Winter weather can be expected to develop in Southern California. But this year's El Niño has been a little quirky, developing later than usual, and becoming stronger than expected. So far this Autumn, the weather here has been somewhat quirky as well, with record setting high temperatures and below average rainfall. An El Niño, even a strong one, does not guarantee wet weather in our area. Whether or not the usual El Niño impacts eventually develop, we'll just have to see.

Another system is expected to produce some rain in Southern California this weekend, but in the last couple of days the computer weather models have been backing off the rainfall amounts. This morning's computer-based precipitation forecasts are nearly dry. Given the difficulty the models have had with this system, and the long fetch of moisture over the Pacific, maybe the forecast will change. For additional info about the El Niño and Southern California weather, check out my Southern California Weathernotes web site.

The manzanita photograph is from the Reseda to Trippet Ranch run described in my previous post, Musch Trail Mule Deer.

About ten feet in front of me, there was a flash of brown as a large animal leaped across the trail. In the balloon of time that accompanies a surge of adrenalin, I thought of the possibilities. The last time an animal startled me, I was running on a dirt road through ten foot tall chaparral in the Simi Hills. In that case a large bob cat had bolted from the brush.