Its menacing body glistening a deep iridescent blue, a tarantula hawk wasp feeds on the flowers of a narrow-leaf milkweed.

I haven't found these huge wasps to be particularly aggressive, but I'm not sure at what point a digital camera held inches  from the alien-looking insect becomes a threat -- and I don't want to find out!

The following is from the paper Venom and the Good Life in Tarantula Hawks (Hymenoptera: Pompilidae): How to Eat, Not be Eaten, and Live Long:

"Tarantula hawks produce large quantities of venom and their stings produce immediate, intense, excruciating short term pain in envenomed humans. Although the instantaneous pain of a tarantula hawk sting is the greatest recorded for any stinging insect, the venom itself lacks meaningful vertebrate toxicity. ...the defensive value of stings and venom of these species is based entirely upon pain. This pain confers near absolute protection from vertebrate predators."

Shudder...

While photographing the wasp, I also took this short HD video. From a run earlier this week at Sage Ranch Park.

Related post: Tarantula Hawk

The smoke is from the La Brea Fire near Santa Maria. From a run on Lasky Mesa at Ahmanson Ranch.

Strawberry Spring, about 1.25 mile from Lawlor Saddle

Race day dawned clear, cool and breezy -- nearly perfect conditions for the start of the 2009 Mt. Disappointment 50K and 50 mile Endurance Runs.

This was the 5th edition of the 50K, a classic race that starts and ends on the summit of Mt. Wilson, and features a demanding mix of technical single track trail, dirt fire roads, and the Mt. Wilson Rd. With over 5000' of legit gain and loss, and a climb to the finish of 2600', it is a course that many underestimate. If the 50K is difficult, the 50 mile is difficult squared. In addition to the final arduous climb to the finish, the 50 mile run features a brutally exposed 6 mile ascent to Shortcut saddle that most do during the hottest part of the day.

My goals for this year's 50K were to a) complete it, b) have fun!, and c) try to get my time back down under 7 hours. I'd been working some on improving my running technique. Would it make any difference?

View from Lasky Mesa, across the San Fernando Valley, to the San Gabriel Mountains.

From a run at Ahmanson Ranch on Wednesday.

Large milkweed bugs (Oncopeltus fasciatus) on narrow-leaf milkweed. There is a brood of immature bugs (nymphs) in the opening seed pod, between the two adults. The aposematic red-orange color tells predators the insects taste bad. Adults probably benefit from staying on a plant with the nymphs, because collectively the defensive display is more effective.

The adjacent photograph of immature milkweed bugs (from Photography on the Run) is being used by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science as part of their "Awesome Adaptations" station educational program.

As found on Sunday's run at Sage Ranch Park.

Or should that be ramping UP for Mt. Disappointment? Anyway, started tapering for the Mt. Disappointment run next Saturday. Did the 13 mile Cheeseboro Canyon keyhole loop from the Victory Trailhead of Ahmanson Ranch yesterday, and then stretched the legs at Sage Ranch today. Both mornings were cool, with low clouds and fog -- very pleasant!

Here's hoping for "not too hot" weather for the race. At the moment, the GFS and ECMWF weather models show a weak upper level trough moving through California in the Friday-Saturday timeframe. Such a scenario should increase the chances of "seasonable" temps for the race -- which would still be quite warm, but maybe not crazy hot.

Update Friday Morning 8/07/09. Broad upper level trough over California this morning is keeping things cool. Yesterday the high recorded at Mt. Wilson was 70, and the low overnight was 48! Southern part of the trough is forecast to hang back over Southern California through Saturday, which could result in temps a little BELOW normal for the Mt. Disappointment race. We'll see!

Related post: Mt. Disappointment 50K 2008 Notes

"What's the elevation gain?" is a common question when talking about a trail run, because it makes such a huge difference in the difficulty of the run. All the technology we have for recording and analyzing trail runs is remarkable, but it can sometimes produce misleading and wildly inaccurate results. This is particularly the case when using a GPS track to calculate elevation gain and loss.

Last Sunday's trail run in the San Gabriel Mountains is a good example. The course started at Islip Saddle, dropped down to South Fork Campground, climbed to the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell by way of Vincent Gap, and then returned on the PCT to Islip Saddle. The GPS track was recorded on a Garmin Forerunner 205. So what was the elevation gain on the loop?

According to Garmin Training Center, the gain was about 10,500'. The same track in TOPO! calculated the gain at about 6,100'. SportTracks, using corrected SRTM-based elevations and moderate smoothing, came up with 5800'. When uploaded to Garmin Connect, the track produced a fanciful elevation gain of about 13,600'!

Last year I used a Polar 625X on this course. It measures elevation gain/loss based on changes in barometric pressure, and came up with a gain of 5400'. So which of these values is the closest to reality?

Fortunately, in the case of elevation gain/loss it's fairly easy to do a low tech sanity check of these high tech results. All that is required is to get out a topo map, either electronically or on paper, and do a little arithmetic.

In the case of Sunday's loop, the gain from South Fork Campground to the summit of Baden-Powell is about 4830'. The gain on the PCT up and over the shoulder of Throop Peak is about 375'. A couple of other minor climbs total 240'. This gives a total of 5445'. Adding in a fudge factor of 200' for very small climbs that were not included in the total, the result is a reality checked gain of about 5645'.

The title photograph is from a run on the Hummingbird Trail yesterday.

Note: A long-standing rule of thumb, Naismiths Rule, says that the additional time required to gain 1000 ft. on a run/hike, will be the same as the the time to run/hike 1.5 miles on the flat. See "Short and hilly or long and flat?" in the Mountaineering Council of Scotland's The SCOTTISH MOUNTAINEER (Issue 7, March 2001).

The thing about a dangerous situation is that you almost never see it coming. In an instant a pleasant adventure can turn really serious. We were in the San Gabriel Mountains about 2 miles down the little used South Fork Trail, and 20 minutes from Islip Saddle, when my running partner shouted, "Do you see that!"

From the tone of her voice I knew it was something serious. My first thought was a mountain lion, but then I saw it -- a bear cub clinging to a tree on the trail ahead. Sh*&! How many times had I told friends that I didn't worry too much about black bears, "unless, of course, it's a mother with her cubs."

Where was Mom? She had heard us coming down the trail, but apparently only had enough time to send her cub up the tree, and take cover. Not good, and potentially very dangerous. We couldn't see Mom, we couldn't hear Mom, but knew she was nearby. Most likely she was in the thick brush on the steep slope below the trail.

Suddenly, the cub scurried higher in the tree, its long claws digging noisily into the bark of the tree. That's when we saw that there were two cubs! The noise startled me, and I wondered if Mom -- wherever she was -- would react.

After a quick assessment, we walked quietly by the tree, and in a second or two started to jog. In a matter of seconds we were out of danger. It was fortunate that there were two of us and we were relatively noisy. A solo runner would have almost certainly surprised the mother with her cubs.

After a time the adrenalin subsided, and the rest of the run went very well. Temps were not quite as hot as expected on the low part of the course, and were pleasantly cool on Mt. Baden-Powell. Both the South Fork Trail and Manzanita Trail had been recently maintained. Some slides and washouts remain, but these are an integral part of the adventure and character of this trail run.

Update October 8, 2009. Here's a video of the cubs and Mom taken a couple of months after our encounter. The cubs have grown! It's from Cougarmagic.com, a video blog with  fascinating footage of mountain lions, bears, deer, bobcats, foxes and other animals found in the mountains near Los Angeles.

More info about the approximately 23.5 mile course can be found in the post Islip Saddle - Mt. Baden-Powell South Fork Loop.

Related post: Wally Waldron Lodgepole Pine

Poison Oak Along the Blue Canyon Trail.

Since nearly all my weekday runs are in the afternoon, on Summer weekends I usually like to escape the heat and do a run in the mountains -- the higher, the better. But today even the mountains were going to be hot. Hot enough that the National Weather Service had issued an Excessive Heat Warning for a combination of heat and humidity that would "create a dangerous situation in which heat illnesses are likely."

It would be cooler at the higher elevations of the Sierra, but there was good chance of thunderstorms developing along the crest of the Sierra, as well as most of the higher mountains of Southern California. Considering the options, I finally decided to do an early morning run in Pt. Mugu State Park. If I was going to run in the heat, it might as well be a scenic run close to home. Maybe the weather in the mountains would be better next weekend.

From a run at Sage Ranch earlier this Summer.

The photograph of Siberian Outpost and Mt. Kaweah was taken from the Pacific Crest Trail, north of Chicken Spring Lake, while running the 22 mile Cottonwood Pass - New Army Pass loop -- an outstanding high mountain course that is nearly all above 10,000'.

The large treeless area is Siberian Outpost. Reminiscent of an expanse of tundra, an exposed camp here would certainly have the windswept, isolated character of the north. The high peak on the right side of the photograph is Mt. Kaweah (13,802'). To the left is Mt. Anna Mills and to the right, Mt. Guyot. The peaks of the Great Western Divide can be seen in the distance. Hidden from view, between Mt. Guyot and Mt. Kaweah, is the Kern (River) Trench near Kern Hot Springs.

In my experience the loop is a MUCH better run when done in the clockwise direction. Something to keep in mind, particularly in a heavy snow year, is that you approach New Army Pass from the west, and don't get to see the snow situation on the steep, east side of New Army Pass until you get there -- at about mile 13.

This wasn't a heavy snow year, but the weather this Spring was cool and there were some late season storms. So it wasn't a big surprise to find a steep patch of snow blocking the trail. With a light pack it was relatively straightforward to find a way around the snow, but earlier in the season, or in a heavier snow year, this might not be the case.

Additional info and photographs can be found in my posts Cottonwood - New Army Pass Loop and New Army Pass - Cottonwood Pass Loop. Here is a Google Earth browser view of a GPS trace of the loop.