Mountain bikers cranking up a canyon near Las Virgenes Creek.

From today's run at Ahmanson Ranch.

These valley oaks have dropped their leaves, but if you were to go by the warm temperatures we've been having in Southern California, you might think it was Summer.

Including today, the high temperature at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, California has reached into the 80s each of the last six days. High temperature records for December 31 - January 5 have been broken at several locations. Among the records broken, yesterday San Gabriel recorded a high of 91, Camarillo 90, and UCLA 89.

It sounds sweltering, and it can be if you're in full sun, but it's not like a 90 degree day in July. Days are short, shadows long, and some north-facing slopes never see the sun. And it does cool down quickly. If you take a look at the overnight lows on those six 80+ days at Pierce College, you'll see the temperature dropped to around 40-42 degrees.

On my run Tuesday afternoon, when the photograph of the valley oaks was taken, the temperature varied by as much as 20-25 degrees between some high and low points.

It has been great weather for running, but I'm ready for a change in the pattern and a little rain!

From a New Year's morning run on the Garapito Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains, near Los Angeles.

Some related posts: Deadly Nightshade, Douglas' Nightshade

Creeping over the top of a hill and down through some oaks, a ray of Winter sun found and illuminated this fern frond along the Backbone Trail in Upper Trancas Canyon.

From Saturday's run in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The view above is of crags in the Circle X area and the Channel Islands from the Etz Meloy section of the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains.

From today's out and back run on the Backbone Trail from Kanan Road to a viewpoint on Etz Meloy Mtwy fire road. The fire road continues west about a mile and links to the Yerba Buena segment of the Backbone Trail.

The segment between Kanan Road and Yerba Buena Road includes the two remaining gaps in the Backbone Trail -- the 0.1 mile Etz Meloy gap and the 0.4 mile Upper Trancas gap.

Here are a few additional photographs from the run:

Etz Meloy Motorway

Chaparral Currant

Oak Grove

Moonrise over the San Fernando Valley from El Escorpion Park.

From a late afternoon run on December 8. The moon is about 98% full, and about a day and a half away from the total lunar eclipse that occurred before sunrise on December 10, 2011.

The pink alpenglow results from sunlight passing through the Earth's atmosphere. The dark area just below the alpenglow is the Earth's shadow.

Here's a larger version of the photograph.

In this case the Edison Road is in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve.

From this morning's run of the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon - Cheeseboro Ridge Loop. This Park Service PDF includes a map of the area, and this interactive Google Earth browser view shows the route.

The post on the XTERRA web site said the new Crystal Cove 15K course had been approved, and also mentioned something about a "gnarly" hill. I thought I better check it out, and followed a link to the course info on MapMyRun.

The elevation profile didn't look too bad. It had the usual ups and downs you expect to see on a Southern California trail run. In Tour de France fashion, MapMyRun categorizes the more difficult climbs on a course from Cat 5 to Cat 1 with Cat 1 being more difficult.  Climbs that are crazy difficult are rated Hors catégorie (HC). A climb has to be at least 0.3 mile long to be categorized.

Two categorized climbs were noted on the MapMyRun elevation profile of the Crystal Cove 15K course: a Cat 3 that began about a half-mile into the race and climbed about 775' over 3.4 miles, and a Cat 5 that started at about mile 4.7 and gained about 130'. The gnarly climb was supposed to be somewhere around mile 5, but the MapMyRun profile indicated that section had a grade of 2.6%??

The gnarly hill was waiting for us around a sharp corner at mile 4.75. Locals refer to it as the Elevator, but the runners I talked to call it THE WALL. Since you ride an Elevator, but have to crawl up and over a wall I'm going with THE WALL. Whatever you call the thing, it was the steepest pitch I've ever encountered on a race course, and steep enough that hikers often descend it on their backside. (It's steeper than it looks in the video!)

And once you've clawed your way over THE WALL you're not done -- the hill continues another 0.4 mile and averages about a 15% grade. I pushed on up the climb, propelled by the thought that the MapMyRun profile showed it was nearly all downhill from around mile 5.7 to the Finish -- I would have almost four miles of downhill bliss.

Or not! It was in the middle of the uphill around mile seven that I was beginning to wonder when the "good" downhill was going to begin. It had to start soon; the course was only about 9.5 miles long! After struggling to keep my pace up through a long stretch of level terrain around mile eight, I wondered -- probably out loud -- if the course was going to fall off the edge of the earth.

From madness comes revelation, and in this case the edge of the world. The last mile-plus of the course plummeted nearly 700 quad-numbing feet to the Finish.

Reality check: Here's a higher resolution elevation profile generated in SportTracks using my GPS track from this year's race. You can see there was a lot more to the course than shown in the MapMyRun profile. There are several tough climbs, ranging in grade from about 5% to 15%, and the last big hill was definitely gnarly! The course was great, and much more interesting than the MapMyRun profile suggested.

Here's a Crystal Cove State Park Trail Map (PDF).

There are about 15 creek crossings on the Serrano Canyon Trail. In a wet rainy season you might even get your shoes wet!

From last Sunday's adventure run over Boney Mountain and down to Serrano Valley.

Craig had never done any rock climbing, but was doing a great job of scrambling up the steep gullies, and climbing the short sections of knobby, low angle volcanic rock. We were climbing up through a maze of brush and rock formations on the steep ridge that follows Boney Mountain's western escarpment. The scramble up the western ridge would be well worth the effort. The route is a shortcut to the Backbone Trail and some of the most spectacular running in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Our run had started at Wendy Drive & Potrero Road in Newbury Park. We were doing a 20 mile loop that was about as varied as a trail run can be. In addition to the 1.5 mile ascent of Boney Mountain, there would be about 13 miles of single track trail, 4.3 miles of dirt road, and even 1.7 miles of paved road.

After getting through the maze to the Backbone Trail we would do the classic run down the Chamberlain Trail to the Old Boney Trail. From the bottom of the Chamberlain Trail there are four major variations. Three of these lead to Big Sycamore Canyon and one loops directly back to the start of the climb up Boney Mountain:

- Turn left (west) on the Old Boney Trail and at the junction of the Serrano Valley & Old Boney trails follow the Serrano Valley Trail and then the Serrano Canyon Trail to Big Sycamore Canyon. This was the route we were doing today.

- Turn left (west) on the Old Boney Trail and follow it all the way to Big Sycamore Canyon.

- Turn right (east) on the Old Boney Trail and at the junction of the Blue Canyon & Old Boney trails, continue down the Blue Canyon Trail to the Danielson Multi-use area in Big Sycamore Canyon.

- Turn right (east) on the Old Boney Trail and at the junction of the Blue Canyon & Old Boney trails, turn up the Old Boney trail and  follow it  over the shoulder of Boney Mountain and back to the point where the ascent of Boney Mountain began.

In Big Sycamore Canyon there are many options. Today we would run up Sycamore Canyon Rd to Wood Canyon Rd and pick up the Two Foxes Trail. This trail continues up-canyon and eventually rejoins Sycamore Canyon Rd, which would take us to the Upper Sycamore Trail, and from there to Danielson Road and Satwiwa. Here's an interactive Google Earth browser view of a GPS trace of our route. This PDF map from LAMountains.com shows many of the trails in the area.

Note: There is an easier alternative to the western ridge route on the north side of Boney Mountain. The route starts near the Danielson Memorial, and ascends a use trail up the eastern ridge on the north side of the mountain. In places the (unmaintained) trail is very steep, eroded, and rubbly but it is more straightforward and less technical than the western ridge.

Some related posts: What a Great Day for a Trail Run, Sandstone Peak from Wendy Drive, Boney Mountain Views

Spotted these unusual clouds while running in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve today. Better known as Ahmanson Ranch, the open space area is on the western margin of the San Fernando Valley, northwest of Los Angeles.

The clouds were strikingly similar to clouds I'd photographed last January following the development and dissipation of a band of mid-level mammatus clouds over the San Fernando Valley. As before, the clouds were round-bottomed and were ragged with virga.

Upper air charts and model analyses indicated the clouds were at an altitude of about 20K-25K, and were associated with a very small scale upper level disturbance.

Here's a wider view of the clouds.

Related post: Mammatus Clouds Over the San Fernando Valley, More posts...

Following a green lne up a hill.
Don't know where it's going,
but that's part of the deal.
Get to the top, look around.
Take a deep breath,
and run back down!

From this evening's twilight run through El Escorpión Park.