Carefully weeded memories

 I'll always tell you that the weather is perfect in the South Bay (Southern California), and everywhere in the world in the spring and fall. Don't believe me--those are wishful memories, carefully weeded.

Also don't believe me when I emphatically tell you that there is no such thing as a "natural" disaster. While this may once have been 99.9% true and is now perhaps 95% true, the statement is not as useful or truthy as it once was. The curve of our increasing knowledge and technology and ability to avoid living and building susceptible structures in hazard areas has been eclipsed by our increased exposure to rare natural processes that once were avoidable, but now are harder to predict and avoid by spreading human populations. Those rare truly "natural" disasters--meteor strikes, volcanic eruptions in new areas not previously considered unsafe--are now joined by creeping increasing hazards like glacial outburst floods that were not as common in the Holocene. There is also a human-caused category that is creeping and caused not by those living in harm's way but by others: more severe fires in fire-suppressed forests and bigger floods due to our fossil-fuel-warmed atmosphere. As the climate shifts deeper into the Anthropocene, we need to recalibrate, take into account new risks, and the changing landscape under our feet. Maybe we have always been catching up--"there are no natural disasters," while using an absolute to make an important point that people can make better decisions, always had a ring of perfect hindsight. You can see what you should have done differently after the first disaster. Perhaps the better saying is "there are no repeat natural disasters." If you decide to continue living in the floodplain after the first flood, or after the first flood map prediction, all the repeat disasters are human-caused from the choice to stay in harm's way--they are not natural.

Right now I'm reading Tim Palmer's important book "Seek Higher Ground." Anyone living in a floodplain (that by definition was created by repeated flooding that will continue and get worse in the future) must read this book.

Tracks of Rain

 Last week, on the afternoon of Monday July 13th, 2026, I was hiking up the French Ranch Fire Road and saw rainprints in the road. It was 90 degrees, humidity was 30-40%, and it was cloudy and muggy. The next day San Geronimo's temperature would exceed 100 degrees for the first time in July (since I began keeping records in 2012).

But despite the hot dry air, there was evidence that raindrops had reached the ground that day. The rain prints were little pinpoints in the dust--some even looked like they were still wet, although I think that may have been just shadowing.

Heavy equipment has been working on the ridge daily, incrementally moving east, turning the fire road into a smooth superhighway for runoff to accumulate in new wider carefully-graded swales that drain off the road. It was hard to see this done to Willis Evans Canyon a few years ago, but it grew back and the road edges were once again covered in leaves and needles. Vehicles usually don't drive here, but the road seems like it is being readied for heavy traffic and heavy rain. Perhaps the Super El Nino has motivated the work.

Before road maintenance

After road maintenance

Because of the daily earth moving work on the ridge, trucks had driven down the access road since the rain. There were no rainprints in the tire tracks.

This meant that the rain had fallen earlier, before the workers headed home in the afternoon. Humidity peaked around sunrise and again around noon... both plausible times for the rain to have fallen to the ground.

The following Monday--yesterday--rain fell in Inverness. Today, Tropical Storm Elida, 500 miles southwest of Monterey, could bring more tracks of rain.

Come to think of it, there was a water truck working up on the ridge. It could have come down to refill, and splashed drops of water onto the road as it returned up the steep grade. Maybe it wasn't rain at all.

Tragedy

Growing up, I remember my dad telling the tale of how his aunt lost her arm in a nighttime train wreck. It was such a wild story, but without a lot of details, so my imagination filled them in. We still had her prosthetic arm in the attic or the garage--which was always kind of creepy. I inherited that arm and still have it stored in my garage... it seems like it could be useful as either a valuable historical artifact or a creepy Halloween prop. So far I've resisted putting it out on Halloween. My daughter says I should make it look like it is coming out of the ground.

Well, the scales just tipped toward the historical, when I found an old newspaper clipping:

When I saw this, I knew that despite the misspelled name, it was about "Mrs. Meek," my dad's aunt. I was so excited to learn the July 13, 1913 date of the "Vineyard train wreck" and the rest of the story. My entire life, I had always wondered about it--where, when, why, how--and I could finally learn what happened. And interestingly, to those involved, I'm sure it reinforced the concept of the number 13 being unlucky.

Succession

Primary succession is the process of lichen, algae, fungi, and eventually plants establishing themselves on new ground without soil. This could be a lava flow, or an area uncovered by a retreating glacier. Secondary succession is the process of plants re-establishing in areas already covered by soil, for example after a fire.

Riverine succession sometimes is primary (on large deep barren sandbar deposits) or secondary (where sediment deposition is shallow or doesn't bury pre-existing vegetation.

Primary succession usually takes longer than secondary succession.

Pushing back on Yosemite's new $100 fee for non-residents

I went to Yosemite Valley on Sunday. At the entrance station, I was asked if I and everyone in my car was a citizen or legal resident. I answered in the affirmative, but was struck by how awful it felt to be asked that question and have to answer in order to enter Yosemite National Park. It felt like the MAGA police state intruding on our beloved National Parks with its ugly, cruel, unwelcoming policies. People seeking refuge in nature should have as few barriers as possible preventing them from accessing that solace.

So I told the ranger it was a terrible question to ask. She said she had to ask it. I responded that as a citizen, I had to tell her that it was a terrible question to have to ask. She recommended that I speak to her higher ups including the Park Superintendent. So I sent a message through Yosemite's Contact Us form.

My message:

Dear Superintendent: When I entered Yosemite on Sunday, I was asked if I and everyone in my car was a citizen or legal resident. To be asked this question in the United States of America when entering a National Park felt offensive and disrespectful to our country's long-held values and traditions. In addition, the new $100 fee is regressive, targeting those who might least be able to afford it. I encourage you to remove this unwelcoming fee targeting visitors to our country and replace it with a $1 million fee for billionaires to enter the park. If I was asked if I was a billionaire, it would not have been offensive, since if I were one I would be happy to contribute less than a tenth of a percent of my wealth (which is comparable to the current policy since $100 represents a tenth of a percent of a $100,000 annual income). Changing this policy as I suggest would make our National Parks more inclusive and welcoming to all visitors and would raise far more funds in support of the Parks. Thank you for considering my comments and being welcoming to all visitors to our National Parks, no matter where they come from.

I encourage others to express similar sentiments. And I encourage National Park Service employees to resist authoritarian impulsive unwelcoming policies of the current lawless presidential administration any way they feel they can, until the day we have a Constitution and law-respecting president return to the White House.

Catching up on the February Storms

 It doesn't feel right to let this rainy season fade away without writing about the February storms--especially when they included a rare thunderstorm, and some were bigger than the December storm, which I did write about. So here it is May, the fourth average or wetter-than-average year in a row, and while the soil is already cracking due to the dry spring (although March was average with 6.3" of rain), things look good: the grasses are tall and there is still much green, and the now-disappearing flowers have been wonderful. And a pleasant surprise--the invasive deeply evil (in California, I'm sure it is nice where it is native) star thistle seems to be crowded out by other plants in many areas.

2025 water year total to-date is 47.87" as of the end of May.

Let's turn the clock back to February.

West of Huntoon Spring

"Of what avail are forty freedoms without a blank spot on the map?" --Aldo Leopold

There is a USGS topographic map in the 7.5-minute series called “West of Huntoon Spring.” Maps in this series are typically named for prominent features that occur on the map. “West of Huntoon Spring” has no notable features that are worthy of a map name, so it is named for a feature on the map that is to the east: Huntoon Spring. This empty spot is simply “West of Huntoon Spring.”