Just an easy hike yesterday - up the Hostetter fire road in La Tuna Canyon, to Verdugo peak (same destination as the Beaudry hike a week ago). Lots of people since it was Saturday - the parking area was almost full, and I was rearely out of sght of others - not my favorite hiking experience.
No hike today - should I? Shouldn't I? I decided to go to Starbucks and think about it. Where I proceed to consume unnecessary calories in the form of a breakfast sandwhich, despite having had breakfast (grapefruit and oatmeal) at home.
Yesterday, the weather started out OK - some clouds, with sunlight poking through in places. Almost forgot - I took a panoramic photo set with my cell phone cam - I need to upload them to my PC and assemble them. I use a free, open-source program called Hugin - not as fast as the utility that came with my Canon camera - but Hugin should handle my cell phone pictures, and it wasn't 100 meg of bloated software.
Back to the weather - as I rested at the top, it started to get cloudier - then REAL cloudy - dark clouds - decided to hustle down the hill in case it started to rain. Which also got me to thinking about what "pack" I use - the waist pack I had on has NO storage - so no rain jacket, no extra layer (altho the rain jacket would fit in my pocket, if I had thought it was necessary).
On the way down the hill, we had a little excitement. First I heard some fire engines - coming down Tujunga Canyon. They turned west on La Tuna - toward the parking area - sirens stopped - so I wondered if they were handling something nearby. Next, there was a helicopter circling aound - big, red - looked like an emergency transport. Then - the helicoper LANDED on the TRAIL - about 1/2 mile above me - where I had been just a few minutes before! There had been no indication of the problem then ... I talked with 2 people coming up the trail, and, when I mentioned the fire engines earlier, one of them said they were on the trail below us. So SOMETHING was going on!
I walked down a little further, until I could see the fire engines. They were right at the bottom end of a steep firebreak that people sometimes take - I had done down it twice, deciding the second time that saving 10 minutes by using it, was NOT worth the risk of falling and killing myself. Just then, I could see some people - including firemen - coming down the firebreak. The firemen were helping a group of people - I think I had seen them earlier - including 2 young kids. I was REALLY surprised anyone would take those kids down that steep hill. Of course, it does not look that steep at first ... anyway, the kids were not injured. I found out at the end of my climb that one of the women had injured her arm, and that had prompted the rescue call.
Like I said, a little excitement today!
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