And a Partridge in a Pear Tree

On the front page of this website I wrote that Adams' Pack Station is presumed to be the last of its kind in the United States; serving a residential community. There are a lot of recreational outfitters, and some that haul occasional building materials for public projects, but nobody hauls the diversity of items that we do. Here's a list of what Deb and Brad and I packed in the last week and you can decide for yourselves:

• beer


• 4 ten-gallon propane tanks


• 1 leaf blower


• food


• bottled water


• beer


• 1 air mattress


• 1 bedding set


• food


• beer


• sacks of concrete


• 1 lawn chair


• seventy-five feet of rusty 1" cable


• eight-foot pressure-treated 2X4's


• construction debris


• household waste


• 1 five gallon propane tank


• gasoline


• food


• wine


• 1 table lamp


• 1 lamp shade


• 1 set of wine glasses


• 30-plus eight-foot 2X6 boards


• nails


• 4-quart stock pot


• 1 spice rack


• beer


• folding camp chairs


• vinyl flooring squares


• roll roofing


• charcoal briquettes


• 1 empty 55-gallon drum


• beer


• sleeping bag


• pipe wrench


• non-dairy creamer


• Henry' weather-proof caulking


• lanterns


• drip edge


• empty beer cans

Black Magic Woman

About six years ago, a young female Rottweiler was found wandering the canyon. At the time she showed up, there were some workers staying in cabin #76, as they built a retaining wall for John Woodburn. The dog came sniffing around and they fed her table scraps. But it was clear that the dog needed medical attention as she had some severe wounds on her back.

Mike "The Fiddler" Pauro, whose cabin is just upstream from there, took her to the vet for inspection. People had been wondering if the wounds on her back were sunburns from being lost on the road in the summer time, but it was worse than that. The vet said that the wounds were consistent with a hot water scalding. Obviously someone had tortured her or tried to kill her, then dumped her at the end of the road here at Chantry Flat. Mike took care of the vet bills and took her home until he could find and owner for her. That was the start of a long relationship.

Mike jokes that he didn't want a woman in his life, choosing to concentrate on various art projects such as craftsman-style lamps and poetry. But he found companionship and unconditional love in the girl he named Allie. She followed him everywhere. She lived with Mike in town, she went with him to "The River", but of course The Canyon was Allie's favorite place. She would walk up passed The Falls with Mike to a place he calls "Magic". They would always find a cure for writer's block up there.

A couple of months ago, Allie started having problems with her back legs. They were sore and swollen. The edema progressed and eventually she could barely walk. Sue thinks she had a heart disease that was causing this problem. The vet bills were adding up and her condition was worsening in spite of them; and she had no quality of life. So Mike had to make the difficult decision to put her down. She was only about seven years old.

Just recently Mike and his daughter Tina took Allie's ashes up canyon and spread them around Magic. So if you spot a Rottweiler chasing a squirrel into a stand of Maple trees, about halfway between Cascade and Spruce Grove, you'll know she's in Heaven.

Click photo for full image.

That's MISTER Gorbechev to You!

When Mike Pauro saw what I was doing today he said: "There's only one way to finish a job, and that's to start it." You see, there was, I say WAS, a reinforced concrete pony wall outside the loading dock that needed to be removed. It was part of the enclosure that Dennis Lonergan built for garbage cans. Mike knew that this is the spot we chose to allow the cabin owners association to put up a storage shed.

The cabin owners have a pancake breakfast coming up this Saturday, so today I cleaned out all the spare lumber and junk that surrounded the enclosure, and emptied it of the cabin owners' chairs stored therein. Then I removed the hinged roof/lid. The thought was that if I set out a few sledge hammers, everyone could take a few whacks at it during breakfast and it would be knocked down by the end of the day. Naturally I had to take a few whacks at it beforehand.

As I swung the 16 lb. sledge, my thoughts wandered to all the guys that whined about how hard it was going to be; so I kept swinging. I also realized that nobody would want to work on their day off, so I kept swinging. I remembered that Rich is bringing Jason up to work tomorrow and he could clean up the pieces, so I kept swinging. Everyone complained about how long it would take to remove the wall, so I kept swinging.

So today, on MY day off, I broke up the whole wall by myself. No, it wasn't easy, especially not with my broken back still healing, but so what? The whole project, from the time I started cleaning until I removed the last block was only three hours; by myself mind you. I didn't rush, I just worked slow and steady. Mike was right. The only way to finish a job is to start it.

That's the moral of the story. The point of the story is that I now reserve the right to rib the guys about how they made such a big deal out of this. Now that the space is cleared, they can assemble the shed after the pancake breakfast.

I found a treasure hidden inside one of the cinder blocks of the wall, encased in concrete. A little orange plastic bottle way down at the bottom.

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Feet

Once in a while a critter will break into the Feed Room and steal kitty food. We still store it in the giant popcorn tin that Kim used for years. It's kinda beat-up, so the lid doesn't always fit tightly. More than once I've caught a skunk with its head in the can. Naturally I just let them eat. Also, this year has brought a lot of foxes to Chantry Flat, so I wouldn't be surprised to catch one munching kibble. But I never expected what I saw today.

I left the lid off the cat food can because sometimes The Girls fight over the bowl, and they can eat off of the lid with room to share. Sitting casually amongst the left-overs tonight was a Giant Millipede. I have seen them on several occasions over in Eaton Canyon near Altadena. Some are twice the size of this one. They crawl all over the rocks at the base of Eaton Falls on misty days. I've also found a couple in my mother's moist garden on New York Drive, also in Altadena. This tells me they like to come out on wet days, like the newts do. And today was a very foggy, drizzly day. So why was it in the middle of a bone-dry hay room? And why was it in the cat food?

My guess is that one of the cats captured it and brought it to the dinner table. It was released unharmed because they have a defense mechanism. Some millipedes excrete fairly caustic and toxic substances. The ones we have here are not dangerous, but they do excrete a liquid when handled. This yellowish juice is undoubtedly very foul-tasting, even to cats. Or maybe Millipedes taste like feet. Either way, the bug was spit out on the plate.

Click on the photo to get a better look at the millipede.

The Cisco Kid, Again

Yesterday I had a short pack for Miriam Sharkin. Her cabin, #7 at the old First Water site, is a stone's throw below the Pack Station in the canyon bottom, but the trail is about 3/4 of a mile. It's marked as the First Water Switchbacks on our canyon map. Every time I take this trail I appreciate it more. It can be blazing hot & still, and cool & shady & breezy at the same time. It clearly demonstrates the difference between the north-facing and the south-facing slopes of the San Gabriels.

Miriam had some garbage and junk to be hauled out of her "dungeon" (that's the storeroom under the porch). I had a rough idea of what she needed packed, since she had shown me on an earlier trip, so I knew that there were some large foam pads. I saddled up Bill & Slim because the two would have been enough to handle the light weight, but I was concerned about the bulk.

Cisco, our 34-year-old retired donkey, has been following along naked with the pack string, enjoying his second childhood. He wanted to come with us yesterday so I put a saddle and panniers on him. I knew that the foam pads wouldn't be too heavy for him. I had my "big three" working together again. Bill, Slim and Cisco know every inch of our trails, go where I ask and carry anything. This is especially important when one is packing alone.

As it turned out, I needed three animals because of the volume of the loads. Cisco had a great time helping out and he seemed very proud of himself. I write some goofy things in this blog, but I am serious here. Donkeys really do have feelings and personalities and I could tell that Cisco was glad to help out. Click on the photo to get a better look at him when we got back.

The Plat-Billed Duckypus

George "Geo" Tseko is owner of cabin #29 in the Main Canyon. On one of his recent hikes he spotted a strange creature walking through the forest. I guess that makes two strange creatures walking through the forest, but that's beside the point. I can't testify to his state of mind, but he swears that he saw a duck-like animal with three feet and a crazy hair-do. As far as I know, this is the first reported sighting of such a beast.

As a graduation present for Deb Burgess, Geo described this creature to an artist, and had it immortalized in ceramic. The model now adorns a patio table on the Pack Station deck. To honor the man who made the discovery we have named him "Curious George"; and he has officially been classified as a "Plat-Billed Duckypus". Click on his photo for a better look.

Yes, It's Spelled with Two S's

I had an interesting pack today. As you can see from the photo, it involves 12-foot 4X4's. These and the slats in the panniers are the components of Mary Douglass' new footbridge. Her cabin is on the East Fork, across the stream from the others in the group.

The "Main Canyon" crossing at cabin #67 is relatively flat with good stepping stones, and the crossing just upstream between cabins #64 & #69 has a plank bridge. So it's easy to get from the trail to the mouth of the East Fork. But the East Fork is narrow and rocky, and to cross again to Mary's cabin can be rough.

She used to have a bridge, but it washed out in either October, 2004 or January 2005; I don't remember which. The bridge, like that at cabin #64, was not fixed. It was chained to a tree, and storm waters would wash it parallel to the stream. One simply had to replace it across the stream once in a while. Well, it must have gotten splintered in the storm by a fast-moving rock or log (another good reason not to cross flood waters!).

Mary's son, Dave Douglass, brought in a new bridge for her. He made it with two 4X4's to span the stream, and wooden slats for a surface. Everything was pre-cut, pre-drilled, and pre-assembled. Then he numbered all the parts and disassembled it for packing.

This is the perfect opportunity to show how I pack such long items on such little animals (smaller than mules and horses, that is). The 12-foot lumber is extremely difficult to pack to half of the cabins using this method. As you can see, the donkeys can't make the tight turns and switchbacks. It would also require more than one packer. But it is the safest and easiest way in the "Main Canyon"; and I can do it alone.

In this case, the 4X4's were only about 30 lbs each. I also needed to pack in the slats. Since I was by myself, and two donkeys connected in this fashion is all one man to handle, I couldn't use more than Bill & Slim. So what I did was saddle them with the panniers, something we don't normally do with lumber. I tied one end of each 4X4 to the front cross of the front animal, then the other ends to the rear cross of the rear animal. This has always worked for me before, but because the ropes have to be looser than normal, the lumber has a tendency slip and slide. Today I wrapped duct tape around each rope and the lumber (click the inset photo to enlarge). This really did the trick. Once the 4X4's were in place, I put the slats in the panniers on end. A happy accident occurred when I cinched up the bags with the short lumber - they made very sturdy slings for the 4X4's. This was not necessary, but reassuring.

Everything arrived safely, and without any mid-trail adjustments. Dave will probably put the bridge in place this weekend.