Namadgi National Park is a protected area in the south-west of the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). It occupies 106,095 hectares (262,166 acres), approximately 46 percent of the ACT’s land area.
Declared a national park in 1984, Namadgi National Park has helped protect the biodiversity of the ACT. Eighty percent of the area burned in the Orroral Valley bushfire in early 2020; recovery is ongoing. I’m not sure if the Square Rock trail was in the burn area, but to my eyes today, the place was looking pretty good!
Musch Trail is one of the prettiest in Topanga State Park, but I don’t know how to pronounce it. Rhymes with bush? Or tusk? Or douche? Or crush? Was Musch a person? What’s his/her story? Can a local help me out?
It was so nice to see the first milkmaids this morning!
Milkmaids (Cardamine californica) are some of the first wildflowers to appear in the Santa Monica Mountains each year, showing up in winter and early spring. This member of the Brassicaceae (Mustard) family likes shady, moist hillsides or stream banks in riparian areas. Each flower is about 12mm in diameter with four white to pink petals. The flower closes its petals in late afternoon as the sun goes down and nods its pedicel before a rain, protecting the pollen. It is perennial—after flowering and setting seed, it dies back to its roots where it goes dormant until next year’s rains awaken it.
I hiked this trail once before, in summer 2016, and had a bit of a heat exhaustion incident. I was alone at the time. I remember feeling very dizzy and nauseated, and crawling into the scant shade of a tree to rest and cool down. Luckily today was perfect hiking weather. No hyperthermia involved.
I returned to my favourite MCSP trail for the first time in about six months. I wanted to see how it was handling all the rain, and the answer is .. beautifully! The many tributaries are gushing, the mosses are glowing neon, and the manzanitas are blanketing the woodland floor in white blossoms.
There used to be three buddhas out on the trails, placed by locals who respectfully use this undeveloped private land to exercise themselves and their dogs. The statues attract offerings of pretty rocks, flowers, and other treasures. Two of the statues were removed by the land-owner, but the smallest one remains.
Tucked up in the box end of Solstice Canyon are the ruins of the Roberts Ranch House, “Tropical Terrace”, designed by renowned architect Paul R. Williams in the 1950s. Although it was specifically designed to survive a wildfire, the pumps, pipes and pools were not maintained after the owners’ deaths, and the home burned down in 1982. Extensive paving, brickwork and chimneys remain, along with many non-native plants and trees. It’s now National Park Service property.
I ventured to the eastern end of the Santa Monica Mountains for today’s hike. I consider Griffith Park to be a bit of a crown jewel in the metropolis of Los Angeles. With over 4210 acres (1703 ha) of both natural terrain and landscaped parkland, it’s one of the largest municipal parks with urban wilderness areas in the United States.
Most of the land was purchased in 1882 by Griffith J. Griffith, who made his fortune in gold mine speculation. In 1896, he bequeathed it as a Christmas gift to the people of Los Angeles to be used as parkland.
“It must be made a place of recreation and rest for the masses, a resort for the rank and file, for the plain people,” Griffith said on that occasion. “I consider it my obligation to make Los Angeles a happier, cleaner, and finer city. I wish to pay my debt of duty in this way to the community in which I have prospered.”
So noble, right? But Griffith Griffith was not exactly an all-round good guy. He shot his wife in the head in a Santa Monica hotel room (she survived) and at the trial it was revealed that he was not, in fact, a teetotaller but a secret drunk with paranoid delusions. He was deemed to be suffering from “alcoholic insanity” and so served less than two years in jail. He went on to die of liver disease in 1919.
Be that as it may … as a member of “the rank and file, the plain people”, I am very grateful for Griffith Park. While I would never describe LA as a happy, clean or fine city, I have to say that the Park tilts things a little more in that direction.
Griffith J. Griffith, San Quentin State Prison. Public Domain.
hashiworks 