By Ellen Girardeau Kempler California’s original gold arrived long before the prospectors. Each spring, tall swaths of European black mustard cover the Golden State’s coastal wilderness in bright blooms. According to many sources, starting in the 1630s the Spanish padres scattered mustard seeds to mark their 600-mile trail from mission to mission along California’s [...]
Editor, Our civic literary culture has been enriched and enhanced immeasurably by the nature writing of Ellen Girardeau Kempler. Her “keep it wild” bio-essays for the Laguna Canyon Foundation always eloquently and informatively articulated sound environmental ethics. Ellen’s ode to the eucalyptus (“Eucalyptus Trees, Rooted in Laguna’s Art History,” Feb. 22) took me back to [...]
by Ellen Girardeau Kempler Southern Orange County’s view across a sea of development toward Saddleback is a rugged reminder of wilder times. Forming the saddle at 5,687 and 5,496 feet respectively, Santiago and Modjeska peaks mark the highest, and most visible, points in the 35-mile-long Santa Ana Mountain Range. On clear winter days, the landmark formally called Old Saddleback seems [...]
By Ellen Girardeau Kempler In his 1841 travelogue, “Two Years Before the Mast,” sailor Richard Henry Dana described seeing gray whales for the first time, on their migration south to Mexico: “For the first few days…we watched them with great interest–calling out ‘there she blows!’ every time we saw the spout of one breaking [...]
Ill Prepared Hiker Rescued from Hillside
A sheriff’s helicopter was used to extract a hiker who suffered an anxiety attack and was unable to move from a steep trail in Laguna Beach’s open space about 6 p.m. Sunday, June 9, police said. Lifeguards in an all-terrain vehicle coordinated the extraction from thick brush and a steep slope between Alta Laguna Park [...]
