From WATERSHIP DOWN to BILTMORE

December 23, 2020

This morning it's overcast, with high clouds, no sun, and we are not in a hurry. I am walking with Mrs. C and my Seiko Pocket Watch, which slightly mimics a vintage IWC Ingenieur dial, with linen texture and straight markers.

We have been to the original "Watership Down" in England, a place where rabbits rule and humans are very, very afraid. But I think this canyon's rabbit population exceeds that of Watership...

They may all look alike, but I assure you these are different rabbits.

I'm not including the fuzzy images of the dozen I missed while they hopped out of sight.

We saw them all around the parking lot and up a few trails too.

Here's a Rabbit-Cam view:

Deciding which trail to take was a bit of a mystery.

It was hard to tell which one was "the one less traveled by" which could make all the difference in our day!

We took this holey trail, called "Biltmore".

Compared to yesterday, our canyon was wide, flat and populated with entirely different trees and shrubs.

We noticed a bit of frost.

But my wife was prepared for the weather and marched confidently ahead of me into the California live oak forest.

A HUGE difference from Ruffin Canyon, especially considering that they are less than 10 km apart! This was all old oaks.

The trail was wide, hard packed and easy to walk on, which is a good thing because it's non-stop, up-hill, huff-puff.

There was a tiny creek with water running, to our left as we ascended. Great and spooky trees filled the canyon.

Since it is nearly Christmas I put my watch on a red ribbon.

There was an aura of stillness and a bit of ancient decay around us. Many trees had died, but not from obvious causes. Perhaps they were just worn out.

We saw a magnificent Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana -- a rare and endangered species growing only in the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, coastal San Diego county, and on Santa Rosa Island) towering over us.

One of these rare Torrey Pine is growing behind my house; it is the tree you see in sunrise scenes taken from my kitchen table.

Excuse me, but we are in the oak forest now. OK, I got distracted, sorry!

Water in the creek looks chilly but not frozen.

Here the path did a little up/down while the stream wound around a bend. We crossed over the water twice and carried on up the hill.

The trees were breathtaking. This is so rare a sight in Southern California -- I never imagined this kind of place existed here. It reminds me of our walks when we lived in Surrey, England.

At this point we both were completely out of breath. The last steps were an ordeal but also a blessing as it gave us something solid to bear down on. Toyon berries decorated this tree beautifully.

Some of you may know the Biltmore estate is the largest house in America. We weren't expecting to see it, and we didn't. Just a couple regular houses at the end of a street called Biltmore.

We caught our breath, turned around and started back down.

This giant eucalyptus was in full bloom. You've seen the flowers close-up on one of our earlier walks up Rose Canyon.

More Toyon berries here. I haven't gotten around to testing the ones we picked yesterday.

I love this little watch. It has 24 jewels in a tiny manual-wind mechanical movement.

Maybe I will open it for you later. Let's keep descending (our toes are crushed in our shoes). The creek is running here.

We see a row of palms framing the sky to the west of us. There's just a touch of pink from the sun peeking through the cloud cover.

All too soon we are back at the bridge and re-entering the main canyon.

Just in time to see the sun striking this grand old sycamore tree.

I didn't see any birds closely enough to look them in the eye; these spotted fellows seemed to enjoy being at the top of bare branches and singing their hearts out.