I’m not an introvert. I don’t suffer from Anthropophobia. In fact, I’m quite the social person. I just don’t like people.
As a hiker, I’m hardly the perfect specimen. So I clearly don’t hike for any of the physical benefits.
As an off-roader, I’m not a technical rockcrawler nor a long distance overlander.
After the largely unnecessary closure of Yosemite National Park due to the nonsensical mediademic imposed by Gavin Newsom, Yosemite is now reopening.
It was FAR more worthwhile to visit it while it was closed. With the newly imposed limits to visitors, though, it could still be considered a great destination because of the much smaller and distanced crowds. It should seem more like a National Park with wide open spaces instead of Galaxy’s Edge at Star Wars during Labor Day Weekend.
One great thing about California is the federal management of public lands. While our state government continues to wheeze and struggle under mismanagement, crazy half-baked “rules” made up by Gavin Newsom who claims to be using science (but his random decisions seem to indicate he’s not even using a dart board and a blindfold, much less an so-called actual “science”), the federal government continues to roll back lockdowns and re-open our lands as soon as it is feasible to do so.
On April 15, 2020 the California Fish and Game Commission determined that a “temporary, adaptive approach was needed to give the California Department of Fish and Wildlife the ability to suspend sport fishing in any waters of the state or restrict the taking of any fish species to protect public health and safety from the immediate threat posed by COVID-19” so they created an emergency action to add Section 8.02, Title 14 to the California Code of Regulations. This allowed the Department of Fish and Wildlife with “the ability to delay, suspend, or restrict sport or recreational fishing for particular species or areas to ensure that anglers, local communities, and government employees are protected from increased risk of transmission of COVID-19.”
We’re all getting ready to go back outside. This year I’m planning on writing a couple of books about Jeeping, so I probably won’t be hiking as much as I’d like (much to my bathroom scale’s distress). I’ll still be out there – I’ve got a Mount Whitney hike planned for later this year, and I’ll be hitting some old favorites (Mounts Wilson (14 miles, 5,710’ elevation), Baldy (10 miles, 10,064’ elevation), San Jacinto (11 miles, 10,834’ elevation), as well as Cucamonga Peak (11 miles. 8,859’ elevation), San Bernardino Peak (16 miles, 10,649’ elevation), and San Gorgonio (17 miles, 11,503’ elevation)).
