Wednesday, September 05, 2012

A visit to the Santa Ana Mountains

If you're truly interested in Orange County's history, you're going to read the works of Terry Stephenson and Jim Sleeper. And when you do that, you're going to learn something about the history of the Santa Ana Mountains. And when that happens, you'll want to SEE the Santa Ana Mountains,... Not as a scenic backdrop to your housing tract, but up close and personal. Consider this video, "The Santa Ana Mountains: True Stories of a Great Range," by Patrick Mitchell, Kirk Pickler, Joel Robinson, Sama Wareh, et al, a little sample of what's out there.

Now,... Do you want to hear what happens when you give a mouse a cookie?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for posting this Chris. As a former docent for the Irvine Ranch Conservancy I've hiked most of the areas in the film. I've also had the pleasure of hiking with Joel Robinson, a true wealth of information!

We're now living in Australia and the film brought back a lot of good memories.

Mike

Anonymous said...

Nicely done, but it should be noted that overnight camping and open fires are illegal in the Cleveland National Forest. Obviously, they got an exemption for this film, but wish they had said so. Great way to advertise and have the canyons overrun by people looking for all the water falls.

Chris Jepsen said...

Mike: Good to hear from you.

Anonymous: Excellent point about the forest regulations. As for the back country being over-run, I think the lack of camping amenities, the snakes and the poison oak will weed out at least some of the triflers.

One can argue about how best to manage our wildlands, and what the best policies are re access. But I think it's still important that people at least *know* what's in their own backyard.

Anonymous said...

Wow...35 years living in O.C. and I never knew all of that was there.
Thanks for sharing the video!

Anonymous said...

If no one knows what's out there it is sure not to be cared about when threatened by housing, roads, energy infrastructure, mismanagement, illegal agriculture, etc. i agree that most people are not adventurous enough to head out and see these canyons after watching this film. Those who don't rush out will have a deeper understanding of their local ecology and those who do go exploring will certainly be more passionate advocates of the wildlands they live near.