Hike: Tilden and Wildcat Regional Parks

I attempted a 7 mile hike in the Tilden and Wildcat Regional Parks area today, but missed a turn and ended up at 11 miles. Maybe the extra distance was worthwhile, since I got to walk through a herd of grazing cattle. It was a little cloudy and windy, but that didn't diminish my appreciation of this walk. Here's the route I took:

• Start at the Tilden Regional Park Environmental Education Center.
• Head northwest past Jewell Lake and catch Wildcat Creek Trail. This section is wide open, pleasant, and mostly flat. At one point, I got to watch a couple squirrels close-up as they foraged near the trail.
• Head east-ish on Havey Canyon Trail. In this section, you pick up maybe 900 vertical feet. Golden bay leaves paved the narrow trail, bringing back fond memories of runs and hikes around Bellingham, Washington. Stepping through the first cattle gate, I was in the midst of several majestic silver-gray trees with silvering leaves. I think they were California Bay Laurels (Umbellularia californica). This might have been my favorite part of the hike. I also found a small black snake, but unfortunately scared it due to me not paying attention.
• The Havey Canyon trail emerges from the trees into a swooping gentle ascent north to the paved Nimitz Way trail. Take a right and ascend another 100-ish vertical feet. The San Pablo Resevoir became visible on my left side. I saw a rabbit cross the trail.
• Here's where things get a bit confusing. At one point where the Nimitz Way trail takes a sharp left on its way downhill, but I continued straight up a fairly wide gravel trail. There was a 2.4 mile mark on the Nimitz pavement just before this junction(the mile marks were descendind). The trail narrowed to single-track as I passed several lovely Monterey Cypress trees (I think...) on my right. This set me up on the Conlon trail, and I was supposed to turn left at a bench and return to the Nimitz Way trail. However, I continued. straight on the Conlon trail, which returned me to the junction of the Wildcat Creek and Havey Canyon trails. Passing through the herd of cattle was a little exciting. Further on and near the its descending terminus, Conlon trail is embraced by a picturesque oasis supporting a clutch of protective trees and bushes.
• The Conlon trail exited onto the lower end of the Havey Canyon trail. With two left turns and few steps uphill, I began my return on the Wildcat Creek Trail.

If I repeat this trip, I'll probably try the intended seven mile route, or maybe shorten it further by staying on the Nimitz Way trail when it makes the hard left I mentioned above. The Tilden Visitor Center has useful and free trail maps for the Wildcat Regional Park area that covers nearly all of the hike I described. I usually like to buy nice maps from the helpful rangers, but none of the for-pay maps were any good. Note to self: next time, pick up the map before starting the hike.

Great weekend!

1. Todd arrives Friday afternoon.
2. We meet Jill, David, Devon, and other great people at a Tainted Love concert. Tainted Love rocks.
3. Sleep late on Saturday, then go to breakfast, then to the used record store.
4. Dinner with Lina, Jason, and Kai, who have impeccable taste in restaurants and wine.
5. Stay up late talking, with another couple bottles of wine.
6. Eleven-mile solo hike in Tilden Regional Park and Wildcat Canyon Regional Park.
7. Dinner and dessert with Todd, Ginelle, and Linda.

How to make the Chicago River green

After a friend told me about the Chicago River running green on St. Patrick's day, I had to investigate. Here's the report I sent to my friend, once I figured out how it's done.

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On the other hand, current rumors that I'm nerdy are spot-on. I couldn't help but search for [chicago river green] tonight, after your mention of this St. Patrick's day spectacle. I've written more than you want to know about it below. Here's the executive summary: yellow-green fluoroscien dye appears relatively non-toxic, is sort-of natural, is safe for use in potable water, and Chicago taxpayers are spending at most $133 per minute of glowing green delight.

The query [chicago river green] led me to a site with a photo, and I was surprised/frightened by how bright green the river becomes (the coloring of the people and sidewalk looks normal, but the river is crazy-green): http://www.saintpa\ tricksdayparade.com/chicago/index.htm

That site told a story about the inspiration for dying the river. Supposedly, it came from observing a plumber's green-stained overalls. This led me to a plumbing supply store that sold leak-tracing dyes, and had a "material safety data sheet" (MSDS) available. The MSDS was for Xanthene-based chemicals, and was slightly frightening (some combustability, irritability with skin). However, the site said their dyes were safe for drinking water, so I searched further.

The query [chicago river xanthene] led me to a wikipedia page in French about "flourosciene" (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluoresc%C3\ %A9ine). Flourosciene has been around since 1870-ish. It is naturally produced by some bacteria, in very small amounts. It might be useful as a defense for these bacteria, in that it has some toxicity to some organisms. The page confirmed that it is used in the Chicago St. Patrick's Day parade. Later, I found an english version of the page (english spelling is flourescien, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluorescein), but it doesn't mention the bacteria. At any rate, fluorscien appears to be safer than xanthene in general.

The lethal dose of fluorscien in mice (LD50) is 0.3% of the mouse' body weight, when injected intravenously. Scaling up to me, this is about 0.42 pounds of fluorscien (0.3% of 140 pounds), or about 190CCs. So it's only barely toxic in mammals. It is not carcinogenic, or suspected of being carcinogenic, in humans; but somewhere I read that it is mutagenic in yeast, at some level.

Forms of fluoroscien are used in medical treatments, for example detecting corneal scratches (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medli\ neplus/ency/article/003845.htm). The most useful MSDS page I found is http://ptcl.chem.ox.ac.uk/MSDS/FL/flu\ orescein.html.

I don't know Chicago geography, and didn't know Chicago had a river before tonight. So I don't know which part of the river to get flow information from. The max flow listed at http://pages.ripco.net/~jwn/sewage.html is 350 cubic feet per second (but some branchers appear far smaller). So one minute of green water means dying at most 21,000 cubic feet, or about 157,000 gallons. According to websites that sell fluorscien dye, one pound of dye powder will give you a "strong" visually discernable coloration of 120,000 gallons of water.

A similar blue powder dye can be had for $102 per pound. It's not easy finding prices for the powder version online, I'm guessing this quantity is typically not bought by consumers over the internet. =-) I saw a picture of the tablet version of the yellow-green dye, and the tablets are orange. This agrees with the story I first read, which said when they dump the dye in the river, the water starts out orange. At any rate, I'll bet you get a discount if you buy hundreds of pounds of this stuff, but I didn't find any numbers for this.

So 1.3 pounds of fluorscien dye powder will provide 1 minute of St. Patrick's day fun, at a cost of about $133 and a few mutated yeast organisms.

-Paul