January 2009 3VolumeB 15 Issue 1 Rancho Simi Trail Blazers A Division of the Rancho Simi Foundation RSTB CLUB MEETING This month’s club meeting will be held at the Community Center, Room B-1 1692 Sycamore Drive at 7:00 PM January 21, 2009 Happy Hiking in 2009! UPCOMING EVENTS Welcome, New Members! Please visit the website for details on Andrew, Michael & Linda Anderson MILT MCAULEY any of the following hikes and events. Tina, Kerri & Bradford McCoy 1919-2008 Pete Lestrel January 3rd Milton McAuley, who was referred to as Nicholas Flat Trail the patriarch of hiking in the Santa Monica Moderate 7.5 MRT - Moderate to Mountains, died recently at the age of 89. I Strenuous last ran into Milt in Topanga State Park when he was 83 years old. He told me that January 10th he had just finished leading his annual Santa Paula Canyon RSTB LOGO T-SHIRTS seven-day hike along the entire “Backbone 8.1 MRT – Moderate Are your old logo T-shirts worn Trail” in the Santa Monica Mountains. He said it was to be the last time he would do out? We still have short sleeve, January 17th it and hinted that he was looking for Work Party - Mt. McCoy Trail long sleeve, and sweat shirts in someone to take over. assorted sizes and colors. Prices January 21st are as follows: Milt is best known for his Hiking Trails of Club Meeting the Santa Monica Mountains, which was short sleeve $12 rejected by several publishers - after which January 24th long sleeve $14 he published it himself. To date it has sold Matilija Falls sweat shirt $18 over 100,000 copies. He authored six more 9 MRT – Moderate guidebooks on the Santa Monica Please call Marty if you’d like to Mountains. My favorite is Wildflowers of January 31st place an order: 805-526-4414 the Santa Monica Mountains. It is the best Backbone Trail - Ray Miller flower book on our area for the non- Trailhead to Big Sycamore Canyon botanist. The book contains 496 9.9 Miles – Moderate to Strenuous photographs of flowers and plants. The flowering plants are arranged by the colors of the flowers – making it very easy for the More information on these events untrained users to find flowers in the book. can be found at It is a magnificent companion on and off http://simitrailblazers.com hikes. I have worn out several copies. To make reservations, please email Mark Gilmore at [email protected] UH Milt studied forestry before WWII, then NEWS FLASH! spent 20 years as a pilot in the U.S. Air Congratulations to Les Wilson for Force. After retiring from the Air Force, he assuming the position of Vice Hiking became an aerospace engineer. Later he Chair – welcome, Les! made and sold turquoise jewelry. He taught 1 Milt McCauley – continued leached to remove the hydrocyanic hiking classes for 20 years for Learning acid (i.e., cyanide), which rendered the Tree University and was a hike leader for kernels extremely bitter and poisonous. the Sierra Club. He also served for many If they were not leached before eating, years on the board of the Santa Monica people would get very sick. According Trail Council. He was much loved and to John Harrington, during the historic respected. His love for the out-of-doors period, when Indians got tuberculosis and the Santa Monica Mountains helped and were spitting up blood, they foster the emerging interest in hiking and blamed it on islay. the establishment of hiking trails in our The December trail maintenance area. He was special and touched the project was conducted on the upper Three processes were reported for lives of many. Hummingbird Trail. Participants leaching and cooking islay: One Mike Kuhn included Linda Anderson, Martin method was to repeatedly dip a sack of 12-17-08 DeGoey, Bart Hibbs and Mike whole kernels into hot or boiling Kuhn. Many thanks for the good water. Another was to moosh up the work on the trail. kernels and place in a basket in a creek Save the Date! or running water for some time. And finally, the third method was to place very thin pulp under the skin. That pulp the dried kernels into water in an olla was eaten – either directly upon picking the Free Wild Animal Shows made out of steatite (i.e., a type of fruit or the skin and pulp was removed Rancho Simi Recreation and Park soapstone, which does not expand from the hard shell, mooshed together and District and the Rancho Simi when heated, so it can safely be heated then dried on a rock surface. After drying, Trailblazers will sponsor two FREE directly over a fire) and then to heat it it was rolled up and eaten like fruit leather. family programs next March. over a fire until it is nearly boiling. However, the seeds within the hard shell Then the water would be poured out were the real prizes of the plant. Simi Valley: Saturday, March 14 and the process repeated again. Fresh Oak Park: Saturday, March 28 kernels would be put through the The ripe fruit was picked from the bushes process a third time. Both programs will start at 10am. and trees one at a time – taking care not to Watch for more details about these damage the plants. Green fruit was picked After leaching, the kernels would be popular programs in upcoming at the same time but was kept separated boiled until done. Since cooking took newsletters! You may also call from the ripe fruit. Often the pits were several hours, it was done in a steatite Colleen Janssen at (805)584-4453 or cleaned near to where they were gathered, bowl. While cooking, some cook send email to [email protected] for with only the pits being transported back to would add two fingers of the ashes more information. the village. In some cases, the fruit was left from the hulls of the green fruit, out on a swept floor or in a basin basket for because they felt that it would reduce CHUMASH USE OF HOLLY-LEAVED several days until the fruit pulp rotted. any residual bitterness. When the water CHERRY They then rubbed off the pulp with their was nearly boiled away and the islay hands or washed the pulp off in a stream – became soft, they stirred and mashed leaving just the pits. The pits were then The following information has been with a wooden paddle. When it had heated in a basket of hot water or hot water summarized from Jan Timbrook, cooled, they scooped out some and was poured over the pits. The pits were Chumash Ethnobotany, Santa Barbara made balls from two to five or six then allowed to dry for one to three days. Museum of Natural History (2007), pp. inches in diameter. These were then Then the pits were cracked open with a 151-154. rolled in a pinole flour of juniper stone, and the kernels were removed. The berries or grass seeds. The holly-leaved cherry (Prunus shells from the green fruit were also removed, and the shells were burned into ilicifolia, what the Spanish called islay The prepared islay resembled beans in [from the Salinan Indian name for the an ash, mixed with water, and molded into cakes for later use in the food processing. both flavor and reddish color. Islay plant – slay’] was probably the Chumash balls were kept as long as a week and Indian’s favorite food. The Ventureno were often offered to visitors. The After this, the dried kernels, both from the Chumash name for the plant was Chumash ate them with roasted ripe and the green fruit, were mixed ‘akhtatapish. (An example of how squirrel, gopher or other meat. together. They were stored in large baskets, Chumash names varied from one dialect off the ground, in the home relatively to another is the Barbareno name for the Mike Kuhn indefinitely for later use. Before the islay plant – ‘akhtayukhash). The fruit was 9-27-08 kernels could be used, they had to be harvested in the late summer. It has a 2 backdrop of towering rock walls. After lingering for a little November 29th 2008 - Piedra Blanca Formations while we hiked to the south end of Century Lake near the dam. Leaving there we hiked to the M*A*S*H After a long, but very scenic drive through Ventura, Ojai, television series site further upstream; the site stirred bittersweet memories of the escapades of the 4077th and the Wheeler Gorge, twelve eager Trailblazers arrived at the trailhead parking lot in Rose Valley. Mobile Army Surgical Hospital’s zany cast of characters. One could almost see and hear the helicopters coming in for a landing over the nearby mountains. We left this imaginary little bit of South Korea and retraced our path to the Forest Trail which we followed for its half-mile length along the south side of Century Lake. This beautiful trail is shaded by a variety of trees including towering conifers (which one would not expect to see at this elevation); there are even ferns growing along the trail. Retracing our steps we reluctantly left this trail’s leafy embrace and headed over to the Cage Creek Trail which led us uphill to the Yearling Trail. We then climbed up to the Deerleg Trail and followed its shady up-and- down path westward to the Reagan Picnic Area (two picnic tables located among the trees beside the trail) and then returned to our trusty motor vehicles (including Roger Steffen’s large motorcycle).