#14 June 2003
Welcome to the Foundation’s thirteenth E-News, an end-of-the-month monthly newsletter designed to keep you up-to-date with developments and progress related to the San Diego Sea to Sea Trail.
Maxim of the month
Not to have known - as most men have not - either mountain or the desert, is not to have known one’s self.
Joseph Wood Krutch
Trail updates
June 7 celebrated National Trails Day and the official opening of the section of Trail from Black Mountain Road to under the I-15. All four bridges are in place and the shady canyon makes this a great place to wander, bike or ride your horse – a wee outdoors oasis within an urban environment. If you’d like to explore it for yourself, parking is at the western end of Mercy Road.
Learning out on the Trail
Sponsored by REI, the Foundation is launching an experience-based program, helping to get children, and adults, out on the Trail to experience what it means to go hiking, backpacking and even to spend a night out under the stars. We want to get them out there, and we’ll try and give those children an overnight hands-on outdoors-learning experience that may change a life. Manager of the Foundation’s program is UCSD graduate, Scott Richardson. Scott works in UCSD’s community service program and is currently an assistant guidance counselor at a middle school. First to experience the program will be a young group from San Diego Youth & Community Services, who have never been camping before. If you’d like more information on ‘Learning out on the Trail’, either as a volunteer or want to experience the program for yourself, please e-mail Scott.
Geocaching Challenge!
The first geocaching event in the US to be held along an entire trail has been acknowledged a huge success, not only by its sponsors, but also by the hundreds of geocachers who joined San Diego County’s first Geocaching Challenge. Sponsored by local Poway company, DeepOut
doors, and organized by the Sea to Sea Trail Foundation, the Geocaching Challenge was held along the entire length of the 140-mile San Diego Sea to Sea Trail. A total of 25 caches were hidden along the Trail, and the GPS coordinates for the caches were released at midnight on June 6. Up to 55 geocachers were participating in the Challenge at any given time over the first weekend, and over 350 found cache hits have been recorded on geocaching.com’s Web site.
Magellan, UK (Underwater Kinetics), REI and geocaching.com gave additional prizes for the caches. Magellan donated three of their new all-color Meridian GPS, each valued at $500.
The Challenge drew its supporters from all over southern California. One family drove nine hours from San Francisco to participate. Known by their geocaching tag-names, Kusanagi, Kablooey and their two daughters KusaKids, said, “This has been a unforgettable experience that we enjoyed very much. Thanks for showing us places that we otherwise would not have known about."
As the Challenge’s GPS coordinates were released at midnight on June 6, many geocachers camped along the Trail, and using cell phones or wireless technology, waited for the coordinates to come through, beginning their Challenge at midnight. “There were lights from head torches bobbing all over Anza-Borrego Desert," said cache hunter K’nic.
Team Ventura Kids drove down from Ventura, and kicked off their Challenge at 2am.
Order of the weekend was flat tires, stuck jeeps, near sightings of rattlers and diamond back snakes, temperatures of 108F in the east, and low mist and cloud to the west, truly showing off the Sea to Sea Trail’s 13 varied micro-climates. No where else in the world can such a variety of eco-systems be found, hence the added attraction of the Sea to Sea Trail and the Geocaching Challenge.
The Challenge still continues! Click here for more details.
Using a GPS
Last month we featured a great Web site that showed everything to know about using a map and compass. This month, we’re featuring a terrific site that covers everything about Global Positioning Systems. This site is courtesy of Peter H. Dana, The Geographer’s Craft Project, Department of Geography, University of Colorado at Boulder.
Trail days – the work goes on!
June 29 we’ll be working out below Nokia on the east side of the I-15 and just south of Poway Road, doing some interesting Trail widening and stream bed armoring and diversions. Please e-mail Kristen if you would like to join us on these dates, and for directions.
July’s dates are the 13th and 27th and August’s are the 10th and 24th. Put them on your calendar and e-mail Kristen if you would like to join us on these dates.
Trail guides
We’re delighted to welcome Lari Omar as a volunteer Trail guide, along the western end of the trail, and around the north Torrey Pines area. If you would like to join Lari on a hike, please e-mail him directly. Gene Dixon is also a valued Trail guide, and leads regular hikes between the I-15 and Sabre Springs.
Trail goodies
Here’s the perfect opportunity to show you care in your support for the Foundation and the Trail, and to tell the world you’ve been out there. For your very own Foundation T-shirts, travel mug, coffee mug, Trail baseball cap and bumper sticker, just click here.
Businesses out on the Trail
Last month we featured the hard work of 60 Qualcomm employees, who devoted a Friday to working on the Trail as part of a team building event. Well, the concept of team building out on the Trail is catching on. A number of other San Diego County companies have expressed interest in using the Trail as such a resource, and we’re hoping to encourage more. A team from Nokia will be out on the Trail this July 29th, and a Callaway Golf team will be out in July. If a team building event out on the Trail would be of interest to your company, e-mail Kristen.
Coastal Stewardship Pledge
The California Coastal Commission’s Public Education Program announces the launch of the Coastal Stewardship Pledge! The Coastal Stewardship Pledge is a way for Californians of all ages to commit to protecting our coast and ocean. To participate, you choose from a wide-ranging list of suggestions on how to protect the coast, and then pledge to follow through and complete your chosen actions. In the process, you become a “Coastal Steward” and are rewarded with a certificate and a free “coastal steward” tote bag to help you with the “paper or plastic” dilemma. To take the pledge, just click here.
Trouble finding dog-friendly trails?
Then this is the Web site for you.
Where on the Trail is it?
San Diego local Jim Rasmus won this quarter’s ‘Where on the Trail is it?’ competition. Congratulations, Jim, and a goodie bag of prizes is on its way to you! Keep an eye out here for the next photo!
Updated Trail maps
With the trusty help of dedicated volunteers, we’re now offering marked-up USGS topo maps of the Trail as it currently stands. Courtesy of Philip Erdelsky, we’ve maps from the Pacific Ocean to Wildcat Canyon Road. Click here to see them. Philip is regularly adding maps to the site, so keep an eye out for his updates.
Trail Events 2003
We have so many events running to date, there’s too many to list here. Check them all out.
Book now for OE2003 events
Book now for our Outdoors Education 2003 events for middle school children, to be held along the Trail and looking at environmental issues facing San Diego County. For all information on the events, click here. Our OE2003 events now have a very cool flyer – if you’d like copies to distribute at a middle school near you, please e-mail Kristen. NB. Please note that the July 22 event at the Kumeyaay-Ipai Interpretive Center has been moved to October 18 – we’ll keep you posted!
Make your own Trail maps!
Want to customize your own maps of the Trail? Well, now you can. We’ve partnered with MapCard and MyTopo to bring you the latest nationwide US Geological Survey topographic maps and aerial photos, lake contour data, road and highway overlays, public land survey data, and an impressive suite of annotation tools. In fact, the editors at Backpacker magazine awarded MapCard its Editors’ Choice Award for Best New Product of 2003, saying, “The best one-stop map shop we’ve seen is as close as your home computer." MapCard offers subscribers the ability to customize, save and print unlimited topos and air photos. With this link, you can take a free 24-hour test drive. The site has a terrific set of annotation tools enabling you to draw trails, insert text, mark waypoints from their GPS device, etc. on your own map. Try it out by clicking here. For an example of a customized MapCard map, check out the map here. And if you subscribe to MapCard and MyTopo from the Foundation’s Web site, you help support the Foundation.
Sign up to the Foundation’s eScrip Program!
As another way of raising money for the Foundation’s education program, we’re thrilled we’ve been accepted into the national eScrip Program. Many of you, especially those with school-aged children, may be already familiar with eScrip. eScrip’s a hassle-free way for non-profits such as the San Diego Sea to Sea Trail Foundation that support children’s programs to raise funds through everyday purchases made at eScrip merchants.
eScrip and over 150 merchant partners have created a system that rewards customer loyalty by contributing a percentage of purchases to your chosen group. You shop the way you like to shop (grocery shopping, buying clothes, travel and entertainment). It’s simple, safe and convenient; all you need to do is register your grocery club card and debit/credit card(s). It’s also simple to register:
• Log on to http://www.escrip.com/ and go to ‘sign up’ (orange bar at the top), or e-mail Kristen for details.
• Designate the Foundation to receive contributions. Our Group ID is #150734477.
• Register your grocery club card from a participating merchant, your Chevron card and your debit/credit cards.
And that’s it! Visit eScrip merchants to shop and earn. It’s automatic! For more information, just click here.
Sign up as a Friend of the Foundation for 2003
To assist us in our ongoing mission, join up as a Friend of the Foundation, by clicking here and helping us make it all happen! And don’t forget to check out our valued Supporters page.
Adopt a Tree out on the Trail!
Adopting a tree – a native California Oak or Sycamore – along the route of the San Diego Sea to Sea Trail is a gift for a 1,000 years. Not only is it a wonderful gift for someone close to you, or even for yourself, but it is an excellent way to help support the building and maintenance of the Trail. And importantly it helps preserve and add to the Trail’s native habitats. All for $100.
Adopting a tree is easy. We do all the work for you, working with the agencies along the Trail to identify the planting sites, order the five-gallon trees, plant and care for the planting sites. And for your support, we’ll send you or your loved ones, a certificate of their adoption. For more information, just click here.
Traveling?
If so, try Orbitz.com. Just click here and then click on the Orbitz button. Every time you make a travel reservation of any sort, the Foundation receives a commission. That means more of the San Diego Sea to Sea Trail can be built and maintained for your enjoyment, and more of its environmental and historical treasures can be preserved for future generations.
Schools Community Service Credit
If you know of anyone who needs to collect credits for their community service projects, then we may be just the right project for them. We’ve got lots of opportunities for students to join us on Trail Work Days in the weekends. And if there’s an entire group or class who would like to get out on the Trail working as a team, we can arrange a workday just for them, any day of the week. The teams will by fully supervised by Rangers (as are all our workdays), and it’s a great outdoors experience! Our Volunteer Program Application Form can be found by clicking here, and includes a section specifically for California Schools Community Service Credit. Please e-mail Kristen for further information.
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