Welcome to the homepage
of Professor Janet Westbrook!
I am a mostly retired but still work part time as a Professor
of Biology and other fun things at Cerro
Coso College in Ridgecrest,
CA. Been here in the valley since since 1966 and at the college
since 1970!
To contact me:
P.O. Box 554, Ridgecrest, CA 93556; (760)
375-8371, Cell (don't have it on unless I'm traveling) 760 382-5768
This page updated 8/2010 How
embarrasing that I keep 8 other web pages updated and neglect
my own! Sorry...
I made a WAY COOL page
of photos of Penguins!!!!!! I've seen all 18 kinds now!! Doesn't
sound too impressive, but not too many folk have done that!
(and have touched foot on all 8 continents (counting Greenland).
:-)
Courses I used to teach
Neat field trip class descriptions
Travel adventures
Groups I work with
Baja project
Assorted other interests
I used to teach
some pretty neat courses; the "hard ones" included
- General Biology and the lab
- Botany
- Ecology
- Zoology
Slightly easier, which I still do, and
required of all of our AA people is
Definitely FUN were
my field trip classes!!
I think being out in the posies is the best way to learn about
how things work! It's a chance for me to use the botany, zoology,
geology, astronomy, meterology, and other neat stuff I know something
about too! Why not come along and enjoy finding out about our
local area, learn about the local geology and climate, learn to
identify some of the plants and animals we encounter, and meet
great new people! What a deal!!
ALAS - Budget cuts have cut me out too - so now I do one-day trips
based on this stuff for the Maturango Museum
Field courses we (CCCC) used to offer; and things I
know lots about! Need a personal escort?? Now I do bits of them for the Maturango Museum.
- Natural History of Death
Valley National Park Visit Wildrose Canyon to find
the Panamint Daisies, explore Shorty Harris's and Pete Aguereberry's
mines on Harrisburg Flats, explore in the Sand Dunes, do Titus
Canyon and Rhyolite, hike from Zabriski Point to Gold Canyon,
poke around the Devil's Golf Course and Natural Bridge Canyon
and Badwater, do the Visitor Center, eat ice cream, etc.
-
- Desert Oasis
- it's amazing how many springs are found in our desert! Each
is unique, most have some relict species in them like pupfish
of one kind or another, special plants, etc. We visit Ash Meadows
Wildlife Refuge east of Death Valley - lots of springs and seeps
there! Lots also in Death Valley National Park. Then there is
Darwin Falls, Dirty Socks Spring in Owens Lake, Tecopa Hot Springs
SE of Death Valley, the date orchards of China Ranch, etc. It's
an interesting weekend!!
-
- Spring Wild Flowers
One day for my favorite loop - to Kernville via the South Fork
area for the poppies and lupines; to Keysville area for goldfield;
through Bodfish to Havila, cause I love old stage roads, into
the Walker Basin where the Baby Blue Eyes are just fantastic!!!!
, down through Caliente Creek for fields of Fiddleneck, on up
to the Tehachapi Loop on the old road, cause I love old roads,
watch trains and admire yet different flowers, then home via
Oak Creek Canyon so we can get a good look at all the windmills
turning, waving the poppies.The other day we go to wherever the
flowers are the most fantastic. Possibilities include Short Canyon,
Red Rock Canyon, Darwin Falls, or head for the foothills to Glenville,
Woodey, Kern Canyon, etc. I'll be out scouting just before class
to decide what's best.
-
- Natural History of the Carrizo
Plains WHERE in the heck is that? It's just west of
Kern Co, in San Luis Obispo Co, where the San Andreas fault runs
through. It's an "inland valley", tucked between the
inner coast range rumples, forced up by the fault itself. We
always jump up and down on the fault, but so far not much has
happened when we do. Heck. It is valley grassland, sort of a
miniature of the Great Central Valley, and no one lives there
anymore. The cattle ranchers all sold out (due to the long drought)
to the Nature Conservancy, who in turn gave the land to BLM to
manage. There is a neat Visitor Center which we will visit.
The area is grassy, and there is a major effort through burning
and revegetation to return the whole place to the native grasses.
BLM has released several groups of Pronghorn and Tule Elk into
the valley. We've seen the Pronghorn on each trip. Many, many
birds come there - that's the joy of the place. In the winter,
it is a major wintering ground for a flock of 3000 Sandhill Cranes.
They love Soda Lake, a shallow, very briny pond that fills with
winter rains. In the spring, the area can
be a riot of wildflowers!!
The Native Americans took note of the place too - one main
attraction is Painted Rock, a sandstone
outcrop with beautiful polychrome pictographs on the inside of
its horseshoe shape. We'll get to visit this special area. We
camp at an abandoned ranch in the middle of the valley. We'll
be inside a fence, all the grasses outside. It's a wonderful
quiet place to be - nothing but waving grasses in all directions
on the valley before us and the hills behind us. Great sunsets
and sunrises, especially when there's dew on the grasses......
-
- Natural History of the Owens
Valley Spring or fall in the Owens Valley is so colorful!
And the campground where we stay at Baker Creek west of Big Pine
is under wonderful Black Locust trees which will be in full bloom
in May. They turn white from the fragrant flowers! This trip
is scheduled for fall too - pretty fall colors in the grasses
and cottonwoods!
What are we gonna do? Spend 2 days poking around all the back
roads, byways, old wagon roads, and whatever else we can find,
trying to stay off Hwy 395 as much as possible. We'll visit the
Mt. Whitney fish hatchery, the intake to the L.A. Aqueduct, some
of the Carson and Colorado narrow gauge railroad stations, Laws
where the "Slim Princess" is still on her tracks, the
Chalfant Valley petroglyph sites, 4 of um, Fish Slough, the Caltech
Radiotelescopes, and just tons of little out-of-the-way places
and nooks and crannies that you always drive right past! It's
a real fun two days of exploring. Some dirt roads involved.
If you don't want to camp at Baker Creek with us, you can rough
it in one of the motels in Big Pine. You can eat in camp or you
can eat at one of the restaurants in Bishop or Big Pine.
-
- Great Basin Desert - Crowley Lake area, Mono
Lake Scenic Area, Bodie State Park, Eureka Valley Sand Dunes,
upper end of Death Valley and Scotty's Castle. Warm, but not
crowded at this time of year... OR - even zoom across Nevada's
desert to explore Great Basin National Park. Cool place, bristlecones,
caves to explore!!
-
- Sierra Meadows of the Kern Plateau
We base around Troy and Beach Meadows on the Kern Plateau up
9 Mile Canyon and past Kennedy Meadows. Explore all the pretty
meadows up toward Black Rock like Osa, Granite, Smith, Beach,
Lion, and on across the Sherman Pass road to visit Bald Mountain,
Bonita and Paloma meadows, and the pass. Learn about meadow formation
and the plants and animals in and around the meadows. Catch frogs!!
Get wet and squishy. Smell the flowers!! And keep track of the
recovery after the Manter Burn of 7/00 and McNally Burn of 2002.
-
- Natural History of the
Colorado Plateau - spend a week exploring Utah's color
country; sometimes the Cedar City/St. George area - visit Bryce
NP, Zion NP, Kolob, Cedar Brakes NM, Valley of Fire Sp, other
neat places; sometimes in SE Utah - Natural Bridges NP, Arches
NP, Canyonlands NP, Edge of Cedars NM, etc. Also Zion for a week.
-
- Bristlecone Pine forest of the White Mountains
- visit both the Schulman Grove and Patriarch Groves and the
new Visitor Center - high altitude hiking required; STARS!!!
-
- Sequoia forests near Johnsondale, 3 hrs. from
Ridgecrest! We'll hike the "Trail of 100 Giants", measure
BIG trees and figure out how tall they are (trig comes in handy!!),
visit at least 4 groves of giant trees, and look at the effects
of logging and plantations near the groves.
-
- Mojave National Preserve - visit Kelso sand dunes,
the Kelso railroad depot, Rock Springs on the Old Government
Road, Wild Horse Canyon, go down "the rings", camp
at "Hole in the Wall", and special treat - tour Mitchell
Caverns, real limestone caves in the middle of our desert!
-
- Central Coast - Morro Bay and Montana de
Oro State Parks, look for otters along the coast, and explore
the Big Sur area and visit the enlarged Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Usually
lovely weather!
-
- Forest Fires
- since we've had 2 huge fires in our back yard - Manter, 75,000
acres in July 2000, and McNally, 150,000 acres July 2002, we
can compare what's happening with each fire. Between them they've
burned each ecosystem we have in the mountains - pinon, jeffrey,
lodgepole, sugar pine, ponderosa, gray pines, white and red firs,
incense cedar, etc. Let's go look at what happened during each
fire, what is "man made" efforts to put out the fire
(did that cause more damage than the"real" fire?),
how a fire burns - mosaic pattern, etc. etc.
Now that I'm retired, I travel a bunch and....
- Travel - have been some pretty neat places!
- and, according to some lists, over 105 countries!!!!Ask
me about adventures in Tibet, Patagonia, several Caribbean islands,
Tahiti, Fiji, Easter Island, Alaska (worked there, many visits), Northwest Passage, Ellesmere
Island, Greenland, Iceland, Kenya, Australia (3 visits) , New Zealand (5 visits), China (3 visits) ,
Russia (4 visits), Costa Rica, Peru, Ecuador (3 visits), Scandinavia, Baltic Sea, Greece,
Turkey, South Africa, Siberia/Lake Baikal, Europe-Neatherlands,
Belgium, Switzerland- YES, we saw the alps!(2 visits), northern Italy;
did northern India- the Taj, and a short stint to Nepal in Jan
98! Elephant rides are cool!! 2000 brought Jordan, Syria, Jerusalem,
Lebanon; Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, etc. 2001 - Europe,
the Subantarctic Islands off New Zealand, etc; 2002 Antarctica
and the Subantarctic Islands of South Georgia, Falklands, and
the ones below New Zealand including Macquarie. 2003 - Italy;
Ring of Fire- Alaska, Kamchatka, Kurils; 2004 was amazing! To
the Ross Sea on an Ice Breaker, explore Australia and ride all
the trains, Scotland, Ireland, Lake District of UK, and the Faroes
Islands; back to the Bering Sea - this time farther north to
Provedinia and Chuksea area, Aleutians, Kenai and Katmai and
Kodiak; Boston and New Hampshire for fall colors; Polar bears
in Churchill, MB; 2005 spring trip to pet whales off Baja!, to
Central Europe - former iron curtain countries we can now freely
explore! - Warsaw, Berlin, Slovenia, Slovakia, etc.; to coastal
Norway and Spitzbergen; fall colors on trains of the 4 Corners
region; 2006 - back on the icebreaker to northern Canada - Ellesmere
Island, to NZ again to ride trains, to Tasmania to ride trains
and visit parks, to Calgary Stampede, Banff and Jasper, Whistler
on trains, etc. etc. 2007 Scotland; Chile, Argentina, Paraguay,
etc. , Canada- Churchill and Newfoundland, 2008 Switzerland riding trains,
Mexico, Appalachia in Fall, Around Lake Michigan, Copper Canyon by train;
2009 - Antarctica again - Cape Horn to Cape Hope - across the southern Atlantic Ocean; Texas Bluebonnets,
Mt. Rushmore, Appalachia with trains in fall, and small ship Juneau to Seattle; 2010 winter trains
to Sante Fe, Durango, etc., back to Baja for whale watching both Pacific and Sea of Cortez,
Train trip to the Canadian Rockies in April - all snow covered!, 2 weeks in northern
Scotland and trains all around it, more trains, and of course Death Valley and Yosemite.
Still lots of places
that need exploring!!
- Work
with the Maturango Museum.
We opened the Maturango Museum "in town" September
1986. I was the major designer of the Natural History exhibits
- those are my photos in the flower collection, I helped gather the
sand and rocks for the exhibits, etc. I enjoy leading petroglyph
tours to the Coso range and the other locations in our area.
I often give lectures about my travels. Gosh, that was now over 20
years ago, and we're about to expand the building!!
My favorite display is the changing Sabre Tooth cat "Kitty".
It's done with an optics trick called "Pepper's Ghost".
Take a look when you're at the Museum and see if you can figure
out what we've done to make it work!
I give periodic lectures about some adventure I've had, and
I maintain the Museum Home Pages. If you haven't seen them, they
aren't yet fancy but there's a whole lot of information in them...
- Maturango
Museum home page lists all of our activities, lectures, art
shows, field trips, and whatever else! I update it about twice
weekly, so it's the best source of up-to-date info there is.
- Historical Society
of Upper Mojave Desert page has information about monthly
lectures about things past, and interesting field trips once
in a while. The Society has published 5 booklets for sale at
the Museum which should be of interest to you about local area
history.
At the end of this page, I have gathered a long list of historical
facts and dates about things in our area - Kern, Inyo, and
Mono counties - dates of discoveries, trains, who did what to
whom, etc. It's been fun to accumulate from different sources!
- I also have a page full of information about Death
Valley National Park Lots of phone numbers, campground info,
up-to-date news about what's open, etc. and at the end, a bunch
of links to other Death Valley links.
- And I've done a whole list of Trips
you can do from Ridgecrest in 1/2 hr, 1 hr, 2 hrs, up to
3 hours in all directions. (I've made a hard copy of this too
- see me!). At the beginning is a "webmaster's corner"
- hey, that's me!! - where I give up-to-date info about things
I've discovered - places to go, road info, flowers, whatever.
Quite a compilation of information!
- I've been active with the China
Lake Mountain Rescue Group since I came here as well.
I help them do First Aid things, work with Emergency Locator
Transmitters, ELT's, work with Global Positioning System, GPS,
do public safety lectures, "coordinate" rescue call-outs,
run base camp maps and radios, and now I do this home page too!!
Check out our CLMRG home page!
- A passion is looking for/at "rock
art" - petroglyphs and pictographs. The stuff is
everywhere around the world! But - WE have the best, most concentrated,
brightest, least defaced collection of petroglyphs right here
in the Coso Mountains. Every time I go up there I see new ones,
or see them in a different light. I belong to ARARA,
American Rock Art Research Association an international
group of folk who go looking for the stuff, publish, and we have
most interesting conferences each year.
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page
And
then there's my "Baja
project"
Click here for "Viajes
con Juanita",
Travels with Janet into the very remote Sierra de San Francisco,
Baja California Sur; mules, solar panels, boojums... It's a fascinating story... but I've stopped going down there -
too dangerous to travel alone!
Other
things I do now that I don't have to grade papers...
- I love to fly, am
licensed pilot but not current. If you ever need a right seat
driver (did I say back seat?), I'm great at maps and radios and
can handle Cessna 150, 172, Cardinal, have experience in C 206,
Cherokee, Maule.
- I sew. Make my own clothes, jackets,
etc. Can do repairs, construct things, etc.
- I do photography. B&W and color. Have a darkroom
which can print both, when it's not full of junk, but I'm afraid Digital has taken over.
- I do multi-image slide shows or now Digital stuff cause I do photography... Cerro Coso's projection booth
used to be configured to do 3 image, 6 projector shows. Did some
of those. I made sure the Museum's projection booth is configured
so I can do 2-image shows there. It's a lot of fun working those
out!! Now, on to high tech stuff- Power Point presentations,
etc. but since I have a MAC - I use Keynote, which is way easier
to deal with than Powerpoint. Digital stuff is FUN though!!
- Music!! I love to listen to classical,
opera (grew up with um), folk music, Peruvian flute, Bagpipes,
and will tolerate any other type, and I love to MAKE music; spent
20 years playing tympani and other percussion things that make
assorted noises, play folk guitar, can play by ear any tune on
keyboard or strings thanks to having pretty good "relative"
pitch.
- Have lots of animals the
neighborhood coyotes finally got into the pen and ate the goose
and ducks, but I still have indoor kitties, and fish, singing
birds outside my atrium windows....
- Love to do architect type
things - I designed my adobe house with a central atrium full
of plants (and my hot tub) which is also passive solar heat for
the house. Has solar heated hot water. The walls are 18 inches
thick, so is interesting to work with and live in. It also has
a full basement and, of course, a wine cellar. Cool!!
I also helped design and build the Maturango Museum.
And all of this is how come I can do solar projects in Baja -
taught myself (with lots of help and advice) how to do that.
My daddy is a Civil Engineer. I got some of those genes I guess.
- I'm a card-carrying Sierra
Club member, do the home page for our local Owens Peak chapter.
Also belong to Audubon Society, Red Rock Canyon Natural History
Association, Death Valley and Yosemite Natural History Associations,
Friends of Inyo, Friends of Eastern Sierra, SUWA, TNC, etc. etc. etc.
- LOVE to go places. Love to drive. Have van configured
with everything except a potty so I can go places and stay wherever,
like the remote places in Baja, or remote places in Death Valley
and the Sierra. LOVE to river raft!! I don't row, but I can sure
cook for any trip!
Comments about my work? Send me e-mail!
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to Page 2, my Baja project
This page created 2/1/97,
Revised periodically but not often enough...