Field Research: San Gorgonio Mountain

Living in Los Angeles, we are fortunate to be within a 2 hour drive to experience the sea, the desert, the mountains, and everything in between.  We recently took advantage of our geography and climbed the highest peak in Southern California, San Gorgonio Mountain in the San Bernardino Mountains.

At an elevation of 11,500 feet, San Gorgonio isn't the highest of peaks, but it's still pretty impressive to look across an endless horizon of sky while breathing some noticeably thin air.  It's a hike that can be done in one (long) day with a light pack, but we opted to spend the weekend up there and camp near the summit at the Dry Lake View campsite.

It's a must-do adventure for Southern Californians who want to get out of town and breath some fresh mountain air.  Permits, which are free, are required for all day hikes and overnight campsites, and the hardworking rangers will occasionally ask to see your permits. Permits can be attained here, and more pics of the hike are on our flickr page.

Eena Canvas Bags, Made in Portland OR

Whenever possible, we try and support companies that still make high quality products here in the States.  It's an ethos that we follow ourselves, utilizing local fabricators and manufacturers.   It's easy to forget that every object, and every piece of clothing or furniture, has the work of real people behind it.  Purchasing products with the knowledge that you are making a decision about what you support is something to keep in mind every now and then.

We recently had the need for a simple but outstanding canvas bag to haul small objects and such around town.  The Eena bag from Beckel Canvas Products was exactly what we were looking for.  Based out of Portland Oregon, Beckel has been producing a variety of high quality canvas products for over 40 years, and the Eena bag is the perfect mix of timeless design and heavy duty workmanship.

You can find the bag at Canoe, either online or in their store in Portland OR.  And for a very well curated list of American made products, check out The American List over at one of our favorite blogs, A Continuous Lean.

SR Patio Gardens at Specific Merchandise

We are super excited to be part of D'ARK GARDEN, the summer group show over at Specific Merchandise, the new gallery/store on Beverly Boulevard.  We are thrilled to be part of the show with so many talented young designers, including LA artists D'ARK who created the two beds in the space, Woolly Pockets with their plant chandeliers, seedbomb vending machines by Common Studio, and a few beautiful chairs designed and fabricated by todosomething.  This and so much more will be on display through July 31st.

For the group show, we built and planted two SR Patio Gardens- one with a forest ecology and the other with a desertscape. We used un-planed reclaimed redwood from The Reclaimer, which we wrote about a few weeks ago.  The scapes are already taking on a life of their own, with new floral shoots coming out of the succulents in the dryscape, and mushrooms popping out of the groundcover in the forest ecology.  We're looking forward to seeing these ecologies become more wild and feral as the weeks pass.

D'ARK GARDEN
July 10- July 31
Specific Merchandise
7374 Beverly Blvd