INTRO

We had a very electric gathering with many new faces to the social on April 21, 2010.  We had plenty of great ideas and a good listing of hikes. We will be doing a few new things in the upcoming months

HIKES

Alright, so here’s the full listing of hikes/events as listed for May and June at the meeting (please note changes/additions/removals may be made at anytime):

MAY
5/1/2010    Saturday    Irma Padilla    Fish Falls
5/2/2010    Sunday    Jason Bazalar    Eaton Canyon Falls
5/9/2010    Sunday    Mother’s Day   (No Hike)
5/15/2010    Saturday    Jason Bazalar    Red Rock, Las Vegas
5/16/2010    Sunday    Linda Cota    Echo Mountain
5/23/2010    Sunday    Jason Bazalar    Hollywood Sign
5/29/2010    Saturday    Irma Padilla    Shady Canyon (Road Trip – Irvine)
5/30/2010    Sunday    Luis Salazar    Monrovia Canyon Falls

JUNE
6/6/2010    Sunday    Luis Salazar    Bridge to Nowhere
6/13/2010    Sunday    Lorena Rodriguez    Echo Mountain
6/20/2010    Sunday    Effin Gentry   Monrovia Canyon Falls
6/23/2010    Weds    Jason Bazalar    Social / Hike Planning
6/27/2010    Sunday    Jason Bazalar    Topanga Overlook

FUTURE EVENTS

We discussed a few ideas regarding some upcoming events:

LATH Planning Meeting/Group Social
DATE: Wednesday, June 23, 2010 @ 7:30pm
LOCATION: Casa De Luna Coffee House - Bellflower, CA
NOTE: This date, time and venue were chosen by the meeting attendees.

LATH Pot-Luck BBQ
DATE: TBA
LOCATION: TBA
NOTE: This date, time and venue will be setup at a later time.

LATH Beach Day
DATE: TBA
LOCATION: TBA
NOTE: This date, time and venue will be setup at a later time.

LATH Bike Ride
DATE: TBA
LOCATION: TBA
NOTE: This date, time and venue will be setup at a later time.

LATH Bonfire
DATE: TBA
LOCATION: TBA
NOTE: This date, time and venue will be setup at a later time.

WEBSITE

No updates at this moment.

OTHER

We discussed setting up the following:

SUB LEADS:  These Hikers will assist the main hike lead in organizing and maintaining the group in order.  This will give our hikers access to more resources of information and guidance on the hikes. Those who wish to be a volunteer sub lead please advise the Hike Lead/Hike Organizer so they may be listed as such.

EXPLORATION HIKES: These are hikes that allow more experienced hikers the opportunity to explore and ‘scope out’ trails that the group has not been on, or has not current  information for.  Usually impromptu and unsanctioned as one of the designated LATH hikes, the exploration hikes provide limited to no relevant details of the difficulty and type of terrain to be encountered.  These will usually be prompted by experienced members who wish to go on extra hikes, or to scope one for the group to do at a later time.

FUND-RAISING: We also discussed the idea of fund-raising to acquire membership with the American Hiking Association. There is a yearly cost.  If you would like to find out more, you may do so here:  http://www.americanhiking.org/

We are looking for dates and places for the upcoming events listed above (not to mention comments, questions, ideas, concerns, and opinions about this recap), if you have any ideas feel free to comment on this post and share it with our other LATH members!

The LATH Meeting on 02-24-2010 was quite productive and very insightful.  We had a small team, but we covered many things.  Here is a summary of what we planned out for our members.

We planned a total of 11 hikes scheduled for the months of March & April 2010:

MARCH
SUN 3/7 – La Verne (Medium Beginner) Eaton Canyon Falls (Easy Moderate)
SAT 3/13 – Arroyo Pescadero Trail (Easy Beginner) – NEW
SUN 3/14 – Hollywood Sign (Medium Moderate)
SUN 3/21 – Monrovia (Medium Moderate) – NEW
SAT 3/27 – Fish Falls (Medium Moderate) – NEW (Moved to April 2010)
SUN 3/28 – Arcadia Waterfalls (Easy Moderate)

APRIL
SUN 4/4 – Etiwanda Preserve (Moderate) – NEW
SAT 4/10 – Fish Falls (Medium Moderate) – NEW
SUN 4/11 – Whittier II (Moderate) – NEW
SUN 4/18 – Echo Mountain (High Moderate)
SAT 4/24 – Mt. Wilson from Chantry Flats (Medium Advanced) – NEW
SUN 4/25 – Hacienda Heights (Medium Moderate)

Information for new hikes will be posted as soon as information is gathered.  They will appear on the user’s sidebar on the website and on our social networks.  Hike leads for each hike will be named in each event’s hike page.

We discussed a few ideas regarding some upcoming events:

LATH Planning Meeting/Group Social
DATE: Wednesday, April 21, 2010 @ 7:30pm
LOCATION: Casa De Luna Coffee House - Bellflower, CA
NOTE: This date, time and venue were chosen by the meeting attendees.

LATH Road Trip Hike
DATE: TBD (Saturday Morning - Early May 2010)
LOCATION: Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area (Las Vegas, NV)
NOTE:
- All hikers will be responsible for their individual travel, hotel , and food arrangements (Everyone’s on their own)
- Note that there is $5 per vehicle Parking Pass required while in the Conservation Area
- Hikers will meet on Saturday morning at a designated meeting point
- Designated hike will be Moderate, 3-4 mile round trip.
- After the hike, hikers will be dismissed to enjoy Las Vegas!
- Full details for hike/trip to be determined and posted.

LATH Fundraiser
DATE: TBD
LOCATION: TBD
NOTE:
- LA Trail Hikers would like to become an Alliance Organization member with the American Hiking Society
- In order to do so, we must provide an annual fee of $50.00
- Our fundraiser would allow us to pay for these dues and become recognized as a member of this prestigious hiking association.
- Information about the American Hiking Society at: http://www.americanhiking.org/

The updated version of http://latrailhikers.com was discussed and presented at the meeting.

New features that had a debut at the meeting were:
- Groups
- Forums
- Photos (Gallery & Email your pictures to pics@latrailhikers.com)
- Clickable ‘Facebook’ logo on home page to display LATH Facebook FanBox
- Sitewide “Activity” section (All publicly viewable activity by LATH members)
- Post a video for your personal ’Activity’ update. Allowable video links can come from:
- – YouTube
- – Blip.tv
- – Vimeo
- – DailyMotion
- – Flickr
- – Hulu
- – Viddler
- – Qik
- – Revision3
- – Photobucket
- – Scribd
- – WordPress.tv

New features that were added after the meeting:
- Twitter for Groups (one twitter username per line or seperated by commas?)
- Links (with voting capability)
- Display ‘My Friends’ for signed-in members in sidebar
- Display Random Member in sidebar

We also talked about setting up “Hiker’s Choice” Poll.  We will give our members a chance to vote for their choice of hike for a Sunday in May, aka “Hiker’s Choice Sunday.”  The winning hike would then be scheduled on the indicated Sunday.

No other items were considered at this time.