Author and educator William Selby will be presenting several events in Idyllwild this coming week. He has been touring the state in support of his new book The California Sky Watcher (Heyday.) Sky watching is both an aesthetic or spiritual activity and a scientific one. Sky watching, for Selby, includes “the beauty we love, and the science behind the scenes. It’s important to understand why nature is behaving the way she is.”
Selby is recently retired after 30 years teaching at Santa Monica College. His textbook, Rediscovering the Golden State: California Geography, is in its fourth edition. “I feel really fortunate to be able to share what I know, and my love of nature…Specifically, I am on my own mission to connect and reconnect people to nature and their natural history; Idyllwild is the perfect setting for such an event.”
The focus of Selby’s Wednesday talk will be weather and climate, how weather patterns are changing over time. The geographic focus will be Idyllwild. “I’d like to ask the participants what they would like to hear about. How the weather is changing, what the data is, and what they are experiencing.”
Saturday will be different. Selby expects more visitors from off-the-Hill, and will provide a more general natural history of Idyllwild and California. “Geology, how these mountains came into being and are changing, hydrology, biogeology.” He will also talk about the Palms to Pines highway as “one of the most famous routes to see biodiversity,” as it rises through different biomes and plant communities. This talk will be followed by a nature walk outside the Nature Center at 1:30 p.m.
During his tour of the state he has been showing his own colorful photographs of our “sky dome,” and also looking at how landscapes and plant communities are changing. “How are these weather patterns having an impact on what is happening on the ground? I want to bring it right to the hill. Not only weather and climate, but how that is changing the ecosystem and landscape.” This presentation will include “a lot of comparing and contrasting to Idyllwild, and we will be discussing why weather patterns and climates in the San Jacintos are so unique in so many ways.”
Selby recounted his personal connection to Idyllwild: “I grew up in Santa Ana and first visited Idyllwild as a little kid when my parents took us up there for a weekend. I made a few other visits before moving to Northern California for five years. When I returned to SoCal, I bought a little cabin up off of Rim Rock in Fern Valley in the 1980s. Though my dad jokingly called it a “lean to”, I kept it up and spent many memorable days and nights there, sometimes with friends and family, sometimes to unwind on my own, and always to hike around and explore The Hill. So, I’ve been able to watch the changes in and around Idyllwild.”
Idyllwild has also been part of Selby’s teaching. “During my teaching career, I led many field classes around the state and beyond, and I brought my students up to experience natural history and science in the San Jacintos a few times. We used Hurkey Creek as our base camp. I’ve hiked up to the usual spots up there several times: Suicide Rock, up to the fire lookouts at Tahquitz and Black Mountain; over Marion Ridge; the top of San Jacinto Peak, etc. I never get tired of it all.”
Wiliam Selby and The California Sky Watcher, Idyllwild Library, Wednesday, October 15⋅5:30 p.m., and Saturday October 18, 11:00 a.m., nature walk at Idyllwild Nature Center 1:30 p.m. Learn more about Selby’s work at http://rediscoveringthegoldenstate.com/
