We at Treehuggers International are saddened to learn our friend Jerry Schad has died. He was 61.

Oaks dot green hillsides in March at the Santa Ysabel Open Space Preserve.

Jerry Schad, 1949 – 2011

by Tommy Hough, Treehuggers International founder and host.

As many Treehuggers International fans know, Jerry Schad, a long-time San Diego-area outdoorsman, astronomer, teacher, author and guest on the show, had been suffering from stage four kidney cancer since a terminal diagnosis in March.

Following the diagnosis, Jerry opted to propose to his girlfriend Peg a few months earlier than he’d originally planned, and they were married shortly thereafter.  Jerry began getting his affairs in order, and retired to his view-laden condominium on Cortez Hill to ride out his illness. As those who followed the news of Jerry’s condition throughout the spring and summer know, Peg was an absolute constant by his side.

Pragmatically seeing life through a filter of astronomy and outdoor adventure, Jerry calmly compared his cancer to losing control in a kayak in a fast-moving river, telling San Diego Union-Tribune writer Steve Schmidt in an interview in August, “there’s absolutely no way to claw myself back.”

The author of 16 books, most notably Afoot and Afield In San Diego, the definitive round-up of San Diego County hikes and trails, Jerry Schad also penned Orange and Los Angeles county editions of Afoot and Afield, compiled the comprehensive regional “best of” volume 101 Hikes In Southern California (including treks in Southern California’s Inland Empire), and authored several books on bicycling and jogging, including The Trail Runner’s Guide to San Diego and The Back Roads of San Diego County.

Jerry also wrote the Roam-A-Rama column in the San Diego Reader for 18 years, until he brought it to a close earlier this year when his cancer began to impede his ability to write and edit material.

A Lifelong Californian, With An Eye to the Stars

A native of San Jose and graduate of U.C. Berkeley, Jerry first came to the San Diego area in 1972 to begin post-graduate courses at San Diego State University, where he received his master’s degree in 1975. He began teaching shortly thereafter, but made it a point to travel, hike and backpack as often and wherever he could in the outdoors of Southern California, which he came know and appreciate like no other.

While the Great Outdoors was Jerry’s hobby and recreation, astronomy was Jerry’s passion. Fascinated with the planets and stars as a young boy, Jerry grew up to become an astronomy professor, teaching at San Diego Mesa College for over 20 years, and eventually coming to serve as the chairman of Mesa College’s physical sciences department.

After his first appearance on Treehuggers International in 2008, Jerry invited me to an outdoor astronomy lab he was conducting with freshman students off Sunrise Highway in the Laguna Mountains. Using his laser pointer as the sun fell away and the “canopy of stars” opened above, Jerry diagrammed the constellations and explained their origins, discussed the remarkable similarity different civilizations had of the same constellations, and pointed his array of telescopes at heavenly bodies from the moon and Mars to the Jovian satellites. It was the first time I’d ever seen Jupiter’s moons through a telescope, and for me, it remains a wonderful way to remember the man.

Memorial and Balboa Park Legacy

According to the details in Steve Schmidt’s article on Jerry’s death in the San Diego Union-Tribune,

A memorial celebration will be held Oct. 9 at 4 p.m. at the El Cortez Hotel, 702 Ash St.

The family said donations in Mr. Schad’s name may be made to Friends of Balboa Park, 2125 Park Blvd., San Diego, CA, 92101. The funds will be used to maintain park trails and on related efforts. The family requests that no flowers be sent.

Peg Reiter, Jerry’s widow, later wrote in an e-mail to friends,

If you want to make a contribution in honor of Jerry, please send your donation to:

Friends of Balboa Park, 2125 Park Boulevard, San Diego, CA 92101

Note on your check your donation is in Jerry’s memory. Jerry and I chose this charity for two reasons:

1) Jerry was on the committee that developed the trails system in Balboa Park, and
2) Our first date was in Balboa Park on Trail 43, which is now officially being renamed the “Jerry Schad Memorial Trail.”

Jerry had the unusual opportunity to write his own obituary over the summer; Peg has updated it since his death. I wrote about the effect Jerry had on me personally in an August 2nd post entitled Jerry Schad’s Afoot and Afield Legacy. Peg later wrote to tell me she had an opportunity to share the piece with her husband.

A special tribute edition of Treehuggers International, featuring excerpts from Jerry’s July 13, 2008 and July 19, 2009 appearances, is now available at the top of this page.

We at Treehuggers International wish to express our deepest condolences to Peg and the members of Jerry’s family.

Zuma Canyon wildflowers, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

More about this post at:

• Skyphoto, Jerry Schad’s homepage and astronomical photographs
• Wilderness Press Bio
• San Diego Reader Staff Page
• Roam-A-Rama
• KPBS Videos Page
• Life On the Crest, Part 2 (San Diego Reader; 10/5/11)
• Life On the Crest, Part 1 (San Diego Reader; 9/28/11)
• Gerald Schad Obituary (San Diego Union-Tribune; 9/22/11)
• Hiking Writer Jerry Schad Dies (San Diego Union-Tribune; 9/22/11)
• Hiking Writer Dies At 61 (KPBS-FM; 9/22/11)
• Jerry Schad Dies At 61 (La Mesa Patch; 9/22/11)
• Local Author Jerry Schad Dies of Cancer At 61 (Ocean Beach Rag; 9/22/11)
• Author of Popular San Diego Hiking Trail Books Dies At 61 (KFMB-TV; 9/22/11)
• Local Hiking Writer Jerry Schad Passes Away (KGTV-TV; 9/22/11)
• San Diego Hiking Guru Jerry Schad Dies At 61 (KSWB-TV; 9/22/11)
• Journey’s End for Hiking Writer Jerry Schad (San Diego Union-Tribune; 8/10/11)
• Jerry Schad’s Afoot and Afield Legacy (Treehuggers International; 8/2/11)
• The Life of Jerry Schad (San Diego Union-Tribune; 8/1/11)
• End of the Trail (San Diego Reader; 7/6/11)
• A Bad Day In Hiking (San Diego Hiker; 7/6/11)
• Jerry Schad: Wish Him Well (100 Peaks; 6/6/11)
• Friends of Lake Murray (Mission Valley Courier; 6/3/11)
• Find Coast Redwoods In Balboa Park (San Diego Reader; 4/13/11)
• Los Angeles County Trails With Jerry Schad (Treehuggers International; 7/19/09)
• Afoot and Afield With Jerry Schad (Treehuggers International; 7/13/08)
• Afoot and Afield Author Talks About Hiking Areas After Wildfires (San Diego.com; 1/28/08)

One of Jerry's favorite destinations was the stark wilderness of the Santa Rosa Mountains.

Treehuggers International founder Tommy Hough relates how Jerry Schad and his Afoot and Afield series had a profound effect on his perception, acceptance, and eventual peace with Southern California’s varied outdoor environments and landscapes.

Springtime poppies, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.

Stranger In An Arid Land

by Tommy Hough, Treehuggers International founder and host.

When I first arrived in San Diego, I was despondent. I was enjoying a tremendous career shot in the arm and broadcasting opportunity at a dynamite new radio station bending rules and going rogue, but I was a sad and homesick guy. You could see the cloud over my head a mile away. It’s a wonder my now-wife ever put up with me on our first few dates.

The despondency came from the trauma of uprooting myself from a place I’d fallen in love with, and a place I never wanted to leave and never once took for granted. It was the trauma of moving myself far away from every outdoor adventure I loved, every reason I had for living for the weekend (and indulging in more than a few sick days), every place worthy of strapping on a pair of old, comfortable hiking boots and taking along an ice axe for a “just in case” contingency.

For five years, the Pacific Northwest had been my absolute outdoor sustenance. It still very much is, but I had just moved to a part of the country which, as far as I could see, was arid, brown, hot, and living on irrigation-fueled life support. I do not exaggerate when I say this separation was akin to heartbreak; I could not shake myself from it.

Unused as I was to dry climates and desert particulates, the week I moved to San Diego a hot wintertime Santa Ana blew in and immediately gave me a terrible cold as my eyes dried and my nose bled. The winds were strong and sustained enough to collapse a huge branch from a big, old eucalyptus tree in Old Town, which crushed an old woman to death as she was walking her dog in the middle of the day. Welcome to town.

To me, San Diego was a catalogue of things missing and sorely lacking: wide, visceral rivers, dense rainforests, dramatic, glaciated peaks. The local mountains, to my sensibilities, were puny, brown, with zero trees or any confiers to brag about except for the highest reaches of the Lagunas, which upon close inspection were baked, bone-dry and alarmingly flammable. And what’s the point of all this sunshine if there’s no snow-capped mountains to fix one’s gaze on? No glaciers or snowfields or high alpine terrain, with a kingdom of lush forest and crashing waterfalls below?

While I could appreciate the wildness of the desert, it initially held little interest for exploration. It was vast, hot, and definitely not green. It was the inverse of the verdant outdoor environments I’d come to love as I developed my outdoor jones as a kid in the Laurel Highlands of Western Pennsylvania, at college in the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio, and later in the waterfall-spray soaked forests and rocky, granite massifs of the Pacific Northwest.

Summit markers atop snowy Mt. Baden-Powell, San Gabriel Mountains.

Finding Familiarity In Old Cuyamaca

Of course, an outdoorsman explores, and an explorer does so outdoors. If you love the outdoors, you don’t sit around inside thinking about it. Within days I was attempting to come to terms with my new environment, trying to find something I could latch on to and find familiar. I was certainly looking for something to soothe my outdoor jones.

With Gram Parsons and Buck Owens providing the soundtrack in the car, I made my way to the pre-Cedar Fire wonderland of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, and found myself reminded of parts of Montana, as well as the oak-dotted hills of California’s magical Central Coast and Bay Area.

I spent days wandering around Cuyamaca Peak. There were no glaciers. There were no wildflowers. But I saw deer and even a fox in the old Jeffrey and Ponderosa pine forest, and was reminded of some of the forests of eastern Oregon, or the underrated (and soon to be closed) Castle Crags State Park near Mt. Shasta.

This was progress. At least I’d found something which felt comfortable, and a little more familiar.

The next thing I did was pick up a book I’d actually heard about in Seattle called Afoot and Afield In San Diego County. The book was written by a Mesa College astronomy professor named Jerry Schad, who’d appeared several years earlier in a TV adaptation of the book on KPBS, San Diego’s public radio and TV outlet.

Judging from the size of the book, Jerry appeared to have hiked every trail ever blazed in the county, and I mean every one. I devoured the contents of Afoot and Afield, first looking for hikes and trails which reminded me of home, then checking out coastal trails through chaparral (an ecosystem I’ve only just learned to appreciate with the help of Rick Halsey), and then, taking a few curious looks at the desert hikes detailed in the book’s Anza-Borrego sections.

Reading through the text of various trips, Jerry made the hikes tangible and interesting, and seemed to have a particular zeal for desert trails, especially some of the more sheer and brutalizing treks in the Santa Rosa range, which even piqued my admittedly low interest for badland adventure.

Before long, I was driving up fire roads on the Los Coyotes reservation near Warner Springs to the forests at the base of Hot Springs Mountain, only to be sideswiped by a view of the Salton Sea I will never forget, appearing like a giant mirage through the trees. I visited the oak groves of Oakoasis in Lakeside and was pleased to find such heavy tree wisdom so close to civilization, cared for as a county park. I walked along the headwaters of the wild Santa Margarita River on the backside of Camp Pendleton, and was calmed by the stillness and quiet of the wilderness.

I found myself in a wildflower riot bright with yellow monkeyflower, hyacinth, and morning glory on the western shoulder of Otay Mountain one March morning. I swear I nearly drowned as I walked through literal walls of water in a late winter cloudburst atop Mt. Woodson, heartened to see freshly-fallen snow through the raindrops blanketing the Santa Ysabel ridge above Ramona. I met a friend for life on a morning trek up Stonewall Peak, and laughed with gallows delight as weather turned cruel on an outing to Garnet Peak. I ascended through the changing ecosystems of the Southern California forest on the Observatory Trail at Palomar Mountain, delighted at finding genuine old-growth cedars near the top.

I returned to Cuyamaca Peak, feeling a little wiser with my newly-minted Southern California explorer’s stripes.

San Ysidro Oak Woodland Open Space Preserve, Santa Barbara County.

Gratitude and Recognition

While I made it a point to explore and hike my way through my separation trauma, I had Jerry Schad to thank for planting ideas in my head as I read pages and pages of Afoot and Afield before falling asleep at night, and guiding me to a trailhead or destination as I kept one hand on my Jeep steering wheel and another holding my rapidly-fraying copy of Afoot and Afield.

Later I picked up Jerry’s Afoot and Afield editions for Orange and Los Angeles counties, and found myself on the wander-worthy San Juan Creek trail in the wild Santa Ana range one day, and ascending 9,399 ft. Mt. Baden-Powell in the San Gabriel range on another, finding some of the freshest air I’ve ever breathed at the summit, along with one of the strangest mountaintop mysteries I’ve ever beheld.

I want to thank Jerry Schad for giving a me an outdoor compass for Southern California, and helping me find my way in a region of the country I’ve sometimes been at odds with personally, but which has always embraced me back.

Through his enthusiastic, clear writing, Jerry helped me find my bearings at a time when I needed it, and helped replace my traumatic sense of loss with a newfound appreciation for where I was, and the self-healing to embrace and be thankful for what I had, as opposed to what I was missing. For that, there are no words which say thank you well enough.

“Just Get Out There”

These days, Jerry is very sick with stage four cancer, having reached a point where treatment is no longer a viable option. He wrote about his condition in the final edition of his long-running outdoor column for the The Reader, Roam-A-Rama. I know from his wife he is resting comfortably at home.

I sincerely hope this piece goes a little of the long way of expressing to Jerry just how much of an impact he’s had on me, and how, with his help, I came to be enticed by Southern California’s remarkable outdoors through his experiences, and confirmed them with my own.

I know there are tens of thousands of outdoors fans in Southern California who eagerly lace up their boots every chance they get, and feel exactly the same rush of excitement when they make sure they have their copy of Afoot and Afield before leaving for a trailhead. I hope Jerry knows how much of an impact he has made on generations of hikers and outdoors fans. As he wrote in his final Roam-A-Rama column for The Reader, “just get out there.”

And when getting “out there,” take along your friends and family, and colleagues and neighbors. Get the novices on the trail to breathe in the fresh air and to enjoy a vista or view they can’t get from a parking lot. When people make a tangible connection to the outdoors and wilderness, the more inclined they will be to help save it, and preserve it as is.

A Canopy of Stars

In September 2008, shortly after Jerry’s first appearance on Treehuggers International, he invited me to an astronomy lecture he was giving to a new crop of Mesa College students, from a wide parking area along Sunrise Highway, a few miles above the I-8 Laguna Summit. Using his laser pointer as the sun fell away and the canopy of stars opened, Jerry diagrammed the constellations and explained their origins, compared and contrasted the remarkable similarity different civilizations had of the same constellations, and pointed his array of telescopes at heavenly bodies from the moon to the rings of Saturn to the Jovian moons. Astronomy is Jerry’s true passion, and I thank him for letting me come by and enjoy his lecture as a guest.

Thanks for everything Jerry. We’re thinking about you.

Jerry Schad has made two appearances on Treehuggers International: July 13, 2008 and July 19, 2009.

Zuma Canyon wildflowers, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

More about this post at:

• Skyphoto, Jerry Schad’s homepage and astronomical photographs
• Wilderness Press Bio
• San Diego Reader Staff Page
• Roam-A-Rama
• KPBS Videos Page
• The Life of Jerry Schad (San Diego Union-Tribune; 8/1/11)
• End of the Trail (San Diego Reader; 7/6/11)
• A Bad Day In Hiking (San Diego Hiker; 7/6/11)
• Jerry Schad: Wish Him Well (100 Peaks; 6/6/11)
• Friends of Lake Murray (Mission Valley Courier; 6/3/11)
• Find Coast Redwoods In Balboa Park (San Diego Reader; 4/13/11)
• Los Angeles County Trails With Jerry Schad (Treehuggers International; 7/19/09)
• Afoot and Afield With Jerry Schad (Treehuggers International; 7/13/08)
• Afoot and Afield Author Talks About Hiking Areas After Wildfires (San Diego.com; 1/28/08)

The setting sun on the restored lighthouse, Cabrillo National Monument.

Looking north into the Mojave Desert from the Devil's Punchbowl.

Making a return appearance to Treehuggers International, veteran outdoor writer, Mesa College science professor and astronomy photographer Jerry Schad talks about the revised, third edition of Afoot and Afield In Los Angeles County, due in bookstores later this year from Wilderness Press.

Jerry talks about the trail revisions in the new edition of his Los Angeles County guide, his favorite L.A.-area trails, the geology and topography of the San Gabirel Mountains and Santa Monica Mountains and how they have become a hiker’s delight, and the best places to hike in Southern California’s hot summer months, where even a trip up Zuma or Solstice Canyon in otherwise ocean-cooled Malibu can be a scorching proposition.

Jerry also talks about his current work on new trail systems in San Diego’s Balboa Park, the environmental benefits of living in the city in multi-story dwellings, and some of the best places in Southern California to combine camping and stargazing.

While best known for Afoot and Afield In San Diego County, the definitive guide on San Diego County trails and the outdoors, as well as an Afoot and Afield entry for Orange County, Jerry has written dozens of books on the outdoors in California, including hiking, bicycling, and trail running, plus he’s the author of a collegiate physical sciences textbook and serves as the Chair of Mesa College’s Physical Sciences Department.

A longtime astronomical photographer with dozens of publication credits to his name, Jerry has hosted KPBS-TV documentaries about San Diego’s nighttime sky and a multi-part show based his own Afoot and Afield In San Diego County.

An occasional contributor to the Los Angeles Times, Jerry is approaching his 800th (!) weekly Roam-A-Rama column for the San Diego Reader!

Needless to say, we’re very happy to have Jerry Schad back on Treehuggers International.

Thousand-year old limber pines near the summit of Mt. Baden-Powell.

Spring wildflowers bloom along the San Andreas Fault at Tejon Pass.

More about this post at:

• Skyphoto, Jerry Schad’s astronomical photographs
• Wilderness Press Bio
• San Diego Reader Staff Page
• Roam-A-Rama
• KPBS Videos Page
• Afoot and Afield Author Talks About Hiking Areas After Wildfires (San Diego.com, 1/28/08)