Boulder

It was like a scene out of a sci-fi movie: A behemoth threatens an innocent town from atop a cliff, shrugging off all capture attempts. Only this real-life besieger was a 116-ton boulder, which gave indications in February 1979 that it might plunge onto Pacific Coast Highway and possibly squash a BMW or two, if not some beachfront architecture. The innocent town was Malibu, so naturally elements of show biz were involved. It was movie producer/ writer Robert Radnitz who led a campaign lobbying Caltrans to bring the big rock down from its 186-foot-high perch.

With four days of rain forecast for Southern California beginning Sunday night, the best defense against mudslides and flooding in areas burned during the Station fire is a network of 29 debris basins scattered around foothill communities. During most years, residents have little reason to think about the basins. But the Station fire, the largest in Los Angeles County's recorded history, has left charred hillsides that federal officials say pose an extreme mudslide risk if the area gets sustained rains.

Reporting from Verapaz, El Salvador, and Mexico City -- The hill-ringed town of Verapaz is now a wasteland of fallen boulders, thigh-deep mud and broken little houses. Rescue workers and desperate residents dug amid the debris Monday for signs of those people still missing a day after severe flooding and landslides left at least 136 dead across El Salvador. Verapaz, a bean- and coffee-growing town of 6,000, was one of the worst-hit spots. Earth and boulders poured down the side of Chichontepec volcano in a thunderous wave, burying some homes and inhabitants.

Boulder City touts itself as the anti-Las Vegas, and with ample reason. Take its throwback downtown near a still-humbling Hoover Dam, and a sense of history so deep that residents often rattle off dates: 1931, dam construction begins; 1935, construction ends. Local laws have banned casinos, curbed the number of bars and slowed growth to the pace of a Mojave Desert tortoise. In fact, Boulder City's wariness of development -- it allows only 120 building permits a year -- has mostly shielded it from the recession.

It was nearly midnight on Dec. 31, 1933, and 11-year-old Charles Bausback Jr. and his parents were gathered in the small dining area of their Evelyn Street home in Montrose, working on a jigsaw puzzle as they awaited a soggy new year. Outside, rain had been falling almost nonstop, dropping some 14 inches in two days on the small communities of the Crescenta Valley, tucked below the formidable peaks and steep canyons of the San Gabriel Mountains.

In bouldering lingo, a climbing route is called a "problem." Some problems here in Hueco Tanks State Historic Site are tougher than others. Mine was a gentle overhang pocked with shallow depressions, among the easiest routes in the park. No need for a 5-inch-thick pad to soften my landing, I thought. After all, I'm only a few feet off the ground.

Lance Hering, who went AWOL from the Marine Corps for two years after being emotionally overwhelmed by combat duty in Iraq, is home in Boulder, Colo., free on $5,000 bond on a probation violation charge from a previous burglary conviction. Hering, 23, faces a Jan. 7 court date. He also faces a separate charge stemming from the 2006 hoax that he and a buddy pulled to try to convince the Marine Corps that Hering was dead in the wilds of Eldorado Canyon State Park.

A major rock slide Wednesday at Yosemite National Park injured three visitors, destroyed more than half a dozen cabins and prompted park officials to evacuate popular Curry Village as a precaution. The slide let loose about 7 a.m. more than halfway up the 3,200-foot face of Glacier Point, which looms above the tent cabins and concession services on the valley floor.

Re "Obsessed? Addicted? It's politics," Opinion, Sept. 13 I have never had a column so precisely directed at me as this one. My two sons have attempted several interventions with me, accusing me of mainlining the cable news shows and most of the political websites. The only conversations they can have with me involve -- well, you know. I can't help myself! I'm afraid of Nov. 5, no matter the results, because then what? In any event, since yours was the most relevant column I've read in a long, long time, you now have a new regular reader from Boulder.