Text copyright 2012 by David W. Lockeretz, all rights reserved. To go back to the beginning of this story, click here.
The first sign that my new hobby was on its way to becoming an addiction was when I found myself getting up at five in the morning to drive to hike in Santa Barbara.
I didn’t have to teach until late in the afternoon on that Tuesday, and I wanted to get away. Things were not going well. The people I was living with were annoying me, and the drummer the South Bay Blues Authority, Ean, had been in a lousy mood during our gig the previous weekend. I wasn’t working as much as I’d wanted to; the economy was definitely slowing down. Yet I still never felt like I had enough time to do everything I wanted to, be it practicing, marketing my music or exercising. Of course, I still found time to resent Eve, although I was starting to understand why she might have felt ignored. My failures to please anybody were almost amusing.
But that was all far behind me as I drove up highway 101 to Santa Barbara. When I hiked, I became a Walter Mitty-type character. It didn’t matter that everyone hated me, that my wife couldn’t keep her legs closed and that I didn’t have a dime to my name. As I drove along the coastline of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties, I was living the California dream. I was not a cuckold, or a mediocre musician, or a problematic roommate: I was an explorer; a seeker; a doer.
Shortly before Santa Barbara, I picked up highway 192 and drove through a leafy residential neighborhood to my first trail, the hike to San Ysidro Falls. Before I learned how to research facts for a hike such as elevation gain, altitude, terrain and mileage, my only way of predicting a trail’s difficulty was Ann Marie Brown’s classification in “Easy Hikes in Southern California.” The San Juan Loop had borne the safe-sounding designation, “Mostly flat terrain.” Placerita and Vasquez Rocks had the more advanced categorization, “Rolling terrain.” The San Ysidro trail was the first hike I had attempted with the forbidding label of “Some steep terrain.”
I got my water bottle and started off. The first stretch was fenced in on both sides, but as I got farther along the fences vanished. I came to a junction where some workers were doing construction. I saw that the trail continued beyond a fence, but for some reason I decided that the trail I wanted headed off to the right. I followed along the side of a ridge, with some beautiful ocean views. After a short climb, the trail started to dip down into the woods. Doubt crept into my mind. Perhaps, I thought, a trail that leads to a waterfall would go up, and this one wasn’t going up. Waterfalls usually resulted in streams, and the stream was back where I had been. I retraced my steps and walked along the main trail, past the fence. Time wasted, but crisis averted.
Under a canopy of trees, with the trickling stream on my left, I worked my way up the path. I liked having the forest in front of me and at the same time being able to turn around and see the ocean. The trail was somewhat steep, but manageable, and after a while I made it up to the waterfall. Past the waterfall, the trail did a hairpin turn and headed up into the forest.
I headed back down to the trailhead and drove through downtown Santa Barbara to my next target, the Inspiration Point trail. This was the first of many Inspiration Points that I would encounter, including Inspiration Points at Will Rogers State Historic Park and the Backbone Trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. It’s since occurred to me that if state, federal and local agencies could somehow charge a licensing fee for the use of the name “Inspiration Point”, they would have a significant source of revenue. But as I drove past the Santa Barbara Mission and up into the hill, parking along a steep street below the trailhead, I was yet to become jaded on places named Inspiration Point.
The trail wound up a steep, curving dirt road, and at three quarters of a mile, I came to a junction. The trip to Inspiration Point was only 2 miles, so I had already done about a third of the work. By this point I had already noticed a greater female to male ratio of hikers than I had on any other trail I had thus far taken. Thus, I bestowed up on the Inspiration Point trail in Santa Barbara the name of Tail Trail. I was still wearing my wedding ring, and I didn’t want to pull the rip-cord on my marriage until I was certain, but it was starting to seem more and more likely that I’d soon be back on the market – and that the market just might be the great outdoors.
From the exposed dirt road, the Tail Trail continued its ascent underneath some trees, and I soon came to another junction. I knew from the book that at this point I was taking the descending path to the left, and as I did that, I heard a piercing scream. I paused; I didn’t think there were any wild animals in this area, but one could never be sure. Then I heard another one, but this time it was followed by high-pitched female laughter. Tentatively I walked a little farther–and then I saw the swimming hole. A few girls were jumping in and out of it, and the screams were from when they hit the cold water. The Tail Trail descended to the water, and we waved at each other before I continued.
The book, back in my car, had instructed me to cross the stream, but somehow I had translated that in my memory to “DON’T cross the stream.” I did not cross the stream and started to climb up, blissfully unaware that I was ascending the same trail I had just descended. I took a left at the junction and headed up a very steep stretch before coming out at a clearing. A giant metal pole led up to a power line high above. There was a great view of the ocean–but no exit from the clearing. I had come the wrong way, and was discouraged to find that I was almost out of water. I climbed back down, and then realized what I had done. Privately embarrassed, I headed back across the stream and continued on the real Inspiration Point trail. I drank the last of my water and headed up along some switchbacks. As I got higher, the trail left the woods and headed into an exposed patch of chaparral. Before long I made it to the top, greeted by a wide, panoramic view of Santa Barbara and the ocean. The book had challenged hikers to “see how many of the Channel Islands you could pick out.” Within a month or so I would get a major bug up my ass about the Channel Islands National Park, but on that day the land masses I saw off the coast were indistinguishable from Catalina Island as it appears off the coast of Long Beach.
I sat and enjoyed the view for a while before heading back down. After a good sandwich at a coffee shop and some frozen yogurt, I started the long drive back home. I wasn’t looking forward to returning to reality, but I wasn’t dreading it anymore. This too shall pass.
I taught few lessons that evening and came home for the night, spent from the long day. I sat on my bed. My black cat, Clive (named for the horror writer Clive Barker, which I thought was appropriate for an all black cat), jumped up next to me and surveyed the scene. “Mau,” he said solemnly. My female cat, who had long gray hair, was named Colleen, for reasons which I didn’t fully understand (despite my having given her that name). She was lying in the corner, curled up.
I petted Clive’s neck. “Looks like it’s just us tonight, Clive-O,” I said. I had recently done some feng-shui, or at least my version of it, to my bedroom, and liked how things looked. It was a moot point; I would be moving out of here—to someplace—soon, but I liked keeping myself occupied and trying to make the most of the situation.
In some ways, I was lucky. My mother hadn’t died suddenly. I had one friend back in Boston whose mother had killed herself, and another whose father had died from a heart attack when we were in high school. I had also had a good relationship with my mother, something that was certainly not to be taken for granted.
And my new life was taking shape, off the trails as well as on. I still had my friends; I had my music. The weekend was going to be full of both: I had made plans to get together with Paul to attend a Berklee-sponsored brunch in Santa Monica, and then to watch the Patriots and the Chargers. The Pats had become the first NFL team to have a 16-0 season, and during the fall, watching the games on Sunday had been a great distraction. Then I was going to see another friend’s band play in Hollywood.
In fact, my social calendar for the weekend was so full that I postponed what sounded like a good hiking opportunity. I had signed up for the local Jewish Outdoor Adventures mailing list, and they had a big trip planned for Sunday morning. It was a six mile loop in the Santa Monica Mountains with an impressive 1,100 feet of elevation gain. Hiking with other Members of the Tribe would have certainly been a blast, but I had to pass on this one. I made a mental note to check out Sandstone Peak some other time.
I continued to stay occupied with teaching and reading “Roadshow.” I thought about Eve, and wondered what the future might hold. It was nice that we were still on speaking terms, but when you make vows to spend the rest of your lives together, planning a coffee date just isn’t that exciting. I thought about asking her to join me on a hike, but I never did it. For now, at least, hiking was something that I felt was best to do on my own.
