Somewhere in Brentwood

Found a trail in Brentwood… I forget the name of the street… Left my phone in the car… swam in a pool of shadows…

I gathered with a group of friends for a little noonday hike on a carefree, do-nothing day. Clouds of similar disposition. Were the day a portrait, I would have drawn a mustache on it with a black Sharpie.

We passed around the gate and began our mosey.

Wait… scratch mosey. There’s a huge, bleeping descent right when you start, a mighty hill you have to contend with on your return trip, keep in mind. I made a pact with my buddy who’s getting into shape to run up it with him on the way back.  I needed the cardio and this hill just begged for some Officer and a Gentlemen shit. (minus the suicide and romance — pretty much just the scenes with Lou Gossett in them.)

Once you reach the bottom of that hill you completely disappear from the houses, from the streets that led you here, the Matrix up above, falling into a world of trees and plants and bushes. The noises lessen, become gentle. Things smell better. Verdant and alive.

Right here in the middle of the city is a thriving, tenaciously fecund land. Grasses and weeds grow everywhere. Plants growing out of trees. Worms giving birth to catterpillars.

There’s even a “creek” running through the canyon, along which the city has laid a cement grid, to help the water keep its course, I suppose. That’s my wild guess. I don’t know.

Whatever its purpose, it was not easy to hike on. I stumbled a few times over these giant keyboard shaped ankle-turners.

I cursed Bill Gates.

The canyon was spindly and long and Sisyphean. It unfolded in ridges that dissolved into further ridges. Just when you thought you were going to break through to a little view or clearing or at least a change in direction, another row of hills introduced itself to you and it was deja vu.

Nevertheless, we pushed on, because it felt like something was always right around the corner. (There was: another corner!)

The “trail” traveled up the gut of the canyon, tagging behind the “creek.” We followed it blindly, boxed in by the hills on either side.

I assumed with apathy that we were heading north.

Where we were wasn’t steep, there wasn’t much of a climb to it, it was just persistent as a 16 year-old wanting to get their license, beating the same drum. Whining its way towards the valley.

Some trails you have to give some time to grow on you or get to the good stuff, like a book that takes 50 pages to get into. I was hoping this was one of those, and we’d pop out to a jaw dropping vista of Los Angeles or pop over Mulholland and trek into the valley.

It wasn’t to be. But I try to appreciate what’s before me. There’s a lot to appreciate in this world when you just open up. Look around you. Sniff the air. Listen for your name being called by the bluejay.

For one quick moment, I let go, my steps and my heartbeat synchronized and tapped out the same tune, in rhythm with my footfalls; and in that moment I felt a restful, prehistoric harmony, a profound sense of contentment, then it was gone, like a summer fling in November.

I wanted it back. I tried to walk with light feet, breathe evenly and smooth and be Zen like that, but my mind messed it all up. Too much wanting! Too much thinking!

I wasn’t being Present, I wasn’t being Here.

So I let go, again.

I let go of trying so hard to let go and cast my gaze at the world around me, using my Velcro eyes.

I noticed how many rocks had been chipped off of this mountain and were now slowly making their long journey towards oblivion. A rock will be split in half and those halves will be halved and so on and so on till infinite nothing.

The trees were healthy and green and their leaves were dancing in the breeze, shadows pooling in dreamy, little dappled patterns on the ground. I admired them from below… big mopish trees, hanging around… moping.

There were few other people out on this trail — of that small number probably 90% were local residents. But that’s just an uneducated guess from someone with absolutely no interest in accuracy. You’re welcome.

We did see a few people on bikes speed by, looking like they were having a lot of very, and I mean this literally, serious fun. Their gaze and focused was scrunched towards their nose, like a scientist splitting an atom, but with a Mona Lisa smile.

We finally stopped an affable couple and found out what we already knew. We were lost.

You see, we were looking for a Nazi compound, or something, some Goonie-type scavenger hunt my friend put us on. I don’t think we were ever close. But the weather was fine, the stream intermittently something serene to look at, and the conversation flowed effusively and free, so we rolled with it. We decided to keep following the canyon and see where it goes.

Sometimes you’ll catch the fish if you just let out some more line.

NOTE: The stream above admittedly isn’t the most spectacular sight ever, but just remember, this is 7 miles from my house, right in the middle of the second largest city in the United States. Hate on Los Angeles all you want, but you can’t hate on this.

Although I felt phantom cell phone vibrations in my pocket a few times, I didn’t have to pick up a call or send a text, I was present for an undivided hour. The lizards stayed hidden in their hideaways. The birds stayed on the highest branches, but it didn’t matter, I was cherishing this scamper.

When you stop and allow time to catch up, you realize how lucky it is to be alive, and question why the fuck you’re always stressed out. When you’re present, mini-miracles happen. The breeze touching upon your skin like angel’s breath. The sound of laughter.  A dragonfly, helicoptering around a lily landing pad.

When we doubled back I made good on my proclamation and raced up the hill with my buddy. The ascent was strenuous and steep. It felt good. My heart was running on all 6 cylinders and my lungs were juiced, inhaling all that oxygen. We got to the top and waited for the others to join us, taking in the view, catching our breath.

Overall, it was a quick and tidy excursion.  The sparkling shadows, the sense of freedom untethered from your cellular shackles, the way time both disappears and becomes intimate, it all played out flawlessly, poetically.

For my last meal I don’t want filet mignon, I want a crispy, loud apple.

2.5 CHIPMUNKS

(Some may question why the low score after what seemed to be a gushing experience. When judge on the merits of a hike… eh. It suffers a lot for lack of views and diversity and the poor walking terrain. I enjoyed it, though, for having no expectations and its relative closeness to the “real world”. Plus I tend to enjoy hikes and enjoy life. So I gush. But based on purely hiking terms, it’s average at best.)

Franklin Canyon

Oh, Franklin Canyon, I do love you.

Located smack-dab in the middle of Los Angeles — with a lake, a pond full of turtles and ducks, and 5 miles of trail – this park is a surprising, uncluttered, bucolic find. As part of the Santa Monica Mountains, Franklin Canyon is an important stop for birds making southerly migrations and for local fauna that inhabit the mountains, including yours truly.

With chaparral and pine trees and songbirds and the peaceful ripples in the quiet lake, you feel like you’re – I don’t know – in Mayberry or somewhere all-American like that, perhaps because the opening to the Andy Griffith show was filmed here: lil’ Ronnie Howard and his pop strolling along, whistling, with their fishing poles bobbing on their shoulders.

“Gee, pop, is this really L.A.?”

I may not be a ten-year-old redhead but I feel like a kid every time I come hiking here…

I recently went back with a dude we’ll call Mr. O, a man I’ve known for a decade now, on a clear, lackadaisical Sunday. The sky as blue as Zoey Deschanel’s eyes. The trail was empty. We practically had the place to our self.

We chatted effusively. Rambling talk. Old pal gab.

We’ve known each other since college. Boston. Drinking in bars and talking about scripts. We’re co-dependent reminders of our youth. Friends.

Mr. O getting his flower sniff on.

We climbed hills with wooden steps, hard dirt paths, stomped over fossilized sneaker prints.

We traversed wooden bridges, gazed at mansions, watched helicopters overhead, admired native plants while trying to deduce their names: Bull thistle. Deerweed.  Black sage. Shortpod mustard. They’re all in attendance up here. The fauna is varied and scraggly and totally Southern Californian.

Crossing bridges.

Franklin Canyon is a long canyon with a series of short trails ascending the hills to peek-a-boo views of the lake and sometimes Century City and the Westside beyond. Choose any of these spurs for a nice climb and view.

We progressed through the park letting the moment guide us, picking this trail and that trail willy-nilly. When you allow any option, it’s hard to be displeased.

A little history about the place. This was the summer family retreat for Edward L. Doheny, an oil tycoon whose memory is preserved in the eponymous street to the south, practically down water from here. You can imagine how nice that must have been to have this canyon to yourself, riding horses, swimming in the lake, almost a century ago.

We experimented with a few of these routes to get a sense of what Franklin Canyon has to offer. The trails themselves are narrow and you can tell that this place doesn’t get a lot of traffic. The grass and mustard plants are reclaiming the trails and at times you have to bushwack your way through. This is a plus for me but might annoy some tamer hikers.

I like my trails overgrown and wild.

Overwhelmed with life.

Wildflowers

Squirrels scamper around in the undergrowth. A lizard strikes out across our path.The noises are small and pastoral. Life slowed down.

We continued on, drawn towards the sound of speakers playing, music drifting through the canyon.

Down at the nature center there was a group of people, a dozen and a half or so, dancing, writhing, doing some form of yoga movements to strange, New-Agey music. It was a bit cult-like and weird. Totally L.A.. Watching these people for a while to try to make sense of what they were doing drew no results, there was no pattern to it, each dancer moved in their own contorting way, flailing around in slow-motion. If you took a Grateful Dead concert and slowed it down this is what it would look like.

They looked happy at least.

We left them to continue doing whatever it was they were doing and continued north, higher into the canyon.

After more meandering, both on the trail and conversationally, we  found ourselves staring up at a vertical ascent that needed conquering; so Mr. O and I raced up full-speed, shouting like cavemen, topping it in ten seconds. Up on the summit was a fire station with a basketball hoop.

Getting down was a bit more tricky.

We traversed up canyon. The trail grew more forgotten, seemingly unused. Random. A cartographer’s mistake. It was a cagey romp through the brush. Unexpected. I dug it.

Another surprise was this giant elevated pipe towering over our heads. A steampunk homage: man’s aggression to nature; a totem of industry: Modernity’s collateral damage, I suppose.

We sat in the shade and tried to guess what was coursing inside that steel tube but came to no conclusion. Oil? Water? Natural Gas? Poop? Who knows.

I hope it’s not poop.

We continued our climb uphill until we popped out at the intersection of Coldwater Canyon Blvd and Mulholland Dr. There was a phone booth without a telephone and a dangerous hairpin turn, and no where safe to walk.

We quickly crossed the street, dodging traffic like Frogger, all to check out the Treepeople headquarters, and their displays and nursery and view of the valley, L.A.’s smoggy, creepy, ignored brother-in-law.

Glorious San Fernando Valley.

After a little respite, educating ourselves one placard at a time, we ventured back down the hill, towards the lake, and the pine trees, oak, and redwoods that make the perfect on-the-cheap backdrop with built-in props and all for the movie makers and TV show makers out yonder…

There are picnic benches lining the shore. I made the determination right then and there to come up here with a group of friends, devour a little feast, throw the Frisbee back and forth and chill out in the shade. Maybe eat some pineapple.

That’s all we really want to do in the end, right? Chill out.

These fowl were chilling out. Not sure what they are: mallards? Floating around, minding their own business, drifting through the water, pecking at things underneath. There were some babies, too, chirping up a storm. It looked like a nice little birdy life for them.

No hurries.

We got a chance to snap another photo of the lake with the sky changing color and the day beginning to shed its warmth and the breeze making the surface undulate. You can’t help but appreciate what’s right here, in our backyard, minutes away. There for the exploring. Approachable. Close. A nice collection of trees and birds and sunshine.

When you need a break from the daily balancing act, leave your cell phone in your car and scamper around the hills for an hour or two. Good for your lungs, good for your soul.

Franklin Canyon always sets my kilter right.  The right balance of lake and scrubby hills, pine trees and don’t forget! turtles floating with their little heads on the surface watching the world. This is the land. We are its inhabitants. It’s good land. I can’t help but extoll my appreciate for this gem.

Get your kilter right.

Conveniently located in the center of our city, just off Sunset and Beverly Dr., Franklin Canyon has a lot of move-around room. The trails are personal, full of wildflower. There’s a surprising abundance of quiet and a healthy dose of solitude. There’s no better landscaper than Mother Nature, and she did a sweet job up here.

4.0 CHIPMUNKS

Now, let’s go back in time…

Angels’ Landing (Zion)

Zion National Park is a beast to hike and even more of a beast to photograph. The problem is everything is up in the air!

Zion Park is basically Zion Canyon, which means most of the hikes feature gnarly elevation gains. This is all right for one or two hikes but after three or four your calves start to complain and dreams of the hot tub back at the lodge start to overtake your thoughts. Yes, I wasn’t really roughing it on this trip.  I never said you can’t spoil yourself here and there.

To try to capture the thin blue water on the ground, the alpine landscape on the bottom, and the red desert environment up top, and above that a sliver of blue sky, too, for contrast and drama — well, that’s way too much for my camera and my poor camera skills.

I did the best I could.

Behold: Zion Canyon.

The hike that really brought me there, and would turn out to be the most thrilling hike of my life, is Angel’s Landing.

From their website: The Angels Landing Trail is one of the most famous and thrilling hikes in the national park system. Zion’s pride and joy runs along a narrow rock fin with dizzying drop-offs on both sides. The trail culminates at a lofty perch, boasting magnificent views in every direction. Rarely is such an intimidating path so frequented by hikers. One would think that this narrow ridge with deep chasms on each of its flanks would allure only the most intrepid of hikers. Climbers scale its big wall; hikers pull themselves up by chains and sightseers stand in awe at its stunning nobility. The towering monolith is one of the most recognizable landmarks in the Southwest.

It starts off tame enough, a slow gradual climb up from the valley floor into refrigerator canyon, a hanging canyon that is kept cool and shaded all year round. Then there’s something called Walter’s Wiggles, a series of switchbacks built into the mountain.

You reach Scout’s Lookout first, which is impressive and stunning in itself. High up in the red and ocher rock, nothing but aqua sky above. Either side of you is a fatal free fall.  The Earth violently cut into serpentine canyons by water and time. It was mesmerizing and miraculous. Both the canyon and being alive to experience it.

This hike was breathtaking, had me gasping in awe and exhaustion. There was one last push and climb to get to my destination.

Beyond Scout’s Lookout was nothing but chain and precipice.

Looking at Angel’s Landing from Scout’s Lookout – notice the ridge you have to climb up, how steep and narrow and serious, decadent and lissome.

What a goose bump ride!

It took quite a bit of Jedi mind-over-matter to get through it.

It wasn’t that challenging on a physical level, although at times I was a bit winded, it was looking down at the meandering river down below, so far away and tiny, the way cars looked like cockroaches that high up, the birds gliding in entrancing patterns, that’s what caused a bit of vertigo and, what I call, ‘oh shitness!’

I took the trail at a decent pace, not too fast to make any mistakes, but not stutteringly, sheepish, or scared. Bounding through the rock and the climb, I was sure thankful for my North Face hiking shoes.

Sometime you really shouldn’t look down. But how could you not?

Once you reach the end of the ridge, you’ve made it!

Congratulations.

Angel’s Landing affords great views of the canyon and surrounding cliffs, the Virgin River, and the great Utah desert. Once you get there you won’t want to leave for a while so have a seat. Rehydrate with water. Drink in the view. Have a snack if you brought one.

There are chipmunks at the top that have taken to scampering through hiker’s bags for food and people have been known to get bit. It was fun to watch them causing trouble. I shooed a few away myself although I was sans snacks.

I wonder if any chipmunks have ever been kicked off the cliff after biting a less-than-understanding hiker.

Here’s the view from Angel’s Landing.

Those are my feet, of course.

These are my thoughts: “Life is beautiful. I’m a fragment of all this beauty. It’s good to be alive. “

This what I live for: this fresh air, vast views, the silence of the desert, the jagged, hard-cut canyon, the beauty that erosion wrought, the path of pushing yourself, reaching the summit.

Nature is my endearing, life-long friend — someone always there at the right time, right place, to remind me that I ain’t shit – it’s vital to stay in touch with her.

The way back down the ridge was easier. I passed other hikers climbing, tremblingly, up the mountain and skipped around them with aplomb, causing some to look at me in awe, others to probably question my sanity.

I was showing off a little bit at this point. This is true. Years of Joshua Tree has made me a capable boulder swimmer. I was having fun, bounding down the ballet of rocks with verve.

This is looking back towards Scout’s Lookout.

Notice, at the bottom of the picture, the tiny hiker on his way up.

Once I reached Scout’s Lookout, I studied and gazed back at the ridge I just traversed with gratitude and appreciation. I was safe and so it was okay to admit it finally, that shit was scary!

This is not a novice’s hike. You can do it without being in top notch shape, sure, but it would help, and you especially can’t do it with doubt and timidity weighing you down.

This is a hike to be conquered. A challenge. This is my kind of hike.

If you live in Los Angeles, Zion is only six and a half hours away. Take your head out of this hectic and demanding modern cement world and immerse it in nature.

Just watch your step.

Trust me, you’ll be a happy camper.

4.5 Chipmunks

Oak Springs Trail

The other day I went on a hike to one of the sources of the LA river as part of my quest to hike as much of the  local backcounty as I can.

Oak Springs Trail, a couple of miles outside Pacoima, in Little Tujunga Canyon, on the northern end of the San Fernando Valley, in Angeles National Forest, is a sun-drenched brute of a hike.

The area looked like a Western, probably because many a Western was shot in the area. It’s kinda amusing, because the real mountains of Arizona, Colorado, Montana are much more interesting than these.

Welcome to Oak Springs Trail.

The trail began promising enough. There wasn’t another car in the parking lot. Big sycamores lined a shady creek. We headed pass a picnic bench that looked like a pleasant enough spot to eat a sandwich or to tie a shoe, which I did, I tied my Sauconys. The path was wide but covered with leaves which I took as a sign that this trail isn’t tread by many hikers.

Cool.

We hadn’t gone a hundred yards when the trail came to an abrupt end against a cliff, a light blue fender lay on the ground, rusted and forgotten.

Huh?

My buddy and I looked at each other, realized that we weren’t on a trail, or at least, not the trail we were supposed to be on, and retraced our steps through the parking lot, found where we were supposed to be, and headed off again.

Whoops!

Immediately our walk left the shady canyon and ceased being a ‘walk’, and could now safely be called a climb, as we proceeded pretty much vertically up the mountain.

Let’s just say it was steep and leave it at that. You wouldn’t want to be caught leaning back too much as the cliff dropped quickly from the trail through some thorny brush you wouldn’t want to take a tumble in down the side of a mountain into a ravine you wouldn’t want to leave your corpse in for days to be picked apart by vultures. This was one of those intense vertical climbs where eventually you begin pushing off of your knee for leverage.

And it was hot, dusty and hot.

We thought we were getting an early start, but by the time we stopped for water and trail mix, and Louisiana Fried Chicken, (don’t ask) we hit the trail around 1:15. The sun was directly over our heads and blazing with fury, anytime I looked up at it I thought: this is what it must feel like to be a french fry.

After climbing two ridges and bitching and moaning about it, but admitting to getting a kick out of it anyway, we came across a slight platue and between two hills we could gaze in wonder at the San Fernando Valley from 2000 feet above it.

Eh.

You really couldn’t see anything because of the smog. I didn’t even take a picture. I went looking for it just now and remembered, ‘oh yeah, the vista was depressing, and infuriating.’ After that strenuous climb we were rewarded with miles and miles of brown sky and a blurry city of strip malls and tract housing hiding underneath it.

Shortly after that disappointment, however, we crested a hill and the trail sloped into a nice quiet meadow. I could see building a little pioneer ranch there.  Up ahead was a thicket of green trees and the sound of running water. We had made it.

It isn’t much, but this is Oak Springs, one of the sources for the Porciuncula.

Didn’t catch too many fish.

It was nice and shady and there were a few sizable boulders to sit on, at least for a few seconds until the ants began to swarm. There was a fire ring from where someone had set up camp at some point, a shotgun shell on top of the charred logs.

The creek was quiet and idyllic, but not too engaging. I studied the face someone carved into a tree trunk while my buddy entertained himself by taking pictures of the bugs in the water. When I got home I discovered about a dozen of them. Pictures. The bugs we left in the creek.

This is one of the clearer ones.

Not too serene a scene, know what I mean?

To be quite frank, the air was rank. It must have been 90 degrees still in the shade. We had only hiked about a mile and a half and even though we grumbled about the heat, we weren’t yet ready to give up on the trail. So we continued onward. Into the Wild West.

The trail swichbacked through more thirsty chaparral and came upon more underwhelming outlooks, with even vaster views of the smog and the ants sputtering around down there in it. The city of Tujunga was right beneath us, crawling up the mountainside, wandering cement monstrosity.

The view made me quite melodramatic.

Tiny little insect people.

The trail eventually connected with a road that led higher up but we had had enough of this mountain. We spent a few minutes scratching our heads and contemplating the route back; whether we should follow the road down instead of the trail so as to complete a loop.

The problem was: we weren’t sure where the road led. The image of us winding up in Tujunga and needing to catch a taxi back to our car compelled, frightened, us to suck it up and go back the way we came, retracing ourselves through the brook and meadow and slanted slope.

Passing a darling flower along the way.

Ah, how sweet!

I hate to sound judgmental but this hike was one of the worst I’ve done in awhile. It’s really a charmless, piss-shit mound of dirt, with scrubby vegetation intent on sticking sharp twigs in your sock, a dribble of water masquerading as a creek your reward for sizzling under the sun, and close-ups of bugs chilaxing on stagnant water.

There wasn’t any shade to speak of. Except for by the bugs. The trail wasn’t well-maintained. It’s not far away enough to escape the smog. Or the liter. I’m pretty sure there’s must have been a homicide at some point.

There’s a reason Angeles Crest Highway, which is just north of where I was, is known more for the bodies they find dumped there than the wilderness.

Still, it’s nice to see it, because it’s there, and it’s home.

2.0 Chipmunks

Wildwood Park

After an embarrassingly long time trying to discern the difference between Wildwood Canyon Park in Burbank and Wildwood Park in Thousand Oaks, we elected to make the hour drive into Ventura County to check this little trail out. How could you say no to a hike that features “Paradise Falls”?

The afternoon was exquisite. The temperature rested in the low 60′s. The sky was tattooed with whiskery clouds.

A Cat’s Cradle of trails led us from the parking lot and up over the bluff. I was a bit discombobulated as to where to go, which trail was which.  Instead of worrying about it, I checked out the cacti, the lovely bluff in the distance and kept a watchful eye for rattlesnakes.

I’m not a fan of the rattlesnake.

The Wild West (AKA Thousand Oaks)

We followed the signs for Paradise Falls and on the way happened upon the surprising tepee lookout you see below. A cement bench area was provided underneath the shade and we stopped to eat some mango and soak up the beautiful scene.

No Indians were hurt in the taking of this picture

After that brief, pleasant respite we headed out, descending down into the canyon at a rapid clip. The hills shone with a luminescent green brought by the winter rains . A lone hawk circled just over our heads, but occupied a different universe than our own; our universes overlapped for a few minutes, sharing space and time, before the hawk floated away from sight. Was it ever really there?

People say colors don’t really exist. They’re just the deception of wavelengths and energies and their intensity; it’s our eye’s machinery translating physics.  I don’t know. I see color everywhere. I believe it exists. I fell in love with a pair of blue eyes underneath the yellow California sun and I believe in that, and I heard her calling me just then, snapping my Junior College science class flashback, encouraging me to catch up.

We reach the sign pointing to the Falls and could hear the people gathered around it. We seemed to reach this point a lot of faster than we expected. This was supposed to be a three-mile hike?

This way to see a teenage boy chicken out

Not that I expected to be alone once I reached the falls, however, I didn’t expect a teenage boy lodged for twenty minutes on the edge of the waterfall. His girlfriend, his buddy and his  buddy’s girlfriend all watched from below, hooting at him and prodding him to jump. Even some random kids and their mom watched and waited, taunting. Other hikers recorded him with their iPhones.

But the kid wouldn’t jump.

Jump or get out of the picture

There was a sign that said NO CLIMBING ON THE ROCKS and another one that said NO SWIMMING. I’m sure diving off the waterfall violated both of them.

His buddy swam out and assured the zit-filled daredevil that it was deep enough to jump. Our would-be jumper edged out on the rock, looked down at the water, then wiggled back up the rock; then he did it again, edged out on the rock, looked down, wiggled back; in that order, over and over.

The little kids chanted, ‘Jump. Jump. Jump.’ Then they tried to coax him to leap by counting down, ‘Three. Two. One.’ The tentative cliff diver wouldn’t budge. His ass was glued to that rock, spoiling any decent photograph one should attempt.

Eventually his buddy climbed up and, without fanfare, dove bravely into the water, making a gentle splash and quietly assuming Alpha status in a graceful show of courage. (And stupidity if you ask me — I wouldn’t jump into that shitty, cold, bacteria-filled puddle if you paid me gold bullion.)

The girlfriend called her boyfriend, ‘a pussy,’  and told him to either jump or come down, she was leaving and was starting to get mad. She barked at him to come now! Like both dog and master. She looked cold, and angry. I don’t think he was going to get lucky tonight.

The teenage boy then sheepishly chickened out and crept back down the rock to catch up with the others.

Finally I could take some real pictures.

Welcome to Paradise Falls…

Jump. Jump. Jump

Forget your life

Change your perspective

Not too long, we grew tired of staring at the falls. Maybe it’s just me, but I get bored rather quickly by waterfalls. All you do is watch water drop in the exact same location and speed, a predictable, steady sophomoric hum that lulls you into the house of nod. Don’t the Chinese have some similar torture method?

After witnessing the Japanese Tsunami on TV I am unimpressed by such simple displays. It’s perverse in a way, how media and the proliferation of video cameras capturing everything — the video taping of disasters like the Japanese Earthquake, Hurricane Katrina, the Indian Ocean Tsunami of ’04 and even 9-11 — have desensitized us to cataclysmic events, has affected our perception of the natural world and our relatively benevolent place in it.

How am I supposed to appreciate a simple stream of water spilling over a 50 foot sandstone cliff in the suburbs? That’ s Atari stuff. We’re in a 3-D, X-Box world now. You have to do better than that, Paradise Falls, to get my attention!

Or maybe I do… a better job…  at appreciating the small blessings in life. The bunny rabbit blessings. The pine cone blessings.

We set off again, following a family of ducks upstream through the pie wedge canyon.

Row. Row. Row your boat.

This next portion of the trail was more interesting. It was small as a pool pocket and hug the side of the hill tenderly, like a mother holding a newborn baby. There was more of that cacti landscaping and a hole in the clay they call “Indian Cave”. This wasn’t as egregious as the “tepee”, but I’m curious if the Chumas Tribe ever used it as shelter or if it’s just Thousand Oaks City Council pizzazz.

Part of our local history, the Chumash, lived on this land in a vastly different way than our swimming pools and SUVs, McDonalds and cable TV. I pictured them fishing in their canoes, walking the canyon, five hundred years ago, running from bears, not one headshot in the group.

We popped through the top of Indian Cave and scrambled up a small deer path to catch up with Moonridge Trail for the final stretch back to the parking lot.

Along the way I tried to fake my girlfriend out, pretended I sprained my ankle by wincing in pain and hobbling. She didn’t buy the act and called me a dork, so I chased her up the trail. Once I finally caught her, I tickled her into submission.

It’s like a small nativity play of our relationship.

A pine cone blessing.

Walking in the middle, groovy

We enjoyed this last part of the trail immensely. The intimacy of the hills and the lushness of the spring foliage fed us some giddy, giddy-up-and-go spirit. The hike had a nice, mellow finish; yet, when we got back to the car I was still ready for more, like I had an appetizer and my appetite was whetted for the main course.

Don’t get me wrong, as far as neighborhood hikes go, this one is really special and anybody would be lucky to have this in their backyard. Overall, Wildwood is a beautiful, relaxing slice of nature, however, considering the distance from L.A., I was hoping for a longer, meatier hike… more removed, more challenging, and more eventful — especially when there’s a “Paradise Falls” and an “Indian Cave”.

In the end, I guess, I just wanted… more.

The waterfall wasn’t bad, an engaging and efficient spout, but it wasn’t amazing, awe-inspiring, ecclesiastical. Also, the fact that it was such a short hike to the falls made me appreciate it less. Weird. That’s  just in my head, I know, but that’s how it is.

Which is not to say I disliked Wildwood. It was green and tranquil and I saw some ducks and I saw a chicken. It was a nice walk, in a nice part of the world. Definitely worth lacing up the hiking boots… Just maybe something to save for later in your Los Angeles hiking quest.

3.0 Chipmunks

They believed the Water World to be made from the urine of the many frogs who lived in it.

Hollywood Reservoir

I went up to the Hollywood Reservoir to gulp in some fresh air today.

Well, as fresh as our oxygen gets with 17 million-gazillion cars huffing around Los Angeles spewing Alfred Hitchcock-sized clouds of carbon dioxide into the air. My girlfriend came along with me. We wanted to see what the deal was with this place.

Hollywood Reservoir sits at the foot of the Hollywood sign, million dollar mansions festooning the hillside around it, dogs sniffing each others butts, hikers and joggers getting their “cardio”; it’s a little hidden slice of ersatz pastoral bliss, a peaceful stroll and a great respite away from the cacophony of the streets below.

Come up here to still your mind, soak up a little Zen, and work on the riddle that is life…

The World Famous Hollywood Sign.

The reservoir was formed in 1924 when the fine folks at the DWP built the Muholland Dam to impound the water. At that time it provided the  bulk of the drinking water for our young city. You may recognize the name Mulholland from the David Lynch film “Mulholland Dr.”, or if you’re a local, from cruising the famed street that separates the Westside from the Valley, providing a sparkling vista of city lights at night, and sultry liaison to many a teenage make-out session. It’s named after William Mulholland, whose water grab turned the Owens Valley into a desert but helped Los Angeles grow into the metropolis it is today, so… thanks?

It was a mild, late winter day. The sky was the color of a can of Pepsi. A shy breeze kept my girlfriend and I comfortable in hoodies and sweats. Smog hung out over the city like a beige carpet, obscuring the hump that is Palos Verdes in the distance. It was a fine day and I was in the mood for a good lap or two around the reservoir.

I parked on the dirt shoulder at the end of Weldlake Dr.. Los Angeles festered down below. It’s a bit tricky to find, as you have to navigate the serpentine streets of the Hollywood Hills and there’s not much in the way of signage pointing you there. Don’t worry, google maps is here to the rescue.

Top of the city.

The first thing you come across is the dam, a series of natty arches hold it up, a good thing too, as another dam built around that time by Mulholland failed and killed a couple of hundred people, ruining his up-until-then illustrious career. (But apparently being responsible for the deaths of 500 people isn’t enough to keep the city from naming its most awesome street after you.)

There’s a good deal of vegetation up there and if you don’t look behind you, it’s easy to forget you’re surrounded by endless miles of irascible gangsters, unctuous suits and silicone implants.  This is why I came up here, amid the green and quiet, to get away from all the hubbub down there.

It was time to hike!

Let’s hope Willy built this one to last.

My girlfriend and I set off across the dam, sipping the oxygen with our nose; enspirited, we listened to the chirping church choir of songbirds and stared at the lapis lazuli water. A lazy propeller plane flew overhead. I thought I heard a fish take a breath. Once we reached the west side of the reservoir we found our progress around the perimeter impeded by a DO NOT ENTER sign and a big ol’ fence. Apparently a landslide has made walking around the reservoir an impossibility and we have to turn around and go back the way we came. This seriously put me on the bummer train to Downsville. I’m a stickler for loop hikes. I hate retracing my steps. It feels to me like the equivalent of a hiking cock-block.

Whatever, I’m not going to let a little landslide ruin my hike. I’m not going to let it give me hiking blue-balls. We changed directions and began our amble around the reservoir moving up the east side. Life throws you a swamp build Miami.

We rolled with it.

It’s like Mulberry meets Burberry.

The path around the lake is half cement/half hardened dirt that might as well be cement. Truth be told, calling the Hollywood Reservoir a hike is like calling a swimming pool a lagoon — sure, you can swim in it and ducks can shit in it, but it ain’t connected to the sea and Gilligan’s not going to shipwreck up in it — but if you’re looking for a pleasant way to pass a peaceful hour or two in front of life’s green screen, away from the hustle and bustle, Hollywood Reservoir is born for the job.

There wasn’t a load of runners or walkers crowding us — and this was Sunday — meaning we had air to breath, privacy to talk, and space to move around. That’s all our bodies want to do sometime, move around, see things, sometimes dance, sometimes more. On the other side of the Cahuenga Pass, Runyon Canyon was teeming with joggers in $100 workout outfits and vixen dragging toy dogs around on leashes. Runyon Canyon is a people-storm raging on the edge of the cliff. It’s more crowded than Tomorrowland. Sometimes there’s hordes and hordes of perfectly shaped people crawling up that mountain, elbow to elbow, hiking boot to hiking boot, six-pack abs to six-pack abs, competing for solitude and sunlight and spotlight.

At the Hollywood Reservoir it’s actually possible to escape the crowds, commune with your native land, and let the universe pervade your soul… It’s possible to wax poetically, ludicrously, about it on a blog and feel justified. Yes, this is nothing close to real nature, nobody’s fooling anybody there, but it is a Los Angeles treasure, a good enough interpretation for an afternoon walkabout.

Just when I felt that Southern California grace take hold of me I looked up at the ostentatious homes mottling and mortifying the green hills. A hot longing invaded my thoughts. The good life! Peace and security and a wet bar. Why can’t I have that? The question burned a hole in my brain.

It’s practically impossible for me to drive through, walk around, fly over, view from a distance, etc. the Hollywood Hills without fantasying about living in one of those perched-on-the-precipice, views-forever, aphrodisiacal homes that the rich and famous covet up there. A familiar daydream always takes hold. The life! Hosting parties on the deck as you gaze over the city, sipping martinis and reveling in life’s blessings while soaking in a bubbling jacuzzi…

It’s a frustrating aspect to living down in the Los Angeles basin, you have to look up at the hills every day and see the good life staring down at you. Most cities don’t have the rich hovering over you — like literally — like they do here in Los Angeles. I don’t mean to sound bitter — I’m no class warrior, mostly because I’m on the losing side — but it frustrates me to see how good some people have it while the homeless and poor are barely surviving just a couple of blocks away. But that’s America…

Forget it, I was there to escape the wars, the debt, politics, work, stress, as least two coming apocalypse, the media noise we mistake for our world, and stretch my legs and smell the arsenal of pine cones and spot the lizards… not get all Che Guevara on ya.

Missiles ready to launch!

Nature relaxes me, it’s why I go on these hikes. Nature is like nature’s Valium. I tend to believe that urban living causes stress just from being so removed from trees, lakes, mountains, wild grass, geese, beetles, and ticks. (well, that last one I don’t miss so much.) It does the soul good to refresh itself with a trek out into the elements from time to time.

Mission Accomplished.

The Hollywood Reservoir is hidden, clean and tucked away; free of the scene inflicted upon other trails, it’s quiet, personal.

We may be in the belly of the beast, but it’s true what they say in this case, the belly tastes the best.

I liked it.

I liked the scrub on the hillside, smelling the eucalyptus. I liked being here with my girlfriend, allowing our risible conversations to meander happily as we strolled around the reservoir. I liked how the lake and the clouds and that landmark nine-letter sign made me feel almost lilliputian in its shadow.  I don’t need to own this town. I just need a little place like this to escape to now and then. Hollywood Reservoir makes you feel good about life.

One of my only complaints about it, besides the restricted landslide area, is that they surrounded the entire reservoir with this rusted, gnarly looking chain linked fence. The juxtaposition between the woodsy pines and the serene, glistening blue water and this tetanus-filled metal eyesore is aggravating. I guess I can understand the need to keep our local population of knuckleheads out of the water, but it seriously obstructs the view of the reservoir.

Fences remind me of high school days, ditching school at lunch to get food. I was adept at flipping over the fence like a combat ready Marine. I would run at it full-speed, hop up halfway, grab the top with my hands, pull my body up and over head first, legs splaying momentarily in the air, then righting myself before landing on the skull-cracking concrete below. Gangly but graceful. If anything went wrong, a concussion was highly probable.

All that just to get some Taco Bell.

After staring at the fence for a while, looking closer and closer at the patterns the wiring made, I started to see interesting shapes and images. Nothing distinct. This wasn’t like studying the clouds until you think you see Abraham Lincoln’s top hat. This was more akin to being lost in a trance until a herringbone wood floor begins to resemble a pile of bricks, then lava, then you snap out of it.

I noticed how even in that rust and metal, there was a bit of beauty. Some brute art. Some symmetrical symphony of Man. Don’t get me wrong, I prefer it torn down so I could get a better view of the reservoir, but there’s a trace of M.C. Escher going on in the mathematics of a fence, the interconnectedness… the delirium… the

Sometimes you can find roses in a pile of trash…

The lake and the fence kept going, the trail obediently following the zigzagging. We felt like we were further than we really were. The lake seemed to turn itself inside out, stretching and bending into bay after bay. It just kept taking turns and curving and losing its plot like an M. Knight movie, with more trees and more fence and more Hollywood sign, once we hit the spot where you have to walk along the streets for a bit, like an M. Knight film we lost interest, stopped and reversed direction, following the same route in rewind, back to the dam, back to the car, and back to the living of our lives — making our ramble about a 4-mile sojourn. In the end it turned out to be much larger than it looked like from the dam. I guess I’m a bad judge at those sorts of things. Lakes. They’re not too common around here.

It was time to return into the sweet madness that is Los Angeles.

Bottom line, I came off the mountain cleaner on the inside. Refreshed. Eager to tackle another week.

It was definitely worth the drive up the hill, despite the fence and the landslide and the taunting mansions, it let me move some puzzle pieces around, let me breath clearer air. And that’s an angel called benevolence.

This is the deal: it’s not a trail that will challenge you, nor change you, but it will allow you to breakout from the choking confines of our crazy city for a couple of hours. And it’s in our backyard. And that’s precious.

Head on up to the Hollywood Reservoir. Spot a lizard.

3.5 chipmunks.