Truly Home Again

It is astonishing to me that driving for twenty minutes in the right direction from home can lead us here:

Clearly I’ve been driving in the wrong direction around Los Angeles for the past twenty years.
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North Trail Canyon Road is rated as “lightly trafficked” so I was surprised to see a line of cars on either side of the entrance to the road which would ultimately lead to the trailhead. However, we never did encounter as many people as there were cars (which is disconcerning in its own way.)

​The first portion of the hike is an actual road in which people live in cabins along the sides.

Although I would never want to live here, I feel a certain kinship with its inhabitants: Los Angeles people who desperately want to get out of the city and be in nature. There were only three houses along the way to the trailhead along with one remaining fireplace and a foundation—the only footprint left of a house burned down or destroyed ages ago.

​Once on the canyon floor, the sound of water was steady, although its source was not always seen.

It was supposed to be an overcast day, so I wasn’t worried about heat. Despite the fog still laying low over the mountaintops, the blue sky and sun were harsher than I expected. I was sweating furiously, and I started to worry about Tucker. My brain told me it was only 70-75 degrees, but my body was acting as if it was 85.

​We stopped at every river crossing and I let Tucker do what I wanted to do myself: stand in the water and drink copiously from it.

I felt like we had entered another time, not just another place. Surrounded by green on the canyon floor, I looked around in the still morning and almost expected a stegosaurus to saunter out of the hills and take a place beside Tucker to drink from the stream.

It really did seem like we had been sucked into another universe, not just another time.

After meandering along the canyon floor, the trail began to rise… and rise…
There was no ultimate destination to be seen. The trail wove around the hills, its incline unknown.

​As we came around one of the many bends, I heard the sound of rushing water as clear as if it was right beside me. But the canyon can play auditory tricks. Off in the distance, was the source of the sound:

Majestic and other-worldly, in my mind I photoshopped large birds of prey dipping in and out of the falls into the picture before my eyes. (For sense of scale, off to the right of the falls on the rock are two black spots: those are people.)

Just as the opening to Land of the Lost started playing in my mind, I heard a woman’s shrill scream… followed by a brief pause and the laughter of boys.

“Did you not see that thing?!?!” the unseen female yelled at her male friends who were laughing at her. “That snake was huge! It was right there, off the trail!”

The threesome came around another bend as Tucker and I waited to make room for them to pass by. “Well I don’t think it’s there anymore after that scream,” I said to her.

She continued with, “It was huge! Just lying there on the side of the hill!”

I asked if they had been to the bottom or the top of the falls, since their attire leaned toward swimming, not hiking.

“The bottom,” she said.

I asked how to get there, since I only had directions to the top.

“Oh you’ll see, there’s a small path and then a rope to help climb down.

“Ah, a rope. I guess I’ll be sticking to the top.”

The girl had much more faith in Tucker and me than I had. “Oh, he could do it,” she said, assessing Tucker. Sure he might have the muscle, but the lack of thumbs is a major hinderance when climbing a rope.

Tucker and I continued along the path, and found that even to get to the top of the falls, one had to get down a hill. This one didn’t have a rope:

The angle was rather steep, and I started down, holding onto Tucker, the two of us almost eye level to avoid either of us spilling down the unstable hill. I heard from down below: “Oh wait, there’s someone trying to come down.”

I turned around and saw a guy there.

“Is there an easier way down?” I asked.

“Yeah, if you keep going along the trail, you can find a better spot to climb down,” he replied.

“Okay. Thanks. I think we’ll give that a try.”

I climbed back up awkwardly with Tucker and continued down the path that I had initially set out on, but thought it wouldn’t end up where I wanted.
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In fact, it ended up in an even better place.

​The canyon stream that fed the dramatic falls meandered over rocks and here plant life flourished.

Tucker and I crossed the stream and headed back toward the falls only because that had been our original destination.

It was rather disappointing. Standing atop on a slab of rock and hearing the voices of people below wasn’t quite where we wanted to hang out. 

So we ventured back down the canyon river. We found our own little falls, back near where we had crossed the river.

As always, Tucker had to sample the fine flowing beverage...

but this time, he promptly slipped in.

​We were both equally surprised at exactly how deep the little pool was.  

​Pride and body unbroken, I helped Tucker climb up the slippery rocks and we strolled further upstream.

​We picked a spot and sat to be a part of the river. 

​​Even a little toad found it peaceful here and shared in our quietude.

When I think of Los Angeles, I think of city. But the fact is, there is far more land that is unpopulated by humans than there is concrete jungle. You just have to be willing to find it.

​Tucker and I headed back, our lungs full of clean forest air and our minds filled with the sights and sounds of the natural world.

On our trek back, Tucker took a moment. Usually it is I who stop and want to take it all in. This was Tucker’s moment and Tucker’s spot. I agreed: it was a beautiful moment in space and time:

And that’s why we do this—we hike to find that beauty that already exists around us. In the city, we find only tiny echoes: the hummingbird outside our window, the flower that grows out of a crack in a sidewalk. Out here, we are enveloped by it, a hug from Mother Nature, reminding us that no matter how long we’re away, or how far we think we are from our roots, we are always welcome home again.