Meadows/Mathis Loop (A golden standard)

I finally recovered 100% from my illness this past Sunday. To celebrate, I set out for a ten mile hike (approximately), with a little running, in Aliso and Woods Canyons. Crowded park. Lots of hikers, bikers, runners. I didn’t mind the lack of solitude one bit. Total miles traversed: 9.68 (approx. 15.6 km) with about 1,200’ of elevation gain (366 m).

My photo diary --

Heading out on Aliso Canyon Trail behind a group of hikers:At the Aliso Canyon / Wood Canyon Junction where I turned off to hit Meadows Trail:Boots on the ground (not really boots) on Meadows Trail which looks brown and not quite “meadow-like” yet:Some more of Meadows, the easy part – it’s going to get difficult here in a bit . . . Starting the climb up Meadows (looking back on the flatlands):And the climb begins . . . And continues . . .

And continues some more . . . A little reprieve:Ah, look at the view down into Aliso Canyon (Saddleback Mountains in the distance):Just a little bit longer . . . At last, at the top of Meadows Trail (And it’s only 1.5 miles long with much of it relatively easy! The tough part is tough for me). There’s Modjeska and Saddleback Peaks in the distance – a sight that gives me a sense of peace and calm. View of Pacific Ocean from the top of Meadows Trail:Heading out of park (by Top of the World neighborhood in Laguna Beach):Officially leaving Aliso/Wood Canyons Wilderness park. Look at that magnificent home at the border of this park with unobstructed views of the Pacific Ocean!On the path behind Top of the World neighborhood that leads to the streets:Once out of the park, there’s about a one mile walk to Alta Laguna Park where I catch West Ridge back into the park. This antenna has always amazed me:Parking is also scare here, as it was at the ranger station entrance:Re-entering Aliso/Wood Canyons Wilderness Park:Feet back on dirt along West Ridge:Heading down Mathis Trail:

Finishing up Mathis Trail:Back in Wood Canyon:

A nice route – challenging enough, mainly toward the beginning, but not enough to kill me. Peaceful (even with all the other people on the trails that day) and also safe. This loop has been a standard of mine for a long time. A golden standard.

Las Ramblas

So, I relapsed and got sick again for the one remaining week of my winter break. Vacations and me are not friends. Now, I’m finally, slowly but surely getting well after a week back at work. It was difficult going back, a bottle of liquid medicine in my bag, and eye drops in my purse to get rid of the bloodshot. Ugh. And now, I have a sore throat again, and also an earache (doh!), and I will likely relapse again – because I am stupid that way. Proving this point, I threw caution to the wind and hit some trails in between jobs this past Thursday – Las Ramblas, Cerro Rebal, Forster Canyon and Patriot Trails out to the flag and back. The Las Ramblas trailhead, I should mention, is ideal because it is quite easy to get to, as it’s right off Interstate 5 in Dana Point. They also aren’t very tough  trails at all. I would characterize them as nice and easy.

The “Las Ramblas” trails (as I call them) are mostly truck trail width, and overlook the cities of San Juan Capistrano, San Clemente, and Dana Point. I can see the Pacific Ocean, the harbor, the San Juan Capistrano Mission, and Interstate 5 in all its glory. There are gorgeous views. But they are views from trails with no trees to speak of. This last fact is what makes these some of my least favorite trails. I really must have trees! Still, it was good to have dirt beneath my feet once again. I will probably be back to this very same location again, one day soon.

4.13 miles total (an out-and-back to the flag on Patriots Trail).

Wood Canyon My Old Friend

I’m back to watching movies, off my phone while on the elliptical or cycle, at the gym. I haven’t watched movies or any kind of series in a long while. Well, actually, my little movie binge this time around started around Christmas time, and it wasn’t at the gym -- first with Whiplash, a movie from my living room couch that wound me up so much, I had to leave the room during one scene because the pressure just got to be too much. Pretty good movie; thought about it for days, analyzed it with my middle son who watched it with me because it is about music (and he will watch just about any movie that relates to music). After that, I re-watched (for at least the 5th time) Punk Drunk Love. It was too sad for me this time around, which means I’ll finally put that quirky movie to rest and watch it no longer. And then came the gym movies -- a couple days ago, I caught another Adam Sandler movie, this one, The Cobbler. The movie was mildly entertaining, it could have been much more. I am a little let down by movies like this where everything gets tied together so neatly at the end. But then, tonight I took in another movie at the gym -- Super, where things didn’t get tied together so neatly. Ummm. Wow. Hard to say just a word or two about Super. Not even sure that I liked it (though, I think I did). On the bad side was the violence. I turned away no less than three times from the sloppy, yet intense violence. (By the way, they tricked me and didn’t really hit hard with the graphic violence until about half way through the movie.) But there was a real involved story here, with classic themes and a bunch more of those introspective kind of things that we all feel and know about but don’t dally there much, because its depressing. So, I do believe that I give Super a reluctant thumbs up.

In between those movies I hit the trails in Wood Canyon. I certainly don’t need drama when wandering about a trail, even if it’s on a mundane trail that I’ve been over again and again. I chose Wood Canyon because I wanted something with easy access, and something relatively quick and easy. Being that we’re all still on winter break, aka Christmas vacation, at my house, I had plans with my family to have sandwiches at our favorite deli, Board n’ Brew, and a movie at the ritzy Cinepolis. The movie was The Last Jedi, and there isn’t much to tell, except for the reclining seats and waiters who brought food to our seats while we reclined in big chairs with tables and a small lamp at our sides, before a big movie that I found very little to talk about. So, back to something much more exciting, Wood Canyon. I knew that I needed something more than Wood Canyon, which is lovely in itself. So about a mile in (most likely less), I took a side trail off to the right called Wood Creek Trail.

Wood Canyon:

Wood Creek trail is single track (my favorite) and runs up above Wood creek, therefore basically parallel to Wood Canyon Trail. It’s rocky. It’s shady. It’s a forest. It’s coastal with chaparral. It has views of Wood Canyon from above, and intimate views of Wood Creek not so far below. It really is so many things in one. There’s mushrooms growing in the wet dark places. And there’s prickly pear out with the chaparral. And then. Before you know it. You are at Wood Canyon again.

View of Wood Canyon from Wood Creek Trail:

More Views from Wood Creek Trail:

Can you tell that I love Wood Creek Trail? After that, I was ready to take on all of Wood Canyon and its mundaneness. Though, I am too harsh – Wood Canyon really isn’t that mundane. I came upon a majestic Great Blue Heron on the out and the back of my hike. I also came upon each stick on the ground cautiously thinking it could be a snake, but knowing snakes aren’t out this time of year (it’s just natural reflex because of the many, many times I have come up on rattlers on Wood Canyon trail). I also came upon so many other travelers of Wood Canyon on this particular hike. There were lots of cyclists, many hikers, and some runners. It was a beautiful day, a day whose stories interest me much more than a movie (though I do enjoy a movie too!)

Oh. I almost forgot! 7.08 miles.

Closing out 2017

I decided to close 2017 with a long out-and-back along Arroyo Trabuco Trail in the Rancho Santa Margarita area. Off of Antonio Parkway in Las Flores, there’s a quiet little park on Oak Tree Road where I parked my truck. From there, I made the trek across Antonio Parkway, and after a tenth of a mile down, I took a bike path that runs behind some of the homes near and about Tijeras Creek Golf Course. After a little more than a tenth of a mile, a bit after the bike trail veers to the right, you’ll find the Tijeras Creek trailhead. I took that down to Arroyo Creek Trail, but not before venturing off on a single track where I came upon a newly erected tree swing in middle of the wilderness (well, kinda the wilderness). The tree’s branches were decorated with juniper sprigs loosely wrapped with tiny Christmas lights. The lights were battery operated, and after close inspection I could see that the white-yellow lights were still illuminating. So tiny they were, I didn’t notice at first that they were still lit, and I wondered who was it who was out here in the darkness swinging on this tree surrounded by tiny Christmas lights?

View from the swing:

Arroyo Trabuco Trail was surprisingly empty for a New Year’s Eve day. Not that it was completely void of people, there were plenty of cyclists, and several horseback riders too. But I don’t really recall seeing any other hikers, and only one runner. The weather was lovely – mid sixties. And the creek crossings were all very manageable. I didn’t get my feet wet even once! Even though I was hiking, and not running, I still had a time goal being that we had a big New Year’s Eve dinner at home planned. My husband was doing the main cooking, but I still had the green beans and potatoes to prepare. Thus, I set my goal at 3 miles per hour. At first thought, that may seem relatively easy to achieve – after all, a twenty minute pace will cover that. That’s if you never stop. But I stop to take photos, to listen in, to inspect oddities, not to mention take potty breaks. Stops quickly eat away at that 20 minute pace – stops, in fact, erode your pace faster than you would imagine. Needless to say, I had to really grind the miles out to keep up with my goal. And I found myself a few times running some just to make up the time lost for stopping.

Arroyo Trabuco Trail:

In all, this out-and-back totaled 12.15 miles. Surprisingly, I can still do that. Granted, this was an easy trail to pursue such a length. But pushing it to make my hiking pace – yikes. I felt that back at home for the remainder of the night. A hot bath rejuvenated me. And I managed to see in the new year, plus some. I often don’t make it until midnight on New Year’s, mainly because I don’t much care about the ending of one year and the beginning of another. Or so I claim! I think that I really do care. I care enough to feel a bit of gratitude for being able to see another year roll in. And I care enough to think about who I am as a year comes to an end, not in a gloating sort of way, and not in a self-flagellating sort of way, but in a self-reflective sort of way.

How far have I ventured from who I desire to be? I pondered this question as I closed out 2017. Actually, I have been asking myself this question for many, many months now. The answers just culminated as I closed out 2017. And being that I closed out 2017 by the way, I input the remainder of my workouts on the eve of this new year into my Access database. After importing the database into Excel (I can find the answers to my questions much easier in Excel than Access), I jotted down various totals (running, elliptical, calories, elevation etc.) to include in this Closing Out 2017 blogpost. But then I lost the slip of paper. Frankly, I was too lazy to import the database again (I didn’t save the Excel file because my computer is a mess with hundreds of unnecessary files). Really though, it doesn’t matter, these totals and such. I can be a keeper of records if that somehow soothes me.  But I do not need to be enslaved by them. And that’s what I tend to let record keeping do, I let it be a negative, a downfall. I decided that as I close out 2017 that I can go ahead and relish my downfalls – the record keeping, the self-loathing, the self-debilitating multi-tasking, etc., etc., etc.. I can use these things to push me forward, to help me become the person that I have lost. Not sure exactly how, but I know somewhere in my faults, these things that really way me down, there’s also tools to get me what I want. And what I want is this:

To wander the trails once again for miles and miles and miles at a time,

To write like I used to, pages and pages several times a week,

To read like I used to, to get lost in wonderful stories, and learn about those things that stir wonder within,

To be easily amused (I used to be so easily amused. Not so much anymore).

To not be ashamed of who I am

And lastly, to strive to ALWAYS be honest with myself.

I think that’s about it. That’s not too much to ask of myself is it? It’s not like these are New Year Resolutions. They are goals. They are my desires. They are extremely difficult, and they are not difficult at all. It all depends on how I chose to approach it. And why not, at the beginning of a new year, state these goals for the record? I think that it’s a good thing I made it past midnight and welcomed in 2018. It helped me flush out a few things.

Happy New Year everyone! I wish for you a successful and self-reflective new year.

My chosen music video to close out 2017:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_9Kf0D5BTs

Eventually Arrived

Yesterday, I finally felt well enough to venture out for some activity. I opted for the gym. 1 hour on the AMT (Adaptive Motion Trainer) and 1 hour on the cycle. I felt good and refreshed after finally getting some exercise. That was my test run on whether I could handle any strenuous activity. Next step, to hit the trails for a hike, which I did today around 3pm. I am still a somewhat ill, but it’s just really congestion and a slight cough. Starting off slowly (as in a short distance) was definitely my best bet. My route today was West Ridge in Aliso Viejo to Top of the World in Laguna Beach. It’s just a straight shot of rolling hills to the top – lots of people, both on feet and on bikes, plus a few little detours to add a tad bit more elevation. I felt strong the entire trip, granted it was only five miles. I am grateful that starting over doesn’t mean ACTUALLY starting over. Starting over at five miles is good.

Being that I took a ridge route, I didn’t see much wildlife, except for some birds, and a stinkbug or two. The snakes have all gone into hiding, and deer and wild cats are seldom seen up there. I did breathe in a gnat through my nose. That was uncomfortable. Overall though, I felt pretty comfortable for the entire trip. And I’m okay with not running even a single inch of it.

Eventually

Back at the end of November (the 25th to be precise), I took on a 9.68 mile loop in the coastal hills (Newport Coast to be precise). And it was that loop that pretty much solidified that I’m not doing Calico this year. For Calico, I’ve got to basically do to of this loop twice. And that will probably kill me. But I didn’t quite cancel Calico yet.

It was a beautiful day, off and on overcast, and plenty of cool breezes. But at about mile 7 or so, on a big climb out, I actually took a seat at the side of the trail and rested. RESTED. Oh well, it was all worth while nonetheless – got a little exercise, and I got to clear my mind.

After that fiasco (though only partially a fiasco), I put in short two mile runs here and there – a couple at the gym on the dreadmill, and a couple down at the harbor. Eventually, I decided to actually cancel my reservations for Calico. And when I did that, I lifted a huge weight of my shoulders. With my work coming to an end for winter recess, I was free to hit the trails stress free. Well, my last class was Wednesday night. Thursday morning, I woke up sick. Yup, that’s how things go. But at least my oldest son is home from college, and we are all together for the holidays. EVENTUALLY, I’m gonna make it out to the trails again. Eventually.

On one of my harbor runs: