2 Steps Forward 1 Step Back (But sometimes 5 steps back, so it’s gonna take a while)

So, I’ve got everything at home and at my job dialed in. I’ve been cleaning and organizing. The garden looks great. I’m on top of the banking, taxes and everything financial. I have a system with my lectures and have them posted every Friday. I’ve got all my paperwork complete. I’ve even been reading and writing (long loves that I’ve neglected for some time). This side of the coin looks good. And I do feel good about it.

But that’s just half of the story.

Yep, there’s always the other side of the coin. . . now more than a month into summer and I’ve done little to advance my on-going mental/spiritual and physical goals. I take a few steps forward, then it’s always a couple steps back. This of course, is the story of my life. It’s difficult to stay grounded in all three aspects (that is mind, spirit, physical). When it gets like this, I fast, and that helps to focus and ground me. I’m always better when I supplement with a fast. And I’m always better when I get out and hike or run or walk or whatever, just wander. These things, I realize may sound odd, but they give me faith in God and keep me grounded. Oh, and as a side benefit these things also keep me physically fit and relatively trim without even trying (or it feels that way anyway since it’s not the goal).

But alas my clothing fits a bit tight lately.

My last hike was June 29, and that’s been my only hike this summer. It was the Big Loop @ Aliso/Wood Cyns, Aliso Viejo/Laguna Beach, Ca of course, my stomping grounds  (12 miles!), so there’s that. I got a lot out of it, in all three aspects.

It’s been long enough to know it’s time to turn it around and take a few steps forward again.

From my first hike of the summer ~ June 29. The Big Loop

A crawdad!

Wood Canyon:

I almost forgot to show the deer!

Eight Miles In

Monday, June 20, I put myself on a schedule, written out the night before on a steno pad that I always have with me (except when I’m wandering). I really needed to do this – without a schedule I have no structure in my day. I get things done whenever I feel like it, which sometimes means never.  Without structure, I am nowhere near as productive as I desire. In fact, without structure, it seems every aspect of my life (mental health, nutrition, sleep, exercise) suffers. So, from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm yesterday, as per my schedule, I answered students’ emails and troubleshooted a couple student projects, did several household chores, chatted over the phone with my oldest son (not on the schedule) and then shot over to the closest grocery store to pick up vanilla ice cream for the blackberry pie my middle son had baked the night before. (The blackberries were fresh, picked from a bush in my backyard.)

This structure came just in time. I could tell that my mood was declining the longer I held off. After my five hour block of work, I scheduled a hike that was obviously long overdue. The state of everything (and I mean everything, but in particular: COVID19, politics, unrest, etc.) was really weighing on me. And I felt  particularly down after reading details in the news about some recent murders, one in New Jersey, the others in Florida. I should never read the details in cases like these. The details haunt me. Haunt. Me. When I finally set out into Aliso Canyon for the Big Loop a little after 3 pm I was trying to shake the haunting images of what I had read. I guess if I could pick only one word to describe what I was feeling it was this: fearful. I was able to drift in and out of this funk as I strolled through Aliso Canyon and its brown summer glory. But I kept returning to a place where my thoughts were dark.

Hiking, running, wandering always gives me peace. Sometimes that peace is immediate -- I feel it with my first step. Other times, it takes a few more steps, sometimes a mile, sometimes two. This sense of peace that I talk about is not necessarily a feeling of “happiness”. It is more a feeling of weights being lifted off my shoulders, a feeling of acceptance and perhaps hope coupled with a joyful kind of lightheartedness all at once. I feel like I can breathe easier and think clearer with this peace. It’s the whole goal.

At about three miles in, I sat on The Rock in Wood Canyon, just past Wood Creek Trail to break my fast with some cheese and beef sticks. After another mile of winding trail beneath a shady forest canopy, I took the steep incline up to the ridge chatting with my mother over the phone. And then I hiked much of West Ridge listening to a Youtube interview.  All of this was wonderful for my soul: food then grinding out Cholla Trail  while talking to my mom, which made the difficult work much easier, toping it off with a hopeful interview overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

My Breakfast @ 4:30 pm

View of Saddleback Mountains from West Ridge in Laguna Beach

I barely saw anyone in the canyons on the way out – one or two cyclists and a couple runners. West Ridge had one or two hikers as well until I neared the Top of the World at Alta Laguna Park. By then we were well into evening with a cool ocean breeze. It was no wonder that the top was crowded with people either taking in the views or heading out for evening hikes. Practically everyone was masked. But as crowded as the place was, we were all easily able to keep our distance.

The playground was taped off in the park, but the restrooms (real restrooms with sinks, soap and running water, a luxury I don’t often have on hikes) were thankfully open. As I hightailed it out of the park into the neighborhoods (finishing up about 7.5 miles), more and more cars pulled into the park emptying people with masked faces headed out on their evening strolls. 

I left everyone behind and marched across the lovely neighborhood that runs along the ridge so that I could re-enter the park in Aliso Canyon. It was during that portion, right around eight miles in that peace finally arrived with all of its gifts. Eight miles in. And at about 8.5 miles in, I came up on these guys grazing on the hillsides and began my trek down Meadows trail:

Perfect Timing (nearing end of Meadows Trail, about 2 miles out from my truck):

Free Association (The Rock)

Got out for another evening hike on the first of July, 2020. It’s summer now, so if I can’t wake at the crack of dawn to hit the dirt early, it’s best to go ahead and get some work done and head out in the afternoon to take in those cooler evening hours.

July 1st, it was a repeat of The Big Loop @ Aliso/Woods Canyons (of course it was!). I took it counter-clockwise, as I do lately. That meant taking a gradual climb through the canyon. It was hot, but mainly due to the mugginess. And it was beautiful with lots of shade and flower color dotting the trail. The word that describes it best is “tranquil”.

There weren’t many people out at all. It was one of our warmer days, and not to mention just a few days out from a holiday weekend (the 4th of July!).

I kind of just mindlessly meandered through Wood Canyon, often carrying a mental load, then in the next second tossing it aside. I sometimes liken hiking through the wilderness to Sigmund Freud’s (the “father of psychoanalysis”) process of “Free Association”.  With this process there is no linear thought pattern, you just go and see it were it leads you.

So, there I was, just Free Associating away in Wood Canyon and that lead me to the rock. I just caught a glimpse of it – it’s over past Lynx Trail, off to the left, kind of rising up from the trail. How many times have I passed by that rock? I cannot tell you (I’ve been roaming Wood Canyon for more than a decade, about 13 years, so the answer is in the three digits). One time I walked past it with my three boys when they were all pretty young. We took a hike on Wood Creek Trail that day and we stopped at that rock on the way where my husband snapped a picture of us. This is the picture that flashed before my eyes walking through Wood Canyon on July 1st, 2020:

This memory took my breath away. I had to stop and climb to the top of this rock. And there I sat behind my dark sunglasses and sobbed for a while. I sobbed because it hit me with that memory that their childhood is finished. It is over and it went way too fast. The rest of the hike was quite mournful because of that. I would Free Associate out of my mournful state only to find myself there once again.

After the canyon, I had some good climbing to do and that is always a good thing when I am troubled. I caught the tail end of a rattler on West Ridge and awesome views of the Pacific Ocean before descending down Meadows Trail back into Aliso Canyon. I finished up when the sun was beginning to set on the horizon and the weather was oh so cool. The lighting was beautiful, dark in the shade, and vibrant out in the sun..

Another wonderful summer evening hike in the coastal hills Free Associating ~

 

Time to Move Along

June 9, 2020 – Rock-it  / Meadows Lollipop Loop

Much needed late afternoon hike – didn’t begin until around 3:30 pm. I took my sweet ole’ time, taking time to cool down in Cave Rock. I finished up the lollipop loop at dusk, which is after the park closes. Aliso/Wood Canyons closes  at sunset. The lot was empty but I wasn’t the only one getting out of the park a little late. There were cyclists returning as well, and the rangers had not yet closed up the gates.

11.53 mi, 1,424' elevation gain. The route @ Aliso/Woods Cyns: Aliso Cyn to Wood Cyn to Cave Rock to Wood Cyn to Mathis to Coyote Run to Rock-It to West Ridge to Cyn Acres to TopOfTheWord to Meadows to Wood Cyn to  Aliso Cyn (Aliso Viejo & Laguna Beach CA).  

 

June 12, 2020 – The Big Loop (Cholla / Meadows Lollipop Loop)

Local once again, mainly because I have gotten used to sitting around for a couple hours drinking coffee and answering emails, reading news, etc. every morning. By the time I’m usually ready to go, it is much too late to drive to the mountains. I didn’t  wait as late this time, but I still started late (around 11 am). What a lovely warm afternoon with spring still in the air and cool breezes on the ridge!

Soon it will be time to change my routine and move along out of Aliso/Wood Canyons. For now, the Big Loop @ Aliso/Wood Cyns is a great go-to loop. 12.05 miles, 1,434' of elevation gain.

 

The “Big” Big Loop

June 5, I still choose to hike locally, especially since I’d rather sleep in a tad, til about 7 am, then sit around drinking my two cups of coffee with stevia and heavy whipping cream. Of course that gets prolonged because I need to pack my stuff and do a walkabout on my property to look at things like the blackberries and wildflower seeds planted beneath the Orange tree. By the time I head out, it’s already at least 10 am!

June 5 was hazy and gloomy and even rainy in the early morning. We call that June gloom on the coast in southern California. It’s this way every year. Sometimes it seems we barely see a day of sunshine in June. It rained, in fact, the day I gave birth to my oldest son, more than 20 years ago, June 3, 1999.

June 5, 2020, I decided to go for The Big Loop, V. 2, as I have often called it, which is a longer extension of The Big Loop. I parked in the church lot across the street because the parking lot at Aliso/Woods ranger station was closed (although the park was open). That didn’t seem so odd to me since we live in weird times right now, and parking lots are constantly being closed. Then as I was climbing out of my truck, at least 50 motorcycle policemen (& women too, I’m sure)  road down the road toward the boulevard. And that’s when I suddenly heard the shouts and cheering from afar. And amazingly, from my viewpoint, I could see protestors out near the federal building in Aliso Viejo. There have been protests daily in my area. All have been peaceful, so I was not necessarily alarmed. But the event felt a little surreal.

The Big Loop (the first version), is actually a lollipop loop, going up Cholla Trail, going down Meadows (or vice-versa), just under 12 miles. The Big Loop, V. 2, on the other hand, is just under 13 miles, replacing Meadows above with Mentally Sensitive Trail. Of late, I’ve been calling V. 2, the “Big” Big Loop. I think I like that name better. But that’s neither here nor there. What’s is here and there is this (despite all the depressing news out there – in the U.S. and even in the world, you know what I mean):

Spring is still out there on the southern California coast!

And this:

The forest is spooky and awesome

And this:

The California Riviera