into the wild

On my last lit­tle out­ing to my city’s largest open-space park, before the recent rains, while I wasn’t busy look­ing at sycamores, I was head­ing up the trail to For­tuna Peak, one of the high­est point in the city lim­its. At 1291 feet in ele­va­tion and with good trails all the way, it’s no seri­ous moun­tain climb, but the view from the top gives you views from the ocean to the west to the first ranges of real moun­tains to the east.

Many of the local wild parks have signs warn­ing you about the dan­ger­ous fauna in the area–mostly rat­tlesnakes. Here the sign cau­tions hik­ers about the moun­tain lions that live here on the park’s more than 5000 acres and in the adja­cent open space.

I’m used to being the top preda­tor almost wher­ever I go. Even con­fronting a sign like this, I still man­age to don that cloak of invin­ci­bil­ity stitched through years of never con­fronting any­thing that might chal­lenge that sense. I’m also a pretty statistics-driven per­son. I might think about how you’re many times more likely to meet your end by light­en­ing strike on a golf course than hik­ing through land like this. Many more peo­ple die from smok­ing than they do through moun­tain lion attack.

For me, know­ing that there are moun­tain lions in the vicin­ity adds to the adven­ture. Some­how this park feels more authen­tic, more alive, more com­plete because of it.

It brings to mind the only solo back­pack­ing trip I’ve taken through Utah’s Cedar Mesa back­coun­try. Five min­utes after enter­ing the wilder­ness area I encoun­tered the only human I was to see for the rest of the trip as he was leav­ing. Ten min­utes into the trip I was cross­ing a stream bed still moist from an after­noon thun­der­storm. As I stepped into the sand I noticed one immense, per­fect paw print next to my boot. A moun­tain lion had passed this way in the last few hours. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to feel­ing a quick stab of fear at that moment. Wel­come to the wild.

Maybe that’s a bit too much macho pos­tur­ing on my part. If I were attacked by one of these cats, the first thing the author­i­ties would do is to go after it. Peo­ple would demand it. My reck­less­ness would lead to the destruc­tion of one of these elu­sive crea­tures. But I’m not a moun­tain lion’s favorite food, and these signs always seem like a park author­ity try­ing to limit their lia­bil­ity. Really, what are the odds of suf­fer­ing any harm?

The wilds today didn’t offer any­thing so dra­matic as moun­tain lions. A few other hik­ers were out, some of them totally fit and prac­ti­cally run­ning, oth­ers look­ing like they were there because of a New Year’s res­o­lu­tion. Almost noth­ing was in bloom, but white-flowering cur­rant (Ribes indeco­rum) pro­vided bright accent marks along the trail to the top.

Once on top the view expands all around you. Look north and you see open chap­ar­ral and the run­ways of Mira­mar Air Sta­tion sev­eral miles away. Mil­i­tary instal­la­tions may take up a cer­tain amount of a city’s land, but they often man­age to pre­serve open space in ways that sub­ur­ban sprawl doesn’t.

Turn a lit­tle east and there you begin to see the ranks of foothills lead­ing up to the Cuya­maca and Laguna ranges that divide the county, coastal region on one side, desert on the other. Yerba santa and black sage pro­vide the foreground.

After I returned home from the hike I finally opened up the lat­est issue of Orion Mag­a­zine. One of the pieces, “Spec­tral Light” by Amy Irvine, describes a city fam­ily that has moved into a area in the South­west as they come to grips with liv­ing in an area that is wilder than they ever imag­ined. Def­i­nitely got me think­ing. It’s worth pick­ing up the January/February 2010 issue to read it, or you can lis­ten to the author read her piece or down­load the pod­cast [ here ].

January 25 2010 | Categories: landscape • places • rambles | Tags: • • • | 5 Comments »

teach wonder

Imag­ine if [kids] knew plants and ani­mals the way they knew brand names and logos, if they knew moun­tains the way the know malls. They would feel like full par­tic­i­pants in the land­scapes they inhabit, hap­pily roam­ing the ridges and creeks in a world that needs their atten­tive­ness… I share with Rachel Car­son the hope that chil­dren be given a sense of won­der so inde­struc­tible that it would last through­out life.“
–Rick Van Noy, in A Nat­ural Sense of Won­der: Con­nect­ing Kids with Nature through the Sea­sons, quoted in a book review by Brian Doyle in the cur­rent issue of Orion.

January 23 2009 | Categories: landscape • quotes | Tags: • • • | No Comments »