“Hello, old friend.”
This is the phrase that came to mind recently as I began my favorite walk. It was a warm October evening and the strips of black mustard on the trail were completely dry, leaving the towering stems spindly and bare. Some were over 8 feet tall. They lined the path that ran to the right, swaying and rustling in the breeze, like an overenthusiastic welcoming committee.
It’s been several months since I’ve been back on this trail, which is very unusual for me. This 5.4 mile hike in Griffith Park is a staple of my life in Los Angeles. To date, I have hiked it about 400 times, almost every hour of the day, in every season, winding up the hillside as it is bathed in gold. hours of sunlight, nestled in the early morning fog and even lit under the full moon. But recently I had been traveling, then nursing an injury at the gym, and hadn’t been able to make it for a while.
As I returned to the trail, with its soothing chorus of crickets, velvety sumac laurel shrubs, and feathery wild grasses, something in me released.
If you had told my 20s that my happy place would be a quiet trail in the wilderness adjacent to the city, I wouldn’t have believed it. I’m a city girl through and through. I grew up in Center City, Philadelphia, and spent my first decades in Los Angeles interested in arts and culture, food and nightlife – it was all gallery openings , red carpets, open bars and kitten heels at the start. NOW? My favorite fashion accessory is… a hiking headlamp. But we transform in unexpected ways, like the natural landscape around us, contracting and expanding, cracking in places, blending into others, and finally springing up with new life.
I found my walk at the start of the pandemic – a friend introduced us at a socially distanced meeting. I had been hiking in general for a while, but nothing extreme. However, during this period of isolation, when my work days were shorter and my social life on pause, I hiked three, four times a week after work and twice most weekends – almost every week from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021. . That’s about 300 times here. It was a way to relieve stress during this difficult time and, frankly, fill the hours I would otherwise spend alone at home, right after a breakup.
We transform in unexpected ways, like the natural landscape around us, contracting and expanding, cracking in places, blending into others, and ultimately giving birth to new life.
Eventually, this difficult time passed, restrictions were eased, dinners started filling up my calendar, and I started dating again. But even as my life bounced back, I returned to this track again and again.
I hike alone most of the time – it’s become a sort of meditation practice, a way to return to my body and connect to the present moment. I don’t listen to music or podcasts; I just focus on the crunch of gravel beneath my feet. I fully expand, my senses becoming more acute with each quarter mile. I play a little game by isolating odors in windy areas, dilating my nostrils and parting my lips slightly, as if I were tasting wine. I pass by California fragrant mugwort and wild fennel in one place, a blend of sweet pea, lilac and earthenware in another. I want to fall to the ground and eat the trace in those moments.
The narrow dirt corridors of the trail got me through so many difficult times. In their embrace, alone on the switchbacks overlooking the city, it was possible to safely let go. I pushed through this pronounced heartbreak until the only thing that hurt was my feet. I have gone through periods of professional doubt and the uncertainty of aging parents undergoing surgeries. I walked until my emotional field of vision was thankfully narrower: one more step, one more breath, that’s all I had to worry about.
Shortly after the unexpected deaths of my two cats, I could barely tolerate the quiet in my apartment. One afternoon, grief overwhelmed me. I ran out the door and ran toward the trail – I couldn’t get there fast enough – and as soon as I set foot on the path, under a canopy of Coast Live Oaks, my chest sank. is open and my breathing has stabilized. It was like a saving breath of oxygen.
But hilltops and open canyons also provided spaces to unleash the unbridled joy of new romance, exciting career turns, and the health and recovery of those same family members. I talked to myself on the trail, laughed out loud, and sang – faintly but proudly – in those magnificent voids. Changes in my inner landscape, reflected in the cyclical qualities of the natural world, bring comfort. At least until I have to sit in LA traffic on the way home!
I have long been aware of the science behind the benefits of walking in nature. He lowers cortisol levels, reduces blood pressure and has been associated with a reduced risk of chronic disease, studies show; it can regulate sleep-wake cycles, thus improving the quality of our sleep; and, as our sensory and motor skills become more activated by nature, it improves our mood and decreases negative thought cycles.
But walk the even This path, repeatedly, can increase some of these benefits, says my friend Florence Williams, a science writer and author of “The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative.” »
“If you cover the same ground over and over again, you remove some of the distractions of novelty, but there’s still enough (beauty) to be comforting,” she says. “Eventually, you become more receptive to the subtle changes around you. Your problems may seem less. It makes you feel like there is a magical world outside of yourself.
There may be more exciting trails in Los Angeles with, say, the Hollywood sign or a waterfall at the end. But the magic of my walk – patchwork stretches of different trails leading from Cadman Drive to Coolidge Trail, Hogback Trail, Dante’s View and Mount Hollywood – comes from knowing me so intimately. Knowing that after the heavy rains of January, there will inevitably be a deep V-shaped rut in the center of the trailhead, like a ravenous alien mouth; or that by the end of May the mustard will be so wildly overgrown and bushy that it will completely engulf the trailhead sign, post and everything else; or that for a brief period in late October-early November, two pink silk trees will bloom the color of bubble gum just below the Vista Del Valle viewpoint.
I once encountered a red-tailed hawk while doing yoga atop a rocky peak on my walk. I was in a full triangle pose with nothing but blue skies in every direction and noisy wind. My feathered friend appeared right in front of me, hovering at eye level, wings spread. He looked me in the eyes, then flew away.
One day, on my way down the hill, I was stopped by a family of coyotes sneaking across the trail. I waited with several other hikers before progressing, only to be stopped at the next switchback by an angry rattlesnake, midway, tail in the air. A few weeks earlier, I had come across a tarantula on the side of the trail, holding a still-living insect in its long, hairy arms. Several hikers flew over it, taking photos with paparazzi fervor.
At times like these, I feel so far from home – from my original home on the East Coast, in the inner city, where my nearest natural respite was a patch of grass next to a fire hydrant. How did I get here, in what often feels like the Wild West, traveling on this rustic dirt trail – and in a hiking vest?! The contrast between past and present is so pronounced in this era. And yet, I feel more at home here, on this trail, than almost anywhere else.
The scene was so familiar: the sour smell of brush and palm trees, the hillside houses glowing in the dusk, the old burn in my calves.
Recently, I found myself exploring the trail in a new way: in a hulking SUV. I had called Griffith Park ranger Sean Kleckner, wanting to see my trail through the eyes of an expert. “Those over there are actually castor bean stalks,” Kleckner said as we walked past. With every little anecdote I learned, the walk I thought I knew well surprised me, like a long-time acquaintance shedding her personality, revealing unexpected sides of herself.
The famous mountain lion P-22 hung out on this trail at night, Kleckner said. He was captured on Ring doorbell video foraging for food in trash cans near homes near the trailhead. I nervously thought back to the many night hikes I had taken there. The march was bolder than I had thought.
Countless car commercials have been filmed at the Vista Del Valle Lookout, a helicopter landing pad halfway along my walk with stunning views of the city. It was glamorous too.
The slippery shales and decomposed granite at the steep summit of the Hogback Trail make it the site of more hiker rescues (often by helicopter) than almost any other place in the park, Kleckner said. Apparently it was also dangerous.
I thought about all of this as I recently went around the first switchback for the umpteenth time. The scene was so familiar: the sour smell of brush and palm trees, the hillside houses glowing in the dusk, the old burn in my calves.
And yet, this time, the walk seemed new.
Turns out we were still getting to know each other.
“Hello, new friend,” I thought. “Delighted to meet you.”
