“Hello, old friend.”
That's the phrase that came to mind recently at the beginning of my favorite walk. It was a warm October afternoon and the strips of black mustard grass on the trail had completely dried out, leaving the towering stems thin and bare. Some were over 8 feet tall. They lined the road that curved to the right, swaying and whispering in the breeze, like an overeager welcoming committee.
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It had been several months since I returned to 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 crossed it some 400 times, at almost all hours of the day, in all seasons, winding along the gold-plated slope. hours of sunlight, hidden in the morning mist and even illuminated under the full moon. But I had recently been traveling and then nursing an injury at the gym, and hadn't been able to come for a while.
As I returned to the trail, with its soothing chorus of crickets, velvety sumac laurel bushes, and feathery wild grasses, something inside me loosened.
If you had told my twenty-something self that my happy place would be a quiet trail in the adjacent urban desert, 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 covering arts and culture, food and nightlife; it was all gallery openings and red carpets, open bars and kitten heels for the first few years. 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 some places, melting in others, and ultimately sprouting with new life.
I found my way during the early days of the pandemic: a friend introduced us during a socially distanced meeting. In general, I had been into hiking for a while, but nothing extreme. However, during that period of isolation, when my work days were shorter and my social life was on pause, I did the walk three, four times a week after work and twice on most weekends, almost every weeks from the end of 2020 to the end of 2021. That's about 300 times right there. It was a way to burn off stress during that difficult period and, frankly, to fill the hours I would otherwise spend alone at home, after a breakup.
We transform in unexpected ways, like the natural landscape around us, contracting and expanding, cracking in some places, coalescing in others, and ultimately sprouting with new life.
Over time, that difficult time passed, the restrictions eased, dinner parties began to fill my calendar, and I started dating again. But even when my life recovered, I returned to this path again and again.
I mainly do the hike alone; It has become a kind of meditation practice, a way to return to my body and connect with the moment. I don't listen to music or podcasts; I simply distract myself from the crunch of gravel under my feet. I spread out completely and my senses sharpen with every quarter mile. I play a little game of isolating smells in windy areas, opening my nostrils and opening my lips slightly, as if I were tasting wine. I pass fragrant California sagebrush and wild fennel in one spot, a mix of sweet peas, lilacs and raised soil in another. I want to fall to the ground and eat the trail in those moments.
The trail's narrow dirt corridors have gotten me through many tough times. Within their embrace, alone on the curves overlooking the city, it was safe to let go. I walked through that pronounced heartbreak until the only thing that hurt was my feet. I have gone through periods of professional doubt and the uncertainty of elderly parents undergoing surgeries. I walked until my emotional field of vision became mercifully narrower: one more step, one more breath, that was all I had to worry about.
Shortly after my two cats died unexpectedly, I could barely tolerate the stillness in my apartment. One afternoon the pain overwhelmed me. I ran out the door and sped toward the trail (I couldn't get there fast enough) and as soon as I set foot on the trail, under a canopy of Coast Live Oaks, my chest opened and my breathing steadied. It was like a burst of oxygen that saved lives.
But hilltops and open canyons have also provided spaces to unleash the unbridled joy of a new romance, exciting career changes, and the health and recovery of those same family members. I talked to myself along the way, laughed out loud and sang (poorly but proudly) into those magnificent voids. The changes in my internal landscape, reflected in the cyclical qualities of the natural world, bring me comfort. At least until I have to wait in LA traffic on the way home!
I have long known the science on the benefits of walking in nature. It lowers cortisol levels, lowers blood pressure and has been linked to a lower risk of chronic diseases, studies show; It can regulate sleep-wake cycles, improving the quality of our sleep; and, as our sensory and motor skills are activated naturally, our mood improves and negative thought cycles decrease.
But walk the same The trail, repeatedly, can increase some of those benefits, says my friend Florence Williams, science writer and author of “The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative.”
“If you walk the same terrain over and over again, you are eliminating some of the distractions of the novelty effect, but there are still enough [beauty] be comforting,” he says. “Over time you become more receptive to the subtle changes around you. Your problems may seem smaller. “It gives you the perspective that there is this magical world outside of you.”
There may be more interesting trails in Los Angeles with, say, the Hollywood sign or a waterfall at the end. But the magic of my hike (stretches of different trails, interconnected, running from Cadman Drive to Coolidge Trail, Hogback Trail, Dante's View, and Mount Hollywood) comes from knowing it so intimately. Knowing that after the heavy rains of January, there will inevitably be a deep V-shaped rut along the center of the trailhead, like a ravenous alien mouth; or that by the end of May the mustard grass will grow so large and dense that it will completely swallow the trailhead sign, pole and all; or that for a brief period in late October or early November, two pink silk trees will bloom the color of bubblegum just below the Vista Del Valle overlook.
I once encountered a red-tailed hawk while doing yoga atop a rocky peak during my hike. He was in a full triangle pose with nothing but blue sky in all directions and the strong wind whistling. My feathered friend appeared right in front of me, floating at eye level, wings spread. He looked me in the eyes and then stood up.
Once, while walking down the slope, I was stopped by a family of coyotes scurrying down the trail. I waited with several other hikers before moving forward, only to be stopped at the next bend by an angry rattlesnake, in the middle of the trail, tail in the air. Just a few weeks earlier I had come across a tarantula on the edge of the trail holding a still-living insect in its long hairy arms; several hikers hovered over it, snapping photos with paparazzi fervor.
In those moments I feel very far from home: my original home, on the East Coast, in the center of the city, where my closest natural respite was a patch of grass next to a fire hydrant. How did I end up here, in what often feels like the Wild West, traveling this rustic dirt trail and wearing a hiking vest? The contrast between the past and the present feels very pronounced in those times. And yet, I feel more at home here, on this path, than almost anywhere else.
The scene was very familiar to me: the sour smell of the bushes and palm trees, the houses on the hillsides glowing at dusk, the old burn on my calves.
Recently, I found myself exploring the trail in a new way: in a huge pickup truck. I called Griffith Park ranger Sean Kleckner, wanting to see my trail through an expert's eyes. “Those over there are actually castor bean stalks,” Kleckner said as we sped past. With each piece of trivia I learned, the walk I thought I knew well surprised me, like a lifelong acquaintance shedding his personality and revealing unexpected aspects of himself.
The late famous mountain lion P-22 hung out on this trail at night, Kleckner said. He was captured on Ring doorbell video searching for food in trash bins next to homes near the trailhead. I thought nervously about the many night walks I had taken there. The ride was more tense than I thought.
Countless car commercials were filmed at the Vista Del Valle lookout, a helicopter landing pad halfway through my hike with panoramic views of the city. It was also glamorous.
The slippery shale and decomposed granite on Hogback Trail's steep summit make it the site of more hiker rescues (often by helicopter) than almost anywhere else in the park, Kleckner said. Apparently it was also dangerous.
I considered all this as I rounded the first corner recently for the umpteenth time. The scene was very familiar to me: the sour smell of the bushes and palm trees, the houses on the hillsides glowing at dusk, the old burn on my calves.
And yet, this time the walk seemed new to me.
Turns out we were still getting to know each other.
“Hello, new friend,” I thought. “Pleased to meet you.”
