I actually went on a hike today, hooray! And, it was in Santa Clarita, at East Canyon : double hooray! East is one of the three canyons that run up the back side of the Santa Susana mountains, so you are just outside the Valley when you go to one of them. To get there you just go straight up to the top of Balboa where the water comes down the mountain, and then turn left onto The Old Road (yep, that's what it's called). The canyons are about three or four miles down. The most popular one is Towsley Canyon, which is also the furthest one down the road. The turnoff for East and Rice Canyons comes about a mile before Towsley. Both canyons share the same trailhead and then branch off about a half mile down the trail.
I went there just to try and get back into the swing of things, hike-wise. Usually when I go to East and Rice, I take the trail fork that goes into Rice Canyon, because it has some very spiritual and picturesque areas of shady glens, with groves of oak trees. Rice reminds me a bit of my favorite canyon, Placerita, which has been closed for almost two years now because of the devastating fire of July 2016. I think the destruction and closing of Placerita Canyon had a subtle psychological effect on the slack-off of my trips to Santa Clarita, too. I loved going to Placerita and the adjoining Walker Ranch. Both places offered some of the best photo opportunities as well as the most magical hikes.
But the three canyons along The Old Road are very special, too, and I visited East Canyon today because it usually takes a back seat to Rice or Towsley. It's not the best canyon for photography, but as I noticed today, it really has a ambience that makes you feel in the world of nature. On the few occasions when I've been there in the past, the surrounding brush was mostly dry or missing. We had a lot of years of no rain. And on those occasions you could see far down the trail and fairly deep into the landscape to each side. But today I discovered a whole new look because the canyon was all green and swollen with growth, so the trail appeared more narrow and the landscape was obscured by heavy brush.
When it's like that, the critters take over, and you are more aware that you are on their turf. You can hear every "skritch/skruntch" in the bushes, and even though you know it's only a lizard or a squirrel, you still kind of stop for just a few seconds because you can't see all of the open space you are used to seeing in the dry Summer, and.........what if it's a cat?
No, not a Sweet Kitty. A big Cat.
I mean, you know it isn't, but it still kind of gives you the willies because you are over a mile into the canyon, and nobody else is around.
"Skritch......skritch/skratch................Sckruntch"!
All of a sudden you get that adrenaline injection. For me, it is a feeling I knew well as a youth because I was terrified of bees. Individual bees were bad enough, but I remembered YMCA trips to Topanga Canyon and other places where you would hear a thrumming in the air that was not loud......but was unnerving, like an undercurrent of terror.
Because you knew that there were millions of bees surrounding you, all through the landscape.
I heard that sound today, but it didn't bother me too much, even though I still get the Adrenaline Jolt when the thrumming gets loud. I'm really not scared of bees anymore, and the proof is that when I go to the local recycling place here in Reseda, there are bees swarming all around the barrels you put your cans and bottles in. When I'm there, they are all around me and I just swat them away. They don't land or sting.
But when I hear them in the wild........and I don't see them, but just hear the thrumming, that droning sound.....which gets louder in places......and I don't see them but I know that there are millions of them........let's just say I still don't get scared but my body does that Adrenaline Injection thing. I guess it must be a primal alert, like an animal sense kicking in.
Back in 2014, when I was a Hiking Machine, I was tuned in to all of this stuff. I had my Hiking Legs, and my senses were acclimated, and I knew all the sounds, and the landscape of the trails was more open and dried out.
But today's hike in East Canyon was a lot of fun, just because I was back there again. But this time I noticed more than ever that I am in their world, and one of the things they have going for them is the power of sound (skritch/skratch/......followed by silence......and then skruntch!).
I wonder if they know they are doing that? Are they trying to scare humans?
Probably not. But they are in their own environment, the landscape of the natural, undeveloped world, and I am sure they feel on top of the power in there.
It's a trip that this natural world is all around us, and that it just keeps on doing it's own thing, no matter what we do, with paving and building, etc.
You can really feel it's power when you go out there to the canyons, when the trail is overgrown and you can't see too much but you can hear a lot. ///
No movie this eve, but I did watch an episode of "Rawhide" and one of "One Step Beyond" called "Rendezvous", spooky but super romantic. IMDB it if you wish. Last night I forgot to mention that I watched Episode #13 of "Twin Peaks", which is now building toward a conclusion, with many different story elements beginning to coalesce.
Gotta sleep; church and choir in the morning. See you then. xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo:):)
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