jeff yen

Hut…. hut…

This past weekend, I had the good fortune to go on a spur-of-the-moment hike in Poway, just north of San Diego. Partly to help recondition my long-injured ankle, partly because it was a gorgeous day, but mostly because it was something to do that involved fresh air, while simultaneously failing to include any kind of computer interface whatsoever.

There is something about hiking, for me, that seems to lift the ceiling of the world. It is an unreasonably dramatic endorsement, perhaps. This is, after all, an activity that is essentially the end result of the astonishing realization that walking can be done on unpaved surfaces.

Surprisingly, I found that while I generally hike alone, what I remembered most about this hike were the people I saw along the way. This wasn't a terribly difficult hike, and the area was well populated with a refreshing variety of would-be trailblazers.

There were dogs wearing little knit sweaters, and humans carrying bags of warm, fresh shit. I couldn't help but wonder which was more embarrassed.

An 8-year-old boy led me halfway up the mountain. He would linger until I had almost caught him up, then hurl himself up the slope, crazed arms and legs flying about him like runaway moons. His father, glazed and gasping, reached us at the summit and promptly collapsed in a dignified heap on the nearest flat surface.

I loitered at the summit for a while, and was well rewarded. The clouds parted for a while, and the sun shone down on a vista of much of San Diego county. The cross on Palomar mountain was the second most recognizable feature, after the Pacific ocean. A few lakes, all of North county, and much of San Diego proper could be seen. I am probably spoiled by the trip I took to Yosemite last year, but I was kind of hoping for something more. Half of the view was dominated by tract housing, punctuated by ribbons of shining freeway. The other half was rolling hills with desert scrub, well recovered but still bearing the scars from the wildfires a few years ago.

My trip down the mountain was highlighted by the sight of two separate families making their way in the opposite direction.

The first brought back memories of my youth; it was a middle-aged couple with a pre-teen son. The couple made their way in that absently familiar way of people who have long since exhausted all interesting topics of conversation. In amiable silence, they kept pace with each other in a steady, unwavering way which I assumed characterizes much of their life together.

The son, meanwhile, slouched along several yards back. Sullen and scowling, he trailed a stick along the ground behind him, as if it could somehow anchor his parents to the spot, forcing them to turn back. I remember many forced marches with my parents when I was growing up, but living in a desert, none of them involved a mountain hike. Ah, well... better him than me.

The second had me laughing all the way back to my car. It was a woman, probably in her mid-30s, with a young boy. Her son was just at the age where they begin to cast off the childishness of running around in aimless circles, and begin to expend their boundless energy in determined straight lines, cheerfully disregarding any and all obstacles. This one acted as though he were tied by a bungee cord to his mother, dashing ahead in sudden bursts of speed, then bounding back breathlessly to chivvy his mother up the mountain, like a working dog with a particularly reluctant sheep.

Red-faced and panting, she stopped to ask me how far it was to the summit, and groaned aloud at my answer. She took a couple of hitching breaths and pushed on after her son, who had long since disappeared in a swirl of dust. As I rounded the next bend, I could hear her calling after her son, trying to tempt him back to the car with promises of a specially prepared dinner.

From the despair in her voice, I figured her son wasn't having any of it.

All that, and I got to eat trail mix by the handful. Life doesn't get much better.