Getting Lost in LA

Beautiful Trails, Unfriendly Hikers, and Plenty of Private Land

Just wanted to quickly say thank you to all the new readers! Amazing to see so many new subscribers of late. If you haven’t, consider sharing the newsletter! Even the haters might get a kick out of it. Getting the word out there helps me with this writing thing so much. Thanks!

///

I got to LA, to Studio City, much earlier than I expected. I surfed that day, had my fun in the kind place that was much of the central coast, and now it was time to bop around a big city I’ve visited so much in the past yet still have little understanding of what it’s like there. After a few days in the central coast, a place where everyone said hello, every surfer I met wanted to chat in the line up, and people in general seemed kindly curious about each other, not in a snooping sort of way, just curious. 

Seeing a small parking lot and a large wooded hill as I drove on Laurel Canyon boulevard, and with a couple of hours left before I had to meet my friend Dereck at his house, I decided to pull in for a hike. I thought it was funny to be going for a hike, first thing in LA, but the hill looked beautiful, so I figured it would be nice.

I got out of my car, grabbed my binoculars from the back, and walked up the trail, a large fire road, where everyone else was walking. 

Few people headed down but the ones I passed, as I usually do and was the case in San Louis Obispo and Santa Barbara, I said hello. Most people kept their eyes anxiously fixed to the dirt in front of them, afraid of what they might find of me if they looked toward me. As I hiked further up the hill into truly glorious views of the city, and the valley on the other side, I kept saying hello, figuring that some people were just being a little reserved. But no. No one said hello. The closest thing I got were stares into my eyes that seemed ready for whatever chaos I might bring. 

As I reached the peak of the hill I gave up on saying hello. By that point I knew that it must be, if not the culture of LA, at least the culture of Studio City, of the Valley. People wanted to keep to themselves, uncertain who someone might be. A friend from Los Angeles told me that there you just don’t know who’s going to be a creep, or weird, or dangerous. Maybe that’s why everyone was keeping their distance, and seemed more alarmed at my attempted friendliness. People just wanted their privacy for fear of what it would mean to open it up. It felt like walking around a bunch of adults who hold firm still to the notion, in every situation, of stranger danger. They just wanted their privacy. Maybe this was only surprising because this was LA, the place where people, at least on a much larger scale, come to become seen and known, or at least personally affect our culture in some form or another.

But none of that really bothered me at all. The views were incredible, and the greenery of the open oak savannah was full of birdsong and the beginnings of wildflowers. I saw plenty of little red rufous hummingbirds, yellow-rumped warblers, titmice, spotted towhees, and even a cooper’s hawk slipping in and out of taller trees. 

It was beautiful, but people were still noticeably alarmed by my presence. My bet is on the fact I was smiling, looking at birds through binoculars, and saying hello to people who stared at me. 

Eventually I made it down to the other side of the mountain. I wasn’t quite sure where I was so I checked maps on my phone. It seemed that the fire road shot down the valley and then looped back around onto itself again. So it seemed perfect. The sun was starting to get low but it seemed like I would be back to my car with plenty of time before I had to meet up with Dereck. I checked the time again, this time noticing that my phone was about to die, which it quickly did a few minutes later. But there was plenty of light, plenty of time, and I felt sure I knew where I was going.

As I made my way down, taking photos of flowers, mostly white California lilacs, I thought that this place was amazing, and how nice it must be to live near such a beautiful and sprawling public open space. There were so many little trails, so many bits of wildlife, and the heavy rains of the past couple of months were positively present on the land itself—small ephemeral streams cutting across the hillsides, ground squirrels and rabbits hopping in and out of the coyote brush, and the buds of so many flowers that I had no names for. It was much more idyllic than I expected of LA.

However, once I got to the turnaround portion of the trail, I noticed that it was blocked. A tall, nearly ten foot metal fence stood between me and the rest of the trail. The top of it was covered in new shining barbed wire. A quick glance up  and down the trail I spotted cameras propped up in every direction. I guess the trail stopped here, and whichever wealthy person lived here decided the general people of Studio City had no reason to walk this way.  It probably was mostly private land that the public trail cut through. After the cold stares from other trail goers, this just seemed to make sense. Privacy seemed paramount here. 

I got a little nervous that the trail ended, but felt as though I could find another way. I thought about the picture of the map on my phone and knew the closest one behind me would take me at least another two miles. So I decided to follow another single track deeper into the valley. As I got deeper into the shadow of the valley, the day grew darker as the sun neared the horizon. It was getting close. And the trail kept going. 

It started to feel as if the trail wouldn’t end, that I would end up on the wrong side of the mountain in the wrong area, with no phone, surrounded by a bunch of untrusting people, stranded until I happened upon my car. And the trail kept winding. I picked up my pace. I was worried that I didn’t know where I was going. I turned on my phone, knowing it would die in a minute or two, got on maps, and took a photo of the screen with my digital camera, just in case. I checked it. I seemed to be going in the right direction, so I kept moving. I could hear some stream near me, and I was confident I was close to the road I saw on the map. I was, but this place, even though the road looked public, was blocked off by another large barbed wire fence. I looked at the backyard of the mansion. They seemed to have diverted the small stream into their backyard, making it their own little private water feature. 

Frustrated and now actually kind of concerned, I looked at my digital camera and the map on my phone. There was another trail that looked to go to another road almost a mile ahead. I looked up where the trail was and heard a man cough. I started toward him. I looked up again and saw a man, walking fast, through some trees. I sped up in the hopes of asking for his help, now basically running. I never caught him. Maybe he thought I was going to attack him and he ducked into the bushes. Which, I think at this point was fair. I was wearing all black, in an isolated part of the woods, with binoculars, and functionally trying to sprint up a hill toward him. I never found the man, which was odd, but I did make my way to the end of the trail, behind some houses and in a concrete canal. I had no clue where to go, but walked up toward the homes. I saw to my left a lady walking her dachshund. I followed her. I made it to the road. I started walking down. A man in a Yankees hat, taking out his trash looked at me as I looked around confused, so I asked him which way to the trailhead parking lot. He told me I was going in the right direction. The first minor bit of friendliness.

I made it to my car, an hour later than when I was to meet up with Dereck. I sat down, drank a bubbly water, thankful to be with my stuff, my phone and map fully charged, away from the public land turning to private roads and the people with their terrified glances on the trail.