THE problem with wilderness is that it is, by definition, too darn far from where most people live. Yes, many cities have a few nice day hikes, but it’s a lucky accident of geography and conservation that creates serious, “out there” backcountry hiking opportunities close to a major urban area.
Since April 2009, you can count Los Angeles among the lucky cities. That’s when the Trans Catalina Trail opened, a traverse of the surprisingly rugged Santa Catalina Island, which is only 22 miles from Long Beach as the crow flies. The 37-mile trail takes hikers on a four-day trek from Pebbly Beach on the east end to Starlight Beach on the west through cactusstudded canyons, deserted coves and fields of wildflowers dotted with wild bison. Yes, bison.
Well before daybreak, on a chilly spring Friday, my friend Miriam, a U.C.L.A. business school student, and I found ourselves slumped in the stiff-backed chairs of the Catalina Express ferry, watching the silhouettes of the cranes and offshore oil rigs of Long Beach Port against the dark rainbow of predawn. In the background, we could hear a newscaster on television warning of an incoming storm. We were taking the earliest possible ferry a trip that would take about 90 minutes because, with 15 miles to cover that first day of our planned four-day hike, we wanted every hour of daylight we could get. Our plan was to walk the trail from Avalon, the island’s main port, to the village of Two Harbors, then walk 11 miles to the end of the island 53 miles altogether where we would turn around and come back to take the ferry home from Two Harbors.
The sun cracked the horizon as we pulled up to the Avalon dock, revealing a scene that looked more Greek than American. White houses spilled down a green hillside toward a sparkling blue bay where sailboats and yachts, trawlers and speedboats were moored in neat rows. Even the architecture seemed Mediterranean, with the 12-story Art Deco dome of the island’s casino standing in for a centuries-old basilica. Avalon looked like an appealing destination in its own right, but we had miles to log so we found the road out of town and began to climb.
The Trans-Catalina Trail begins southeast of Avalon and spends most of its first few miles in a broad semicircle on the ridge above Avalon Bay. We climbed about 1,500 feet to the ridgeline on a rutted dirt road lined with eucalyptus trees and prickly pear cactus, then spent a happy few hours taking in ocean views in three, sometimes four, directions. On the mainland, the Santa Ana mountains loomed over Los Angeles, itself invisible beneath the low fog on the coast. From our vantage, the modest Santa Anas could almost be mistaken for distant Himalayan peaks, wreathed as they were by clouds so far below their summits.
After lunch, we left Avalon behind, and the trail moved inland, separating itself from the road to meander through fields, along the cattail lined edges of reservoirs and up and down the folds of eroded green hills. And here my troubles began. What had been a slight twinge in my knee during the first few miles soon blossomed into a sharp pain that made me wince with each step. We still had 30 miles to cover overall and 8 more that day.
The afternoon wore on. The trail, so flat for the first part, was now a never ending series of climbs and descents. Miriam’s knees began to hurt too, and our pace slowed considerably. Then, during a rare wooded stretch, I stopped Miriam at the entrance to a small clearing. A bison emerged from the stream below and cantered to the center of the clearing, where it stopped, eyeing us warily. It was a terrifying beast, orders of magnitude larger than any creature you normally expect to encounter on a forested path, its mane and beard matted with burrs and grass and hanging almost to the ground. We took a step toward it; it snorted and took a step toward us, its message unmistakable.
The presence of bison on Catalina Island is both intentional and accidental. Fourteen were brought to the island in the 1920s to form the backdrop of the silent film “The Vanishing American.” The bison never made it into the final cut, and they were left on the island, where their numbers quickly grew into the hundreds. They are largely harmless, but they have injured tourists in the past in cases in which they felt threatened.
We began hugging the edge of the brush, keeping as far away from the animal as we could, which was unfortunately no more than 30 feet. The bison followed us with its eyes and took another warning step in our direction. “What do we do if he charges?” Miriam asked, terror in her voice. “Dive into the brush,” I responded, trying to sound confident, as if a few bushes would somehow deter a charging, 1,600-pound mass of muscle, horns and hooves.
But the bull let us creep by, with the only consequence being shot nerves to go along with our knees. We limped into Blackjack Campground two hours before sunset, finding it empty but for a family of deer and another, less aggressive bison that soon wandered off. Between two of the island’s tallest peaks (both around 2,000 feet), we boiled water for noodles, chewed on turkey jerky and climbed into the tent as darkness, fog and utter exhaustion consumed us.
The next morning when I tested my knee, the undiminished stabs of pain made it clear that we weren’t going to be finishing the Trans-Catalina Trail. But here we were delighted to discover that we weren’t nearly as out there as we felt; my cellphone got three bars of service. A few phone calls later, we had a new plan: hike the three miles to the airport in the middle of the island and catch a midday shuttle to Two Harbors. The next day we’d walk the easier coastal road to Parsons Landing, the last of our campsites. The miles along the airport road were agonizing for me, but our reward was a fully stocked cafe. I had a vengeful bison burger, enjoying each mouthful a little more than I might have in other circumstances.
Two Harbors is an odd mix of outpost and resort town set at a point where the island narrows to about half a mile, leaving a harbor on either side. It has a campsite, cabins, a hotel, a general store and a cafe/restaurant/bar. We heard chatter around town that the storm was still on its way and looking nasty, but we held out hope that the next morning we could walk the seven miles to Parsons. We spent the afternoon reading at our campsite overlooking one of the harbors, the blue sky slowly hazing over as the light fell. In the evening, we joined a bonfire made by members of the Orange County Hiking Club and happily drank their wine and ate their cheese.
The next morning a ranger drove by and politely suggested we book one of the remaining cabins in town. The storm was coming, and how; gusts would reach over 50 miles per hour. Walking to Parsons that day would not only be wet and unpleasant but also potentially deadly, with the powerful winds and a chance of mudslides. And we couldn’t just hop on a boat back to the city: the whiteboard in front of the booking office informed us that the only outbound ferry that day was canceled. Below this depressing news was written, with a smiley face, “The bar opens at noon.” We were marooned.
So we embraced it. In the cafe we met Patrick, a local fish farmer who was dressed like a longshoreman but talked like a scientist. He told us his life story, which we would hear repeated to several other people that afternoon. He offered to drive us up to the Banning House Lodge, an old mansion and hotel with a fireplace.
As we negotiated the muddy ruts in his car while the rain picked up, Patrick noted philosophically: “People are so used to having whatever they want whenever they want it. But out here, weather still matters.”
At the Banning House, we found a dark-wood solarium with picture windows that, due to the banging wind, no one was sitting too close to. But a warming blaze was going in the fireplace, so Miriam and I picked out a puzzle and spread its thousand pieces over the coffee table. Patrick worked on a correspondence course via laptop, chatting with each and every newcomer, while a Boy Scout troop played Monopoly in the next room. Miriam soon fell asleep, and I sat watching the wind and rain bend the palms outside as if I were watching television news coverage of a hurricane.
Only 22 miles from Los Angeles as the crow flies, but no crow in its right mind would be flying this day. We were 22 miles and a world away.
22 MILES AWAY
Ferries to Santa Catalina Island (catalinaexpress.com) make round trips several times a day from Long Beach, Dana Point and San Pedro on the mainland to Avalon and Two Harbors on Catalina ($69.50 round trip, $71.50 between Dana Point and Avalon).
The Trans-Catalina Trail is administered by the Catalina Conservancy. Its Web site (bit.ly/lVJAj0) has trail maps and information, and sources to book campsites ($30 to $40 a night for two people), and connect with services that can carry your gear from site to site.
The GPS track on the SoCal Hiker blog is at socalhiker.net/2010/03/trans-catalina-trail.
