Point Mugu

The map posted at the Point Mugu State Park trailhead resembled my guide map in broad outline, but not in detail. I wondered if I'd get lost. If I did, instead of doing the whole 8-mile loop, I'd just turn around and come back.

Setting out with that uncertainty, I hiked the first third of the trail up La Jolla canyon along a dry creek bed. The water fall I passed was all fall and no water, but the moss growing there suggested that, come the rains, it would flow. The brush was so dense that sometimes it formed a tunnel for the trail.

My map proved accurate, and eventually the 1,100 climb up the canyon brought me to the Overlook Backbone fire road. Well-named, that road. It gives breathtaking views of the very rough highlands of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Somewhat more than half the way around the loop, I found a hillock on which to perch to eat my lunch, and there in the distance I could see a triangle of the Pacific. The trailhead at the beach was, of course, my destination, and I guessed that I'd have other views of the ocean as I hiked onward. That glimpse of the sea set me thinking. More about those thoughts later.

As I walked on, the sea was seldom out of view. Some vistas just overwhelmed me. I wondered if the poet of "America the Beautiful" had hiked this trail before writing "from sea to shining sea."

The trail was anything but direct, and sometimes I wondered again if I was on the right route, but the signposts and my map seemed to agree, so I walked on. At some places on the trail, if I looked left I saw the highlands pictured above, and if I turned right, the sea stretched out to the horizon. Magnificent.

But more glories were yet to come. Eventually I could see, far, far below, the trailhead parking lot and the surf on the beach. But more yet. Although this picture, taken with my iPhone camera, only faintly reproduces the view, there in the far distance mountains rose out of the sea—the Channel Islands, floating there like some beckoning paradise.

Soon the Ray Miller trail took off from the Backbone Road and led down, down, down to the trailhead. I don't know who Ray Miller was, but if he built this trail, he deserves to be remembered forever. Just plotting the route would be a terrific accomplishment, not to mention carving it out of the mountainside.

Eventually I reached my pickup at the trailhead. What a wonderful walk!

Which brings me back to those lunch time thoughts.

This hike spoke to me strongly of life's journey. We begin at the sea and eventually return there. Along the way are uncertainties, labors, rewards, and surprises. At 67, I am forced to realize that I'm well past the half-way mark on my loop. I feel some regret over that realization. But that sea, which had disappeared from my sight for so much of the trip, now becomes ever more promising and leads me forward. It stirs in me hopes that the remainder of the journey will be even more beautiful, more amazing, more breathtaking than the first part of the trip. Readers may think of other parallels, but will leave it at that.

For now, I will march on, anticipating the surprises at each turn in the trail.

What a wonderful walk!