'My scout master gave me the opportunity to discover that the alpine Sierra was my landscape,' Times outdoors columnist Ron Erskine writes. (PHOTO BY RON ERSKINE.)
Ron Erskine
As I sat down to write about another hike at another park, a memory from long ago swept over me. When I was a young boy, I hated hiking. What could be worse than endlessly plodding through the middle of nowhere? Playing baseball, long days by the tennis club pool with friends -- now we're talking. But hiking -- that's just boring.
So how did I come to love it so? How does anyone come to find enjoyment walking in the wild?
Everything about my introduction to the outdoors seemed designed to discourage me. I was not yet 10 years old when, as a member of the Mill Valley Episcopal Boys Choir, I went to Choir Camp. Like cattle, we were transported to the Sierras reclined in our sleeping bags on the bed of a flatbed truck, and then we shouldered our packs (canvas straps with no pads and no waist belt) for the 8-mile hike to Lake Arrowhead. I remember walking 20 steps and thinking, I will never make it.
For the next two weeks I was trapped in some Dickensian novel featuring a sadistic choirmaster and predatory preteen boys. Our choirmaster disciplined us with a breadboard -- always in front of the entire group. My only thought was to stay below the radar, but nevertheless I got the breadboard twice -- once for dirty silverware, once for not ratting on the minister's son who was smoking cigarettes in his tent. After the wallop for the second offense, minutes seemed to pass before I was able to breathe in again.
Despite this introduction to the outdoors, I was given a second chance by a Boy Scout leader who changed my life. Summer camps were serious backpacks, but in an atmosphere of warmth and support. His passion and respect for the Sierra high country was propelled by an enthusiasm that was infectious.
I believe that each of us has a landscape. When we enter it, we are filled with a sense of peace and heightened awareness. For my wife, it is the seashore. When she looks across that infinite blue expanse, she is filled with a sense of euphoria like the rush of a powerful narcotic entering her blood stream. My scout master gave me the opportunity to discover that the alpine Sierra was my landscape. I love the way just-born streams of snow-cold water splash over glacier-polished granite and trace a path through the few remaining pines that can endure such heights. That's my narcotic.
What's yours? You may not have found it yet, but you have one. And if you need to go out and search for it, you couldn't live in a better place. This ain't Kansas. There are rainforests with 300-foot redwoods and wild rhododendrons in Northwestern California. Maybe you are a desert rat. Explore the Mojave and Sonoran deserts down south, or visit the edge of the Great Basin east of the Sierra. The Coast Range offers soft oak-studded rolls or abrupt alpine ar'tes up toward the Trinity Alps. And on, and on, and on.
That is just a sampler of California's unequalled variety. I hope that these "Getting Out" columns will gently nudge you to discover your sanctuary -- the landscape that will pull you back time and again. When you find your landscape, suddenly a hike is transformed from a physical ordeal into your favorite way to spend a day.
Don't hurry, but don't waste time either. The searching is fun. One day, standing on a lonely promontory gazing across some remote panorama, you will be overcome by an unmistakable feeling of peace. You've found it -- your landscape.
Happy hunting.
Ron Erskine Ron Erskine is an outdoors columnist for the Times. Reach him at ronfoxtail@msn.com.
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