Another Sunday, late afternoon in August. I finish some yard work, fill my backpack with bottles of water, get in the car and head out to Chatsworth. I’m there in 15 minutes. I park and step out into the heat—it’s 98 degrees Fahrenheit and I feel good. It’s far too hot for most people, which is likely how I learned to love the heat. I will gladly bake beneath the hot valley sun for an opportunity to be outdoors alone.
I park on a residential street but minutes after I hit the trails, the houses begin to disappear behind the rocks and thick chaparral. I am immediately immersed in a land of browns and faded greens, while the sand whips up around my hiking boots. The outermost suburbs of Los Angeles sprawl just behind me, yet an expanse of dusty wilderness lies ahead. The world as I know it ends just beyond the last backyard. Sure, from the other side of these homes forward lies some 50,000 square miles of sprawling cities; a megalopolis replete with international airports, skyscrapers, project housing, billboards and about one million cars a day crawling all across this scattered place. But here, just past a quiet suburban neighborhood in the far western edge of the city, lies the literal end of Los Angeles.
It’s easy to find solitude in a big city if you know where to go. I go here, to the furthermost point of the city itself. Like a pieces of meat thrown to distract dangerous animals, let them have their strip malls, chain restaurants and camera ready overlooks. Keep the hordes busy so that I can be here, on the literal edge of it all. Away but near, looking out at the beautiful sprawl. But even here the city still creeps in to give this near wilderness its own unique impression. Mysterious footprints and an eerie quiet. Graffitied rock walls, cigarette butts and the occasional discarded beer can, giving the appearance of an ancient relic but likely just a few days old, the aluminum already faded by an unrelenting sun.
But that big city does manage to fade as I venture further along down the trail. Like the final glimpse of land when sailing into the open sea, the back garden gazebos and Tesla filled driveways begin to disappear behind me. There is now only myself and whatever is out there. The answer is usually nothing and no one, which can be unsettling in itself. The wind whips through the canyons and sways the hardy chaparral. My unwelcome footsteps send the birds and lizards fleeing through the dried terrain, creating rattling sounds that put my own reptile brain on alert. Yet, while I am alert, I am also relaxed and that is what keeps calling me out here. There is much to be said about the countless conveniences of modern life but the outdoors connects us to something basic and essential.
Here, on the trails surrounding Chatsworth, I am once again struck by the beauty of Los Angeles. Neither tropical nor desert, though often accused of both, it is this unique climate and terrain that has drawn so many people here for hundreds of years. Landscape alone is what defined the area in those early days. A few centuries of greed and progress may have changed much of the land, but not all of it. Here I stand in what is simply a neighborhood in the city of Los Angeles and yet I am surrounded by the Santa Monica Mountains and vast valleys—even the great Pacific Ocean lies glistening just over that range. And this is why I treasure my weekly visits to this particular place. I am just minutes from home and yetI feel like I am miles away from anywhere. The hills around me dampen the sound of the cars and semi-trucks in their endless procession up and down the gordian knot of freeways clustered throughout. While I am so close to all of the trappings of city life, right here it is quiet and beautiful. The sun bakes down on me and I couldn’t feel more at peace. I will eventually double back to the trailhead and return to the car and, once again, be part of the world of destitution and decadence, of the grit and the glitz. I am consoled by the fact that nature surrounds it all and that I can always make my escape every Sunday evening.
