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Despite the heat this weekend (yesterday it got up to 90 degrees), Chad and I got in another hike in the Cleveland National Forest. (If you’re wondering where Bella was, she was at home completely rejecting any physical activity after ten hours of track practice a week, and lounging around watching One Tree Hill on her laptop.)

This time we didn’t pass the Candy Store, we just parked directly across from it and took the Upper San Juan Loop trail. (The Candy Store was a bust. Good for a cold can of soda and an ice cream bar – but pathetic selection of candy. Just bite the bullet and call yourself what you are: Mountain Mini-Mart.)

And although the hike was only just over two miles, the heat and the climbing gave us enough of a workout to be satisfying. We managed to avoid all the poison oak and didn’t swallow any bugs, although there were plenty to be swallowed. We also managed to eat our chocolate and oranges by the water again.  And again we were completely alone on the trail. Where are all the people who belong to the cars in the trailhead parking lot? We even managed to forget our camera again.

But this time we thought to pull out our cellphones for pics. The images are small and fuzzy (I am so over my RAZR), but they do give an impression of how pleasant our day was together. I took the top three pics and Chad took the rest. He did better with the “landscapes” (I used quotations, because can a tree butthole be considered a landscape?)

My photo of Chad.

Chad’s photo of me.

Chad must have stopped for a pee break, because I don’t recollect ever being that far ahead of him on this hike – or on any hike for that matter…

Well, now that we’ve gotten started, Chad and I have been off exploring two more times. Last Sunday we drove to top of residential hill finally found the dangnabbit trail head, only to discover that it ended only a quarter of a mile away. We were hesitant to check out the scenic view spot because of the crowds of weekend dog-walkers, but then we noticed that people were walking by us and then not ever reappearing. So we peeked over and discovered another trail heading down towards the ocean. Excellent! It was steep and pretty rocky and dusty, but we got a great work out climbing up and down hills to a peak overlooking the south end of Laguna Beach. Turned out that it was the same lookout that Chad had explored previously hiking from his sister Corrina’s old place. That was cool – we love exploring things from both ends. Heh heh, that sounds dirty now that I’ve written it.

Then this weekend we discovered another waterfall to hike to, up off the Holy Jim Trail. It’s not that WE’re so into waterfalls per se, but they do make for a good destination hike. And on the way there we never saw another hiker – so Chad took pics of me and the belly there. He convinced me to keep my undies on, which in retrospect, was a good idea, because now I can share one or two of the photos here.

It was an interesting hike because you first have to drive several miles down a rocky dirt road. The dirt road was called Trabuco Creek Road and was off Trabuco Canyon Road – you’re driving by some major housing developments in total suburbia and then suddenly you’re dropping into a completely wild canyon.

There were quite a few cars parked at the start of the dirt road; we imagined that they were mostly mountain bikers, but we only ever saw one cyclist. After going for miles down this dirt road, the scenery changed from dusty scrub to western forest with lots of overgrown black oak and we passed an old firehouse. This seemed strange because we hadn’t passed any other structures or buildings previously, in fact it had seemed like we going further and further from civilization. But then small, apparently abandoned houses began to appear. And then a few definitely inhabited houses started to show up – Boy when these people hunkered down way back when, they must have really been in the boondocks. It was a curious mixture of cabins and houses, and Chad and I wondered a lot about what kind of people were living out here and what kind of community they must form.

The best part of the hike was that we were really truly in the woods and there were flowers blooming. All we could hear was the wind rushing through the trees, all kinds of birds, frogs, and the burbling of the creek we were following.

We only made it as far as the waterfall, because we needed to be back in ample time to pick Bella up from track practice. But this trail goes on for miles and miles and would probably make for a nice backpack or a 2-car shuttle hike with some prior planning.

We rested a bit at the waterfall, snapped a few pics and then headed back. We had not seen any other hikers the entire day and then on our way back to the car we ran into somebody I knew! She was somebody I had just met at last month’s La Leche League meeting – but what’s funny is that she and I were the only two moms who had attended both meetings in the south OC area last month. What’s more, out of all the women at both meetings, I had felt that she was the most likely candidate for potential friendship: 1) She’d been nursing a toddler and 2) She had a friendly open manner and I was going to tell her that I thought she would make a great LLL leader. To no surprise, she confided to me there on the trail that she had just completed her LLL leader training. We didn’t exchange more than a minute of conversation because we both had our husbands and she had several children tugging at her arm – But standing there in the middle of the woods talking to another nursing mom felt really, really right – and great. It was a serendipitous encounter.

But I am glad we ran into them after my photo shoot by the waterfall, even though I kept some clothes on.

It’s not that often I come upon a place that makes me want to take off all my clothes and ask my husband to start snapping pictures. Unfortunately, my camera was dead, so the photo shoot will have to wait until next time.

Last weekend, Chad and I finally got our butts into gear to check out the Grover Cleveland National Forest, which is about a half-hour drive southeast from here. The small obstacle that had been stumping us was the National Forest Pass, which, comes to find out, is available at any Sports Chalet for $30 a year. Believe me, if you wait to buy it at a ranger’s station, you’ll never get around to exploring any national forest legally. It’s $5 for a day pass, but I’d like to believe that I’ll get back out to a national forest six more times before May 2009…

We drove up the Ortega Highway, past the Upper San Juan Campground, past the Candy Store, and pulled over on a dirt turn-out. From there we could hear rushing water and see the glimmering promise of a waterfall among the tumbled granite and green scrub. Now a hike into a National Forest just off the freeway is a far cry from a hike in the protected thousands of acres of a National Park – meaning, that the trails from the dirt turn-out were many, narrow, and occasionally littered with reminders of ill-mannered hikers: cigarette butts, soda cans, water bottles. Unimpressive and forgettable graffiti was spray-painted on any flat rock surface like flamboyant cheap trail markers. But sometimes the strength of the wild outdoors makes human detritus look insignificant and ephemeral.

Here, with every step further from asphalt, there were more wild flowers springing up in bunches of hot pink, bobbing trumpets of purple, and sprawls of yellow; small visual treasures framed by the heady fragrance of crushed black sage. Ahead we could see the glinting gray-silver stones rising up, oblivious to all the petty human tromping and careless beer can crushing at their feet.

What trail we followed was not very well-maintained, likely because it was not a trail at all, and I was surprised at how much my sense of balance had changed since my last hike. My boots slipped in the eroded dirt and I clung on to each passing rock face. Chad seemed more sprightly and goat-like than ever, ahead and behind, making sure I was safe before bounding off again. I didn’t mind inching my way downhill; it gave me plenty of face time with delicate blooms and their intricate shapes.

At the bottom of the ravine we were rewarded with an absolutely clear babbling brook flowing from a small pool in the rocks. Avoiding the other hiking party around the corner (they were hiking with beer cans in hand), we scrambled up through boulders to the shallow pool and found a spot where we could eat a few snacks in the light spray of a delightful waterfall. It’s worth a thousand bucks, I’m sure, the revitalization you get from breathing the heady oxygenated air around a waterfall, even a small one. Just a few minutes here made me realize what I missed about living in Joshua Tree: that easy access to the outside, to the wilderness. Sure, there’s plenty of green in Laguna Niguel, but so much of it is manicured and primped. Chad and I just sat and rested. We talked in low voices and Chad began exploring the possibilities of climbing the side of the waterfall. Then we decided to head up the bank and see how far up we could follow the water. With very minor heart palpitations, I climbed up after Chad, taking far too much time I’m sure, to find secure footing with every step.

In the end, it didn’t take much to be at the top of the waterfall, looking down. The wind was channeled through the narrow passageway here, whistling and reminding me of that spot in Rattlesnake Canyon where Chad had proposed almost two years ago now. After some more snacks, Chad took off for more exploring, and I just sat on the smooth boulders, right by the edge of the water. I sat and I thought about coming back and spending time here with our new kid later this summer.