Don't Go Chasing You-Know-Whats
And if you must, check your cell service first
Last week, I woke up to a sound that didn’t fit in the familiar native Los Angeles auditory landscape of police helicopters, car alarms, and mockingbirds imitating car alarms. The sky, for once, was exploding via natural causes—thunder. By the time morning rolled around it had stopped raining, but everything looked a little less wilted and my car was covered in wet tree detritus.
The storm was a welcome break from the unrelenting heat, but it quite literally dampened my plans to go to the beach that day. Since the rain temporarily turns LA’s brown hills green, I decided to take advantage of this rare sign of life and go on a hike. It’s always nice to take a hike that doesn’t feel like a forced march through a patch of dust and dirt.
After no research, I landed on a place I had heard other people talk about—Switzer Falls, in the Angeles National Forest. A natural park just past Pasadena, the Angeles National Forest is home to some of the “mountains” people talk about when they say “in LA you’re twenty minutes from the beach and twenty minutes from the mountains.” This hike was reportedly moderate and rumored to end in a waterfall cascading into a natural pool.
I drove out alone, telling myself I’d text my husband before I hit the trail, just in case a bear ate me, I was murdered by a drifter, I ate poisonous berries, or got stuck between some rocks and had to cut off my own arm. Unfortunately, once I arrived at the parking lot, I had no cell phone service. If I died it would be a fun mystery for my family to solve.
Wilderness expert that I am, I also had failed to procure a National Parks Parking (Parksing?) pass. I made peace with eating whatever the noncompliance fee was, and by peace, I meant thought about every ten seconds from that point forward.
My preparations complete, I ventured across the parking area and to the trailhead. The only other person appeared to be a single adult man standing around with no visible purpose. Always a reassuring sight. I soldiered on, cycling between the parking pass, this man murdering me, and how long it would take my family to solve the mystery of the death, only to encounter about ten signs warning me about HUNGRY BEARS and STEEP CLIFFS in the country ahead. The car was within sight, but so was that weird man. I entered the woods.
A canopy enveloped me, and I filled up with the sound of leaves rustling, birds chattering, and a stream gurgling, which unfortunately did nothing to assuage my escalating panic attack. I tried to remind myself that Cheryl Strayed did it, but she also did heroin, which requires a certain amount of bravery I know I don’t have.
I let my heart rate rise and my breath get shallow and pretty soon I was practically hyperventilating. My body experiencing the beauty of raw nature! Luckily, I am incapable of letting go of things that are no longer serving me, so I sallied forth.
The thing that finally calmed my nervous system, ironically, was two teen boys and their dog coming down the trail from the opposite direction. Fellow humans! I wouldn’t die alone, even if it meant they were the ones murdering me. But one of them had braces. That calmed me. Not a lot of murderers have braces. I greeted them perhaps too enthusiastically and asked if they had seen any bears perhaps too earnestly. They looked at me quizzically and said, “Um, no. There are a lot of lizards, though.”
Reinvigorated by human contact, I followed the path as it left the shaded riverbed and ascended into the sunny STEEP CLIFFS! More hikers appeared on the path. My attitude aboutfaced, and I cursed my lack of solitude.
Eventually, the path forked in extremely unclear signage. I used my extensive wilderness training and decided if I was going to find a waterfall, it would probably be at a lower elevation, given that water…falls. This instinct was correct, and I took that trail that wound back down to the shaded riverbed, eventually dead-ending in a pool being fed by a gentle but definite waterfall.
There was one other person there—a woman, who despite my gentle attempts to make eye contact, remained focused on the nature around her. It was nice, though—she was very silent and so was I (except for eating the granola bar the bears had failed to get their greedy paws on). As I contemplated whether the water had that bacteria that goes in your nose and eats your brain, the woman launched into the pool, swimming the short distance to the waterfall, and put her head under. She then floated on her back as dragonflies flitted overhead, somehow more serene than she was before.
When she got out, I wondered if I should dive in. I was in leggings and a long-sleeved shirt, but I did have a sports bra on, which is half a swimsuit in some cultures (not French). I fished a floating mask out of the water as I tried to remember if I had ever read anything about flesh-eating bacteria being treatable. My body had taken action during all this thinking and I found myself swimming to the waterfall and ducking my head under. The water was cold and clear, and I hoped the rain had sort of flushed out whatever muck turns your brain to goo. It was bracing. It was peaceful. It was calm. As I swam back to the rock I could barely believe that this beautiful cool pool was here, just for this other woman and me.
No sooner had I made landfall than a dude and a dog approached, preceded by the sound of his Bluetooth speaker blasting music. You’d think my earlier panic attack, brought on by the stillness of nature, might make me sympathetic to those who couldn’t handle it. It did not.
He was, of course friendly, and we exchanged some greetings, while my fellow woman sat on a rock across the pond, maintaining her reverie. “Wow, the water’s really high today,” he said. I replied, “Yea, I think it’s because of the rain.” “That’s why I came,” he said.
I packed up my stuff, yielding my spot to the man and his dog, grateful for the chance that the other woman and I had to move our bodies, silently and uninterrupted, after—or because of—the storm.
Intrepid! And the pictures are mesmerizing.