A hike

August 14, 2022 Comments Off on A hike

Yesterday we hiked the Remington Ridge trail. It’s 14 miles round-trip with 4,500 feet of climbing, 95% of which is in the first 7 miles. So it’s steep.

Until today’s scorching temperatures blew in, this summer has been mild, rarely getting above 105 and often, like yesterday, not exceeding the high 90’s.

The day began with a car adventure. Someone was too high or drunk the night before, over-smoked the hairpin at the bottom of our road, and came to rest with the assistance of an oak tree. The front of the car was tacoed.

You see a lot of car adventures here because there’s no towing to immediately clear the area as there is in LA. Also, after the typical drunk driving escapade, the driver stumbles away and gets a ride home, figuring he’ll come back the next day to sort it all out.

And people are more blase about car adventures. For example, one guy’s battery died in the middle of a grade on a narrow 2-lane highway with (for here) a lot of traffic. Rather than coasting to the shoulder, he stopped in the middle of the road. Then another guy drove by, reversed, and drove into his lane to give him a jump. Anyone at any moment could have rounded the blind curve and slammed into the jumpee, causing serious injury or death. No one seemed to care.

Another time on that same stretch we came upon an upside-down car in the opposite lane.

Yet another time we saw a guy who simply drove off the edge of a mostly straight road at such a high speed that his pickup vaulted some inestimable distance off into a ravine. People stood on the roadside, shading their eyes and trying to make out who it was.

Since there aren’t any cops to speak of, and certainly no sobriety checkpoints, and since the dominant thought seems to be, “What’s the point of driving if you can’t drive drunk?” these things happen a lot.

Up on the trail we saw no one. We’d tried to climb it in late April but had turned back because of snow. Now it was cool and beautiful after about 5,000 feet. At the top, just over 6,000 feet, it was serene, with lots of tall trees and cool wind.

By the time we got home we were exhausted.

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