by Nancy Beverly
Photo above: Group shot where the trails meet and we headed west to the group camp. Photo Nancy Beverly.
Ten years have gone by since the last GLS anniversary celebration and here are the opening lines from my article about that gathering at Harwood Lodge on Mt. Baldy Road up in the San Gabriel Mountains in 2012:
“I wonder if the founders of our organization ever imagined that 25 years ago when they bugged the heck out of the Angeles Chapter’s Executive Committee (three times no less) that their persistence would pay off not just in creating GLS but founding an organization that would still be thriving many years later. And could they have foreseen that it would be not just a hiking group but a group that would come to mean family to so many people?”
This year’s 35th anniversary hike at Pt. Mugu State Park was a little different, and yet still wonderful. We had a fine turnout on January 21 – there were 17 hikers total. Granted, we had a lot more at the 25th anniversary extravaganza, but that was a weekend event not a day hike. We had some old-timers at Pt. Mugu – and we also had some newcomers. While COVID upended and caused the cancellation of our hikes for several months, we bounced back and we’re chugging along. Our situation is somewhat different these days – we’ve had several leaders decide to step away. It’s been challenging to get as many hikes on the schedule as in the days of yore… and yet, I’m coming to sense this is okay. This is the new reality. And it looks pretty good.
People are still showing up and loving the hikes. They’re having in-depth conversations and connecting over vacations they’ve taken, hikes they’ve done, job and health challenges they’ve faced. There’s still a sense of community, even if it’s not the long-time family members from days gone by.
Luckily, we had SUNSHINE in the Santa Monica Mountains this go ‘round – no small feat after 10 (count ‘em 10) huge rainstorms had swept through California recently. Our path for the event was the Ray Miller Trail and it was in fine shape, not washed out. We had miles and miles of green hills and ocean vistas to take in. Up close amidst the few trees at our lunch spot, we saw some very large fungi.
Thank you, Tom Molloy, for leading the hike and Jen Dooley for sweeping. And thank you to the long-time members and brand-new folks for making it a pleasure to be out in nature once again.
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By Tom Molloy
To supplement Nancy’s insightful and interesting write-up, as the trip leader, I have a couple more thoughts to add.
On this hike, I learned the importance of being careful when you are the hike leader and, entering the outing announcement in the Sierra Club’s Campfire system, you use the pin tool to locate the trailhead for the hike on the map. In this case, upon my using the pin tool tool to identify the spot, the name of the trail changed, as did the city and county that the trail is in. I also learned that if that happens to you, you can change the campfire trailhead description back to align with the description in your trip write-up. Luckily, Laura Rainey came to the rescue and send out a blast email about the discrepancy to alert attendees.
One other tidbit is that the original hike, 35 years ago, was a little bit different then what we did this January 21st. The hike done 35 years ago was a beautiful loop trail going up Ja Jolla Canyon, hiking by a stream, passing a waterfall and pool, transiting La Jolla Valley (after bagging Mugu Peak), then up to the Outlook Trail and finally down the switchbacks of the Ray Miller Trail. In 2015, due to heavy rains, there were multiple landslides in La Jolla Canyon. The La Jolla Canyon Trail was completely washed away near the waterfall. There were hopes that Park Service might re-open it in a year or so, but now, 8 years later, it is still closed with no re-open date established. Nevertheless, we wanted the anniversary hike to have the spirit of the original hike, so we instead did an out-and-back 10 mile hike from the Ray Miller trailhead to the picnic tables in the backpackers campground.
As Nancy said, we enjoyed spectacular mountain, canyon, valley, island and ocean views the whole day. Our group was a nice mix of new people, and a mix of us old timers.
