Take A Hike with Richard Stockton

Take a Hike with Richard Stockton – Pine Valley Trail Hike, Carmel Valley – Big Sur      

Hurt on a Hike – what two OG hikers did when an ankle cracked in the back country.

“When you don’t know if it was broken, when you don’t know what you’re dealing with… your mind now is racing. We’re in the fucking middle of nowhere.”

Laurence Bedford tells me that his hiking buddy Sven Davis cut the handle off his toothbrush to save the weight. Laurence grins and says, “Minimalism gets to be a religion. As Sven reads his books, he tears the pages out that he’s read, and he burns them in the campfire. Sven uses one cup, for tequila at night, and the next morning your oatmeal smells like tequila.” Naturalist John Muir said a good way to start a hike is to “throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence.”

And that’s what Sven and Laurence set off to do, a camping trip in Big Sur up in Carmel Valley. They park Sven’s old Subaru near China Camp, put on their packs and walk down the Pine Valley Trail, intending to hike four miles and set up camp in a meadow for a few days. Their hike starts perfectly on a gorgeous spring day, and they were getting close to the meadow.

Laurence said, “It was our alcohol-free trip, we didn’t have anything to nip on.” They did 3 ½ miles and were not far from their meadow destination.

The Sound of a Hike Changing

The two friends were walking under an ancient, giant tree, shooting the shit.

Laurence says, ‘Hey Sven, you know those pumas and cougars?”

As Laurence walks, he turns his head to look back at Sven.  

“They sleep in the trees during the day. We’re always looking for them in the grass. But they could be right up there.”

The two men made eye contact to consider the imagined cougar in the tree, when they both heard a sharp crack from Laurence’s ankle. Sven said that he could feel the sound. They continued looking at each other knowing their future had just changed.

 

Sven remembers, “3 1/2 miles in and suddenly Lawrence’s ankle just goes pop. Like he just stepped on something weird.  It literally made a noise. I said, ‘Let’s sit down for a minute. Let’s take, take stock on what’s going on here.’ It was kind of obvious that he hurt it, and so we hobbled over to the creek nearby.”

Laurence goes, “Yeah, there is a moment of panic, you know, something just went crack in my ankle and I could feel it swelling. It swelled up really, really fast. When you don’t know if it was broken, when you don’t know what you’re dealing with… your mind now is racing. We’re in the fucking middle of nowhere.” OutdoorLife.com says, “The first part of surviving an injury is immobilizing the moving parts. It’s always best to immobilize the next joint up from the injury, if possible. If an ankle seems sprained, immobilize it up to the knee.”

They didn’t know what to do. They knew they weren’t walking out that day and knew they didn’t want to get airlifted, they didn’t have cell phone reception anyway. And they also knew the old adage, “You don’t take your boot off because the swelling will ever not let you put the boot back on.”

I ask Laurence, “So what happened to your ankle?”

“My foot got caught and then snapped.  We were near a small stream with really cold water. 

Wilderness First Aid says, if something happens to you like that, they tell you not to take your boots off because you’ll never be able to put it back on. Your boot is supposed to contain the swelling, but instead, I took my boot off and stuck my foot into the cold stream. We had supplies for two, three days. I was like, ‘Hey, this is a good place.’ I could barely get my tent together.  I was right next to the water, and we made a fire.”

It took one full day with his foot in cold water to contain the swelling, Laurence slept in his tent on the bank with his foot in the water for 23 hours. The swelling stabilized. On the second day, Sven started making crutches, using knots he had learned to tie in the Boy Scouts. The next morning, they tested them and the crutches worked. Laurence could plant both crutches out in front of him and then swing his body forward, land on his good right foot, replant the crutches in front of him and keep swinging forward. It was faster than walking.

Crutches for a Man with Tape

Laurence tells me, “The second day Sven engineered the crutches and you know, you always have duct tape. You always have nylon string, you know, there you have basic stuff that you always have with you.”

I interrupt Laurence’s story, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. You always have duct tape with you? You’re hiking and you have duct tape?” 

“Yes! Always have duct tape.”

An Outdoor Life Survival Skill manual agrees that duct tape can help when assembling a crutch in the wild, “The fork should be heavily padded by wrapping it with clothing or another soft material. A little duct tape works well.”

Laurence had a four inch saw on a knife, but just as Sven assembled his long sticks to start in with the little saw, a passing hiker stopped and unfolded a large crosscut saw and Sven cut his sticks in a few minutes. 

The crutches worked perfectly, the left foot never touched the ground, he developed a swinging cadence that outpaced Sven.  “You just put both of them down at the same time. You swing forward and land on your one good foot. My left foot never really had to touch the ground.”  Laurence was deeply impressed by Sven’s crutches. “You know they stood up to my weight and everything. I mean, the engineering was great.”

So, they were home free, with Laurence swinging his body through his crutches, clipping along fast, and Sven goes, “Like, dude, stop! Listen! There is a rattlesnake just hanging on the trail.” Laurence says, “The rattlesnake came out of the grass and then started coming forward, I heard the rattle but didn’t know where it was. It was coming across the path at us. I backed up and then Sven came up with a tree branch and encouraged it into the woods. We continued our journey and made it out in record time.”

 

Laurence Bedford, doing it for the chicks.

 Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home,

Your house is on fire…

Laurence’s grapefruit ankle turned out to be a severe sprain and got better. He wanted to return to get his backpack and gear but was delayed by the Big Sur fires and floods of 2018…

“We had taken pictures of the locale and the tree. I had documentation of where that pack was so we could go back and get it. We had to go through two seasons of fire and flood. I didn’t end up going back up there for two years.”

“The 2018 wildfire season was the deadliest and most destructive wildfire season on record in California, with a total of over 7,500 fires burning an area of over 1,670,000 acres, the largest area of burned acreage recorded in a fire season.” (fire.ca.gov)

 

Laurence returned to the Pine Valley trail in 2019 to find that the big tree, his pack, and the whole forest was gone. Laurence keeps Sven’s crutches in his office at The Rio Theatre.

 

Take A Hike with Richard Stockton – Land of Medicine Buddha Hike

As a student at UCSC I got into reincarnation. The most fun I had with reincarnation is when I gave a cop someone else’s license.

He goes, “Hey, this isn’t you.”

I said, “Well, not now.”

What a moron.

Sunday morning, I drive to Land of Medicine Buddha, too full of national news. I am in a preoccupied stew that life has become a tapestry of conforming submission, of clenched teeth, exhausted sleep. I cannot listen to one more story about Santa Cruzans leaving town because of housing. I turn up Prescott Road for one mile and park down the hill from Land of Medicine Buddha. I want some Buddha medicine right now.

Walking with Buddha – Land of Medicine Buddha Trail                                

Land of Medicine Buddha is a 108-acre redwood Buddhist refuge adjacent to the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park up Glen Haven Road and is all about spiritual development and renewal. The place pops – they have Buddhist and innovative secular education, retreats, sacred sites, wellness programs, a primary school, end of life care, and the reason I’m here, nature trails that climb the mountain and circle back into the larger loop through Nisene Marks State Park.

There is no hyperbole when describing the stunning beauty of the coastal redwoods. And on the refuge’s hiking paths there are Buddhist paintings, sculptures and wooden benches with prayer flags hung between the trees. Today’s Buddha-walk is perfect, I get to straddle the difference between human self-hood, and the vast, sublime, expanse of nature.

The parked cars on the right stop inches before a cliff drops off to Bates Creek far below. It is Sunday morning and the retreat’s private lot up the hill to the left is packed with cars.

The Body Knows

I pull into a parking space in front of the sharp drop-off into Bates Creek. I’m here at the Land of Medicine Buddha seeking “deep inner joy and a kind heart,” but for now just grateful I didn’t go over the edge. Out of my car, I’m stiff and cold, my feet hurt. My balance wobbles.

 

Overcoming physical challenges is integral to the practice of hiking. Hikers have blisters, blackened toenails, stressed menisci around their knees, sciatica pain – it goes with the territory. The value of hiking comes from its challenges. Physical exertion eventually suspends the incessant brain chatter that keeps me from letting my body tell me what I need to know. When I’m pulling hard up a long hill, I reach the point of no-mind, and my nervous system gives me an audible sound. I can hear my brain go “clunk” and turn off. And then I can ask my body what I need to know, be it about the direction of this article, how to respond to loved one or how to deal with adversity, the veil of thoughts have been lifted that keep me from knowing myself. My body knows what I need to know and is eager to tell me. I hike to be able to hear it.

I’ve got a leg up on Buddha. This morning I’m walking on three.

The Three-Legged Way

Twenty steps from my car I can tell that it’s climbing uphill that lights up my left knee. The paved driveway up to Land of Medicine Buddha is very steep. I did 45 minutes of yoga last night, got seven hours of sleep, this is about as up as I get, so I am perturbed that walking is suddenly difficult. Necessity is a mother and I grab the hiking stick I’ve been carrying in my car.

I haven’t had the stick long. I was playing music at a Sacramento farmer’s market and a crusty Vietnam veteran says he makes walking sticks for vets. I tell him I’m not a vet, but he wants me to have it anyway. The pole is light and strong, with a rubber foot on the bottom. He said, “You can use it to fight a dog, a person, a coyote or a mountain lion, but don’t use it to fight a bear.”

As I lift my left foot forward, I push the staff into the ground to my right. My left hand pushes down on the top of the staff and my right hand grips the staff about two feet down. This low pole-vault takes a lot of weight off my left knee. I may scrabble up a steep incline like a three-legged crab, but I make it to the top of the hill and my left knee feels OK. Not on fire. Not inflamed. I’m sure you would be amused by my rowing motion with my staff; it feels like my staff is a paddle and I am rowing through earth. I make it up the hill, then the next one and the next. The path climbs1200 feet in the first half mile. Hiking the steep paths of Land of Medicine Buddha, my staff feels like the medicine.

The retreat’s central area has attractions like a huge bell you ring to relieve the suffering of loved ones.

They want you to spin everything clockwise, they want you to move clockwise. The Land of Kid-Friendly-Buddhism.

There are many paths to choose from and I am quickly lost. Henry Thoreau said, “The relinquishing of the physical map allows your brain to build new mental models. It can give you a newfound trust that you can locate in your body.”

There are signs everywhere that say, “Shhhh. People are meditating, please be quiet.” It makes me want to sing the Meditating Buddhist Monk Blues,

“I ain’t doing nothing,

I ain’t doing nothing,

I ain’t doing nothing,

And I ain’t done yet.”

There are small Buddha sculptures in the trees and small signs with messages about releasing attachment. I ask myself, “Is my backpack attached to me? Or am I attached to my backpack?”

Buddhists have a walking meditation. That beats a cursing meditation by a mile.

 Siddartha was asked, “And what is it now that you’ve got to give? What is it that you have learned?”

“I can think. I can wait. I can walk.” – Siddartha, Hermann Hesse

Walking is an important form of Buddhist meditation, a deep spiritual practice. Walking meditation is integral to the continuous development of mindfulness. Signs carved into wood planks describe how the Buddha “walked to develop mindfullness”, is the most respected and loved creature “who walked on two feet.” OK, so Buddha walks on two feet. Yeah? I’m walking on three feet.

Q: How much “ego” do you need?
A: Just enough so you don’t step in front of a bus.
Shunryu Suzuki

It’s a steep climb to the temple, and the path stays steep up the ridge of the mountain. It rained yesterday and you can see where people have slid in the mud. It’s easy to tell when you’re onto the state park land, no Buddha sculptures. Once near the top, the loop I take is fairly level and goes all the way around the mountain before it descends back down to the Land of Medicine Buddha.  

Friedrich Nietzsche said, “Keep walking, and at some point in the repetition, the pilgrim becomes the prayer, or the prayer becomes him. What he is worshipping, something distant and otherworldly, somehow comes home in mid-stride.”

A student called out to his master on the other side of the river,

“Master, how do I get on the other side?”

“You are on the other side!”

This trailhead and several miles of this trail are on the private property of the Land of Medicine Buddha Retreat Center. Visitors to the retreat center may have to park outside as parking priority is reserved for those participating in courses, programs, or retreats. For more information, visit: https://stay.landofmedicinebuddha.org/about-us/the-land/

How To Get There: take the Porter Exit off Hwy 1, take Main Street north and continue on Glen Haven Road. Turn right on Prescott Road, continue for one mile, and then park below the Land of Buddha Medicine’s driveway. Their parking lot onsite is for guests of the retreat.

 

Take A Hike with Richard Stockton – Salinas River Beach State Park

                                        A slowsational lollygag on the beach.

During my brief running phase, I ran in the Santa Cruz to Capitola Wharf to Wharf Race. I was dead last. The guy who was right in front of me, second to last, starts making fun of me.

“Hey buddy, how does it feel to be last back there?”

I said, “You really want to know what it feels like to be last?”

And I drop out of the race.

“Walking is not a sport. Putting one foot in front of the other is child’s play. When walkers meet, there is no result, no time… walking is the best way to go more slowly than any other method that has ever been found” – French philosopher Frédéric Gros, Philosophy of Walking.

Many people want to walk fast, it’s the main thing. When we’re driving it might seem reasonable to make good time. In a speeding car, the world looks general. It’s not until we join the land, one step at a time, that it becomes particular. I’m deeply impressed by people who can hike twenty miles or more in one day. That’s not what I’m after, I’m after these friends. The lesson today is to find our slowness. Today is about what mysteries happen when we lollygag.

Slow Walking, Soul Talking

In this day when every possible experience gets a Yelp rating, when there is a fee attached to everything short of breathing, hiking offers the most incredible deal imaginable: free travel. It gets even better. Take a hike and when you’re done, you’re somewhere else. 

Sleepy John Sandidge is El Jefe of our group and leads us to Salinas River State Beach. We drive south on Hwy 1 past Moss Landing.

“Hiking for nothing, ticks for free”

Sleepy John Sandidge, Ben Rice and I, will be joined by half a dozen friends. In terms of life path, it is a motley group. There will be the retired judge, the retired lawyer, the retired dentist, the retired newspaper publisher, and on the other hand there is me and Sleepy John. The difference is that the haves never speak about their millions of dollars, while Sleepy John and I never stop talking about our hundreds. I ride with Sleepy John on the way down to Salinas River Beach.

I say, “Sleepy John, do you consider yourself retired?”

“Definitely. I just can’t figure out from what.”

“Well, you did retire from your Please Stand By live radio show. A 1650-show-run on KPIG is a lot to retire from.”

“True. It’s amazing what little impact ending that show had on my income. You?”

“I don’t think the word ‘retired’ applies to me. I’ve been looking for work since Covid.”

“I think that is called ‘unemployed.’ But hiking is kind of your new job. You’re making money right now. Right?”

“Big bucks. Tens of dollars.”

Sleepy John and I break into a duet to the tune of Money for Nothing by Dire Straits.

“Hiking for nothing, ticks for free.”

 

 

Doctors will tell you, “If you’ve seen one 80-year-old, you’ve seen one 80-year-old.” This November 1^st, Sleepy John Sandidge will turn 85. Here he is picking up trash on Salinas River Beach. He is an inspiration to those of us who aspire to become a tough old coot.

Blown Off Course

From the parking lot, we walk out a sand pathway that opens to the beach.

We are mystified to find thousands of stranded, four inch long, blue, muscle-like creatures that have a sail-like membrane on top. We Google them and find they are Velella velella, 
tiny colonies of organisms with a clear fin sticking out the top and tentacles dangling down. This free-floating hydrozoan lives on the surface of the open ocean, and are also called sea raft, by-the-wind sailor, purple sail, or little sail.

^{Sleepy John Sandidge and Jeanne Howard photograph stranded Velella}

Anya Stajner, from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, says, “Though they look like one organism, velella are colonies of creatures from a class called hydrozoa. They spend most of their lives out in the open ocean, searching the water column below them with tentacles that sting fish larvae or zooplankton, but are harmless to humans. One part of the colony is responsible for eating, another for reproduction. Each by-the-wind sailor is a colony of all-male or all-female polyps.”

We walk through thousands of them on the beach, like a stranded, blue tide. As much as I like to blame climate change for everything, these critters are not jumping out of a burning forest to get stranded on the beach. Their fixed sail limits their navigation to tacking with a 45-degree angle with the wind and sometimes the wind just takes them too close to the shore and waves wash them up onto the sand. The lines of dying animals are inches deep and go for miles.

Stranded Velella.

Richard Stockton finds affordable housing at last.

And the final word from Frédéric Gros, “To walk, you need to start with two legs, the rest is optional.” 

I recommend Salinas River Beach State Park for lollygagging with friends. We found soft sand, and beach shoes work. There are porta-potty opportunities along the way and beautiful ocean views and dunes with stunning vegetation. It’s not so much of a hike as a great beach walk. Saw a guy fishing and met some gregarious state workers setting up ropes to protect the nesting area of the Western Snowy Plovers. I found the cutest Snowy Plover chick video on earth: https://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=28119

 

 

Take A Hike with Richard Stockton – Hiking in a Storm in the Byrne-Milliron Forest  

… is it worth the risk to hike in a storm? 

I make the mistake of turning on NPR. As I drive past the Corralitos Market and 

Sausage Company on Hames Road and turn left on Browns Valley Road, I hear a 

Texas politician pontificate about his divine knowledge of when life begins. For 

me, that would be my first cup of coffee. I turn on my windshield wipers and 

wonder, “Why the hell am I heading for the Byrne-Milliron Forest in this storm? 

Who would drive through driving rain to climb a mountain?” I’m indeed a curious 

duck.  

 

SIGNS OF CONFUSION Browns Valley or Brown Valley? Google Maps and the neighbors say Browns.

The Roses of Yesterday and Today sign with Monarch Butterflies on it is an easy 

landmark for the road up to the parking lot. Turn left onto the entrance road across 

from the Roses sign. It’s about a mile up to the Land Trust parking lot. 

 

My Prius is the only car in the parking lot. There is a blue porta-potty that claims a 

video camera is capturing everything. I wasn’t too keen on using the porta-potty 

anyway but reading that my defecation reflex efforts are going to be captured on 

video makes me want to take my chances with a poop bag in the woods.  

I start from the parking lot and find the Byrne Trail. The rain has slacked off, but 

the wind picks up. It blows harder and harder. The trees bend sideways, creak, and 

pop. Is this a little crazy to be up here now? Yeah, it probably is. I’ll try not to get 

hit in the head with a redwood limb.  

Why do I love hiking in a storm? 

Inclement weather can turn a hike into an adventure. Even the easiest trail feels 

like it’s going into uncharted territory. You can’t see far, you pay more attention to 

what’s under your feet. You become wild. You’re not just a person invading the 

landscape, you’re part of it. 

Rain is easy. We’re made of water. Wind is different. Wind is to be reckoned with. 

Wind can be frightening. I was near a tornado once. Very near.  

 

It’s 1996, I’m in Lubbock, Texas, and the comedy club put me up in a motel room 

that has indoor-outdoor carpet on the floor. The walls shake every time a cattle 

truck goes by.  I pace the floor and berate myself.  

“I’ve been a comic for ten years and I’m playing in Lubbock, Texas at a club 

called Froggy Bottoms.”

That’s when I hear the wind. At first it whistles around the windows but grows 

to pound the little motel and the walls shake. I turn on the radio. The DJ says, “Get 

down people. The big blow’s comin’. Ya’ll, it is time to git to the root cellar!” The 

radio dies and the lights go out. I tremble in the dark as the walls rattle and the 

wind howls. I’m going to die in Lubbock, Texas. 

I go to the door, because being from California, I know that it is safer in a 

doorway. I open the door three inches. I see a lawn chair blow by. A garbage can 

shoots down the street. I see a young boy, caught out in the tornado. He is being 

blown down the street. I should go out and carry him to safety, right? Where 

exactly is it safe? Am I going to do nothing? Will I let a child perish?   

Wait a minute. He is on a skateboard. He has his jacket pulled up over his head 

as a sail to catch the wind. He shoots past and I hear him yell. 

“Yeeeeeeeeeehaaaawoo!”

I shake and he sails. There it is. You can cower in fear or go on the ride of your 

life. No, I did not save that boy, he saved me.  

Tornados aside, how dangerous is it to hike in a storm? 

In the central coast I think we can probably get away with hiking in weather. Our 

climate is so temperate, you’re not going to freeze, you’re not going to die of thirst, 

and it’s not like I’m going to get lost on the Byrne-Milliron mountain and starve to 

death. It would be hard to get lost enough to even have an intermittent fast.  

 

I talk to a woodlot owner, with 20 years in the forest industry. He says, “Walking    in the forest during windy conditions can pose risks, especially if there are old or weak trees. You may be able to hear a tree start to fall, but the question is if you 

will have enough time to react and get out of the way. It can be dangerous, 

particularly in softwood stands.”  

Softwood? That would be redwoods, right? Like the giants that are creaking, 

moaning and groaning all around me?

I make it to the Byrne Trail Observation deck and can look over Watsonville all the 

way to the ocean and a panorama of much of Monterey Bay. This observation deck 

alone is worth the trip. Binoculars are amazing up here. 

The deck looks like a stage, with Monterey Bay as the backdrop. I feel like King 

Lear, shouting into the wind.  

“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! ​

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout ​

Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!”

 

The rain stops, the wind dies down. Blue sky opens over the ocean and the angry 

heavens pass over us. I’ll bet you a dollar that back in the day, Ohlone Native Americans 

would stand here to check in on their land and their tribe. It feels like they are here now. 

I’ve walked the mountain, with nothing but the feel of the wind and rain across my 

face. I’m at peace with my storms. Tromping around a mountain of old trees in a 

violent storm? Probably not a good idea and I don’t recommend that you do it. 

Unless you have to. Then pull your coat up over your head to catch the wind. 

 

How To Get There: Take Highway 1 to Freedom Blvd., cross over the freeway 

and drive up Freedom to Hames Road. Drive through the metropolis of Corralitos 

which consists of the Corralitos Market and Sausage Factory and continue straight. 

Turn left at Browns Valley Road and go until you see the Roses of Yesterday and 

Today sign, with Monarch Butterflies on it. Turn left there. The road up to the 

Land Trust parking lot is approximately a mile after you turn off Brown’s Valley 

Road. 

Byrne-Milliron Forest Land Trust: a 2.9-mile loop trail near Watsonville, 

California. Considered a moderately challenging route, it takes maybe 2 hours to 

complete. This is a popular trail for birding, hiking, and walking, but you can still 

find solitude. The trail is open year-round and is great to visit anytime. Dogs are 

welcome and may be off leash in some areas.

 

 

 

Take A Hike with Richard Stockton – Fall Creek Hike to Limestone Kiln

… It’s about the next step.

It’s dawn and I’m the first to park in the Henry Cowell State Park parking lot up Felton-Empire Grade Road. I had to use my phone alarm to wake up. I hope hiking will get my circadian rhythm in alignment with the sun and moon, but for now my circadian rhythm is in alignment with Netflix and my bladder. My left knee cramps and my phone says its 40 degrees. I thought hell would be warmer.

Fall Creek Hike, from the Henry Cowell parking lot to the Limestone Kiln.

From damaged to managed

If you are a beginning or casual hiker, this column may be for you. If I can walk these trails, you can too. I hike every week, but I am not good at it. I have knee issues, I have endurance issues, I have mental issues. That’s why I hike. Does this hiking column have the legs to find an audience? Do I have the legs? At my age I don’t have time not to hike. I plan to open a store called Forever 71. It will sell trekking poles and shoes.              

Two years ago, I wanted to get in the best shape of my life. And I wanted to do it quickly (I hope you are enjoying the coming train wreck.) I started running. My first time I was a wheezing mess in two minutes, four months later I was doing thirty minutes at a stretch.

I became a master of how slow you can go and technically still be jogging. I ran like I was playing soccer underwater.One afternoon I did my thirty-minute jog and felt like my feet were not even touching the ground. I stopped listening to my body and sped up. At 44 minutes I heard a pop in my left knee and limped home. I tried to fix it with more exercise but overdid that and hurt both knees. I walked with crutches all winter. I had to rest, and backed off all leg work to let my menisci heal. It took months for the pain to subside. I started working with a physical therapist and began to recover. Toe lifts, squats, lunges… but what really got my legs strong was riding a stationary bike. Rode it all spring. Never got far.

Leonard Cohen says that we are but “a brief elaboration of a tube.” I will take care not to spring a leak. Two years ago, I tried running. Now, I will try walking. Every day I exercise… caution.

I stand at the trail head with my staff, water bottle, with a Go Pro video camera attached to my chest harness and my left knee cramps hard. I’m standing here in the parking lot staring at the trail head feeling the damn knee throb. Am I making this pain happen psychosomatically? Did I come this far just to come this far? I stand on my right leg and stretch my left. The pain backs off and the only thing to do is to take the next step.

The Fall Creek trail head begins with a gentle descent. Maybe my left knee will warm up.

I’m hiking alone this morning; it is so still even the trail becomes thoughtful. The morning fog covers this land that was once under water, part of an ancient ocean, uplifted to form the Santa Cruz Mountains about three million years ago. The silt, sand, and mud that had been deposited in that shallow sea compressed into the shale, sandstone, and mudstone that make up the Santa Cruz mountains today. We’re headed to the stone remains of the Limestone Kiln. “Limestone is a sedimentary rock commonly composed of tiny fossils.” (scparks.com)

I’m a mile or so in. It’s seven-thirty and a shaft of light breaks through and mist rises over the trees to clear a path for more sunrays to stream into the forest making more moisture airborne. Spiraling dewdrops swirl upwards, and the sunlight breaks into a million promises.

My left knee is tender descending. Ah, the joy of hiking uphill. But as the heat from the rising sun burns the midst off, the trail burns off the tightness in my leg. By keeping my muscles fired from toes to nose like we learn to do in yoga, my body forms a union of support, and I can take the next step. If you walk in nature up and down hills, your legs will get stronger and you will get a rock-hard derriere.

“I’m gonna search and find a better way to walk…” Billy Joe Shaver

 I’m Just An Old Chunk Of Coal (But I’m Gonna Be A Diamond Someday).

Long time hikers seem to gravitate towards trekking poles. Poles can give you an upper body workout, even with a single staff. Got a trick left knee? Try the staff in your right hand. Physical therapist Dr. Morgan Fielder says, “If you’re like me, your knees can hurt on the downhills. Trekking poles may help you tackle the downhills with more confidence and reduce the forces on lower body joints.” I need to heed the good doctor and get into poles.

The Fall Creek Trail feels like it was created by J.R.R. Tolkien. Surely, I am in Middle Earth.

You’ve got a lot of choices to go shorter or longer. I’ve discovered that since I became unemployed, anywhere on earth is within walking distance.

Made it! My heavy legs made it back out. I am in an altered state… this parking lot looksfamiliar. Think Richard, think. Did I bring my wife’s car or mine? When I find my car, I use my hands to pull my legs up under the wheel like they’re carry-ons. If I do yoga tonight, tomorrow I will move like a dancer. Did my journey answer the question, “Will hiking keep me alive?” Maybe it will keep you alive. Did we come this far just to come this far? It’s all about the next step.

I invite you to join me here https://youtu.be/1LBhF3vN2GY to take a two-minute time-lapse video of the trail, or by phone.

How To Get There: the day-use area of Fall Creek State Park Trail is in the Santa Cruz Mountains south of downtown Felton on Highway 9. From Highway 17, take the Mt. Hermon Road exit. Follow Mt. Hermon Road until it ends at Graham Hill Road. Or take Graham Hill Road up to Felton Highway 9, go across the intersection and up the Felton-Empire Grade Road for a mile and the Henry Cowell State Park lot is on your right.

Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park: with 20 miles of trails and skyscraping, old growth redwoods that are accessible from the day-use side of the park.  There is grassland, river, sandhills as well. You’ll see banana slugs, black-tailed deer, coyotes, bobcats, and now at the Felton Fish Ladder, steelhead trout and coho salmon.

Special thanks to my contributing editor Julie Flannery.

 

 

Take A Hike with Richard Stockton

            … think outside, no box required.

Rio del Mar Trail, get your Vitamin Sea

The French supercentenarian Jeanne Louise Calment was not just alive at 122, she thrived. She said, “I’ve only got one wrinkle and I’m sitting on it.” Today I hike with my French connection Laurence Bedford, songwriter Rick Zeek and our El Jefe, the 85-year-old Sleepy John Sandidge. Sleepy John says, “Dying is not an option. I don’t have the budget.” Sleepy John is a hiking inspiration to celebrate age pride. He says, “Aging is not contagious, everyone’s got it.”

This is a beach walk, and you’ll appreciate it if you remember to bring shades or a hat. The sun gives life, and it takes it away. I used to wear sunblock to keep from getting wrinkled. Now I wear sunblock to keep from looking homeless.

Synchronicity strikes when my three boys decide to hike the Rio del Mar Beach, because I follow the shenanigans of the Rio del Mar Homeowners Association, who have illegally blocked off the public path in front of their rental houses so they can advertise that they offer a private beach. We park in the free parking lot in front of The Pixie Deli.

I always thought that as I aged, I would become more of an activist. Turns out I just get crankier. My tee shirt should say, “I’m flabby on the outside, crabby on the inside.” Friedrich Nietzsche said that hiking is a political act. Today his idea turns out to be a little too on the nose. We start walking south, right past the disputed public walkway that the Rio del Mar HOA is trying to rip off. The rental houses look empty, we’re the only ones on the path. The boys walk ahead of me and then head to the surf. I’m meandering along the pathway, snapping photos of the erosion from the last flood, taking pictures of the real estate rental signs. I hear someone behind me.

“Who are you?”

I turn to see a well-dressed, 60-something lady. She is livid. Eyes red. She hisses,

“Who are you?”

“Oh. Hi. I’m Richard Stockton.” I extend my hand.

She does not look at my hand. She steps closer.

 “Who are you?”

I am pretty sure I had covered that but get the idea she means something different. She takes a step closer.

“Who are you and what do you think you’re doing here?”

“I’m walking on a public path.”

“This is a private path. That’s why there are barriers.”

“You mean the barriers that the California Coastal Commission ordered the HOA to take down. Why do you think you can deny my use of this path?”

“It’s in the judgement.”

Of course. My new Karen friend is talking about a 2022 civil court ruling that said the City of Santa Cruz does not own the path. However, as Lisa Haage, Chief of Enforcement at the Coastal Commission pointed out, “It’s not relevant who owns the walkway.” Indeed, since the California Coastal Act of 1972, the Coastal Commission has the state mandated power to make sure everyone has access to the beach. I attended that December 14, 2023 Commission hearing when the board adopted all five resolutions by the staff by unanimous vote and ordered the Rio del Mar HOA to cease and desist with the encroachment of the pathway and pay $4.8 million in penalties.

My Karen snaps, “Where do you live?”

“I live in Santa Cruz. Where do you live?”

She takes a deep breath and steps back. Of course, she’s an investor.

“So, you don’t live here.”

“I am an owner.”

“And you’re mad that I’m using this public pathway.”

“It’s not public. What are you doing here?”

“I write for Good Times Weekly Santa Cruz.”

She flinches and takes a step back. I am emboldened.

“I’m just doing my job… to report why you think I can’t walk here.”

“It’s in the judgement.”

“OK. I’m sure you want me to disappear, but we both know that’s not going to happen. What should I do here? How do you want me to do my job?”

She takes another step back, her lips tight, fists clenched.

“Read the judgement.”

“I have read the court’s judgment, and it does not refute the Coastal Commission’s authority to keep this path open. If you really believe that I am trespassing, let’s call the police.”

I hold up my phone. The woman glowers, spins away and stomps off.

When I catch up with the boys, they ask me who my new friend is. We discuss how the mechanics of capitalism works to take away our very access to the ocean. We have been pushed to the left edge of America, as far as we can go. We have no choice, this is where we make our stand. This beach is our Normandy.

I say, “But I will not denigrate the intelligence of the Rio del Mar housing investors who claim that the California state beach access law does not apply to them. Denigrate means ‘to put down.’”

Laurence gets excited about investigating the people who own these rental houses and we form a detective agency. That night Laurence texts me that of every house owner he has tracked so far, none live in Santa Cruz.

The HOA put up large new fences blocking access to an embattled beachside walkway that the homeowner’s claim the public has no right to access. They advertise their rentals as having a private beach. The powerful, quasi-judicial California Coastal Commission says otherwise. 

Man carrying his dog over barriers that the Rio del Mar HOA used to block the public pathway. Robert Moddelmog, enforcement agent of the Coastal Commission, says, “Our goal is not to have the public climbing fences.”

Coastal Commission officials say even if the walkway does belong to the property owners, the state law mandating coastal access supersedes that. The agency says state law requiring public coastal access would overrule a decision by a local judge to privatize the walkway. A woman passing by says, “The best solution would be for a tsunami to wipe it out.”

The ocean is always stunning. Terrifying. This is where Mother Earth shows you the curvature of the earth as the water bends out of sight.

 

Laurence comments that it looks like they’re bulldozing the beach back into the ocean. This wall is apparently a turn on for people who like concrete in volume.

Dogs are welcome on Rio del Mar Beach, but you’re supposed to keep them on leashes.

One of this trail’s reviewers on AllTrails.com says the beach is lousy with criminals who do not keep their dogs on leashes. I guess he’s talking about my hiking companions, clearly dangerous.

We don’t want the day to end, so we go to the Pixie Deli and Good Eats at the end of the parking lot. They have a banner over their entrance that says, “No shirt, no shoes, no pants, no problem.” We could be tired, we could be stoned, but the food is incredible. We eat on their wonderful patio in the sun, out of the wind.

I paid $16 for this salad, but it was amazing. And it comes with Danielle’s smile.
I invite you to join me on this hike with a 2 minute time-lapse video.

How To Get There: take Highway 1 south to Rio del Mar Blvd, Exit 433B. Follow that all the way down to the parking lot. Dogs are welcome but must be on a leash. I’m pretty sure that The Rio del Mar Homeowners Association would like to have all four of us on a leash.

Special thanks to Julie Flannery for her editing contribution.