Forever

The dog just sat on my cheese sandwich.

Few things are as traumatic to a famished hiker than: the dog sitting on your cheese sandwich; or you being uncommonly benevolent and giving her the last of your water only to see her knock the cup over without taking so much as a sip. But the rustling of wrappers always gets her attention because somewhere in the bottom of my backpack are some canine treats and she has that old Pavlovian thing going. So she does her flawless "Miss Manners" does her flawlesssit, failing to take notice she's just set her 50-pound bulk atop my lunch, which was pretty mangled from its long journey from kitchen to Bridge No. 1 in the Little Trancas Oak Bowl. The National Park Service has built not one but two bridges in the Trancas Oak Bowl. That is its historic name; the Oak Bowl is actually an area along a "stand-alone" segment of the disjointed Backbone Trail, connecting nowhere (officially, anyway). It is accessed beyond a discreet trailhead marker near Fire Camp 13 on Encinal Canyon Road.

This is a very nice bridge. Actually, it's more than just a bridge, it's a span ranking with San Francisco's Golden Gate, although the dribble of creek it soars over would hardly seem to have warranted so grandiose a structure. In the old days some helpful person used to throw a rusted length of something or other across the wet stuff and hikers stepped lightly over this. Torrents making passage impossible are rarely experienced in this obscure creek crossing but the bridge is a nice if odd touch in this section of quiet oak woodland. And there's a second one, too, just as dramatic and unexpected, replacing a rotted plank we used to skip across. Progress, it catches up with you wherever you go.

So I rescue my flattened cheese sandwich, dig out my Cheez-Its and Kit-Kat bar and have lunch, then we mosey on. Somehow the dog manages to roust a rattler among the deep drifts of fallen oak leaves piled on the shadowed creek bank. She leaps backward. Tension pulses through the leash like an electrical charge. A split second later the rattler issues a warning. In the Oak Bowl's deep natural hush the buzzing sounds particularly sinister. The dog is unhurt, but I no longer have to speculate about the source of those gray strands lately cropping up on my noggin. Hiking seven years with this particular dog, I've yet to log a mellow adventure.

We bound across Bridge No. 2, thumping up and down on the planks for fun, leaning over the grit and bird dung-encrusted railing to toss pebbles into the clear water below. That's the upside of dog companionship-no snickering at such antics. Although it is parching hot and dry, towering Humboldt lily plants laden with their gorgeous red-speckled orange trumpets blare their dazzling brightness along creek banks just below the bridge. As we start the climb out of the secluded woods, up a steepish rocky chaparral slope, we spot a brown sign carved with five letters someone's painted white. Most official park service signs are brown but this one resembles something you might find at a sleepaway camp. I study the carved letters, thinking it's some park service acronym for something. Then I step back to refocus on the sign. It's not an acronym but a word:

AGONY.

A trail called Agony. I look down at the dog.

"This is irresistible," I announce. "We must see what a trail called Agony is about." The dog has lately cooled her rattled nerves in Trancas Creek and is up to the challenge.

Perhaps on a hot day theAgony Trail would live up to its billing. But our jaunt is in late afternoon with a cool breath of fog blowing up from the coast and a light cloud cover. It's a straight uphill trail, not something to tackle in stiletto heels after a few highballs, but is very well cleared, a boon to those hiking with a tick magnet like a dog. But the Agony Trail offers no surprises like an old rusted guillotine parked at its summit. It's evidently been built by the Fire Camp 13 girls, who practice their wildland firefighting skills-including brush clearance and trail-cutting-on properties adjacent to their camp in the Santa Monica Mountains. (Their camp is actually a prison facility; these ladies are guests of the state of California and not to be confused with Campfire Girls.) For former miscreants they cut some mighty fine trails, and apparently use these for exercise jaunts under their watchful supervisors.

The Agony Trail descends to Encinal, and across Encinal from Fire Camp 13 is another Backbone Trail orphan segment, a one-mile amble to Mulholland Highway. Recently cut, in late spring the trail was lined in wildflowers that love disturbed soil, in particular bleeding heart and caterpillar phacelia. It was also lined with shoulderhigh thistle plants in some stretches and reduced to a single track between wild oats in others.

We encounter Rattler No. 2 near the trail's terminus and step over him without incident.

Someday a master seamstress will come aboard and stitch all these loose ends of the Backbone Trail together, and then the dog and I, we can meander through the mountains forever, leaping streams, dodging rattlers, never growing old, always having fun.