On the Trail

Out Along Ol


 

 



Out in the proverbial middle of nowhere we recently encountered a rather daunting sign. This was while hiking along Ol’ Lonesome Trail, an overgrown road cut that is primarily used by the occasional equestrian now.


Lonesome’s what may be described as a somewhat hairy trail, scratchy with dense unyielding thigh-high brush, riddled with gaping fissures in the earth around eroding drainage pipe sites, and where rockslides periodically force edgy, precarious detours.


It may seem far from the madding crowd, but you can clearly hear cyclists chattering as they climb a nearby ridge, hear the lawnmowers going at a golf course in the vicinity, and hear dogs yapping at area homesteads. Sometimes you can hear one of those homesteaders taking target practice on his property. Boom-boom-BOOM!


During the wet season this gnarly little footpath is easily a candidate for the most tick-infested trail in the Santa Monica Mountains. Thirty-five firmly fastened ticks once rode home on the dog.


Still, we like Ol’ Lonesome despite its rough and tumble aspects because the trail delivers us to a (sometimes) wind-sheltered vantage point that provides expansive canyon and ocean views.


Though some might consider it a real inconvenient place to travel to, it’s always felt like a safe place to pack in a picnic lunch, maybe take a sun-kissed siesta then while away the day watching hawks circle overhead and distant fog clouds form then melt over Catalina or Anacapa Islands.


We’ve been frequent visitors for three straight years or since I acquired a new dog as maladjusted as I am to hiking on popular but narrow single track multi-use trails, where a clash of outdoors ethics—or touch of claustrophobia—may occur among the blend of recreational users attempting to squeeze past one another. (In the Santa Monica Mountains the National Park Service is now cutting new trails wider, possibly to defuse any congestion/conflict issues, and also to better accommodate their emergency equipment.)


Even the resident wildlife seems to regard our frequent appearances along Ol’ Lonesome in a blasé manner. Recently a bobcat sprayed his scent on some buckwheat a few paces ahead of us then sauntered on at a most leisurely pace, utterly ignoring the dog who watched in stupefied silence. Some of the most vocal coyotes on the planet dwell thereabouts, too, and lots of soft-spoken quail.


Deer surprise us at twilight, ungently sashaying through what appears to be some really impenetrable brush. Large owls have swooped close overhead both day and night. A horned toad rules one rocky segment of trail. He’s repugnant looking but a very mellow fellow.


But it was a little pale green laminated sign tacked to a buckbrush that upset the harmonious balance we’d long enjoyed traveling along Ol’ Lonesome. We spied it one afternoon in early fall after our summer-long hiking hiatus due to the trail’s torrid heat, stingy shade and abundant rattlesnake habitat. The sign’s edges were curling from weather exposure. The type was small enough to require me to fetch my drugstore reading glasses.


"Danger," it read. "This is a mountain lion trapping area. A trapped mountain lion is extremely dangerous. Do not enter and keep pets away."


The power of suggestion can be staggering. As I eyeballed that sign, tacked to a small native tree whose branches I’d ducked under for the last three years en route to a blissfully secluded setting for lunch, a snooze and nature study, my throat constricted and my spine tingled. I clutched the dog’s leash like a drowning person clings to a lifeline.


I’d felt this sudden onset of panic only once before, while hiking on the rugged northwest tip of the island of Molokai. After traveling heedlessly for miles, my companion and I spotted a wooden sign that had been broken off its post near the footpath we’d been following and flung on some rocks. It read:


"Unexploded ordnance in this area. Keep out."


We’d immediately and gingerly shifted our progress into reverse.


Similarly, this trapping business instantly changed the complexion of things along Ol’ Lonesome. According to the sign, big cats suspected of being somewhere thereabouts were being deliberately lured into the area by baited traps. Once caught, they were understandably not happy campers. We lammed it outta there but fast!


According to a ranger I spoke with two days later, the trap is a leg snare and the bait is not meat but a scent that wildlife biologists have found to be attractive to big cats. Traps are checked twice daily or removed during holiday periods when no one is available to go check. (This somewhat assuaged my concerns over how humane this program of trapping and tranquilizing a reclusive wild creature is, in the name of scientific study. The cats are fitted with hi-tech tracking collars and released.)


Ol’ Lonesome was selected for the very reasons I love it—it’s off the beaten track and it’s frequented by wildlife (being "a game trail" as the ranger referred to it).


Still, Nature didn’t rain down unexploded ordnance on a tranquil tropical island’s remote tip or set out baited traps for big cats in the Santa Monica Mountains. Sometimes it may be that the actions of man will elicit the most dire dread.




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