Today my early morning hike was darker than usual. I had been woken up by the sound of rain in the night and as I got out of my car it was still drizzling, the low cloud cover keeping visibility very low. I was wishing I had a flashlight as I stepped onto the trail and glad there was a woman behind me with one on her forehead, and a dog. But I didn’t wait for her and a few steps up the path a pair of large wings came flapping out of the darkness, crossing my path in a disorganized lift off, causing me to gasp and jump. It was a case of mutual fright and I had to laugh at myself a little for being nervous about hiking in the dark. What was I afraid of? An owl? Well, okay, I guess there are bears and mountain lions around and I could possibly run into one and frighten it into attacking me, but what were the chances? That dog behind me would scare them off. Next time, a flashlight.
It was lovely climbing up the path even though I couldn’t see and was hugging the hillside a bit, not wanting to accidentally step off the cliff side. The light behind me was just a flash, here and there, the way distant lightening can be before a storm. They were taking their time and I wasn’t, so it was more of a comfort than anything else, knowing she was behind me with her light and her dog.
The mist was thick and the morning was still just an idea with barely any signs of life coming to. The crickets were still going and the birds were still waiting for something, so it was dark and misty and quiet. I kept waiting for it to suddenly get light but it wasn’t like that. Today started off real slow.
I couldn’t go too far because I wanted to get back before the kids woke up, especially Grace, since it was her second day of school. Amazing how quickly she got comfortable in her new class with a new teacher and all new classmates. She asked me not to hike on her first day and I didn’t but she didn’t seem concerned about today, so I guess it’s more for me that I want to get back early.
I turned around just shy of the halfway point, which is about a mile. It’s a pretty steep trail, switching back and forth up the hill so it’s a good workout for me no matter how far I go. I heard the rooster, the lone rooster who resides somewhere down at the bottom and who I hear every morning, usually around the same time as the birds. But today he was the first one calling and it was a good two or three minutes before anyone else joined in. It was brighter now and I could see well, but the light was still taking it’s time, just easing in to the sky and onto the sand colored path. The fog was still so thick there was no view at all. Just two days ago there was a marine layer that covered all of the city but it didn’t reach up this far so as soon as I got above it, it was like ‘my city was gone.’ I was on a cliff overlooking an ocean of fog, the sunlight raking over the cloud cover the way it does from up in a plane. But today the bushes and trees were just gray silhouettes, peeking out of the mist like a delicate sketch or a faded old photo. It was beautiful. The mist was also extracting the life from the plants and soaking the air with it so every turn brought new aromas of cedar, sage and desert musk up into my nose. Like the plants whose branches would leave a trail of water on my pants as I brushed by them, I was covered in mist too.
A few birds started to show themselves as I got lower on the trail, but it was still too dark and misty to see any color in them which made telling what they were a little hard. So I concentrated on listening instead and found I could pick out one call among the cacophony. It was an acorn woodpecker, the same kind I saw yesterday when I picked Grace up from her first day at school. It was in a tree in the parking lot and it saw it make the call I was hearing now. I am learning.
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