Whiting Ranch Wilderness 2003

Posted on April 26, 2003 in Biomes Encounters Hiking Neighborhood

Today, with another woman — Donna one of my writing friends — and with Lynn, I walked to the bottom of Whiting Ranch Wilderness and then heaved myself over Dreaded Hill.

Just before we reached the place where the trail skyrocketed out of a lowland grove of coast live oaks, we met a father with his toddler son who was straggling behind him. “I’ve been telling him about ‘the mountain lion’,” he winked. “Tell him about the mountain lion.”

“Stay close to your father,” I said to the tow-headed boy. “There is a mountain lion in this park.” And then I turned to the father. “You know,” I said, “there really is a mountain lion.” His face blanched. He hadn’t checked the trail information. “Keep him close,” I advised. “Stay very very close to your father,” I told the boy. Then to the father: “If you hear something large thrashing about, pick him up immediately and put him on your shoulders. Then go like this –” I held out my arms and waved them. “Both of you.” The father nodded and kept the boy close as they headed into the oak forest, the father shaking at every crash of a mule deer through the brush and the boy chasing every dogface butterfly.

---

While passing through a thick stand of oaks, we passed a couple of women coming the other way. A cell phone rang. The Asian girl pulled it from her pocket, giggled, just said “Guess where I am.” Donna laughed about that all the way over Dreaded Hill, where we passed them again on a slope thick with orange bush monkey flowers, yellow mustard blooms which were taller and fatter in the flower than any I had ever seen, scarlet Indian paintbrush, and rainbows of lupines.