Woodblockesque

The landscape and seascape changes from hour to hour, day to day, season to season, all the way up the progression of increments of time. It is during my time spent in the outdoors that I feel like I am living in an old Hiroshige woodblock print. In a sense, I am probably capturing the same stuff he would be interested in, albeit in a much newer and less time-consuming medium and as an amateur:

A heron takes cover among the reeds that grow near the end of the Carmel River. On a sandbar I find some rocks that might turn out to be jade, or maybe they're some other kind of greenish rock. I walk along the top of a sand bar, heading up the coast. This is the start of what will become a two hour long hike.

The proper trail is not easily found from the beach, and it appears that most of the hikers are retired folks who own the houses that you can see peeking out over the hills. The flowers are in bloom, and the weather is perfect on this afternoon. As the only young person on the trail, and the only minority, I feel more out of place than if I was in a foreign country. I opt to explore the uneven grounds of the beach, away from the houses and their owners.

My plan works flawlessly. It seems that no one is interested in walking along the beach, and I have it all to myself. The colors I encounter on this section of my walk do not seem as if they should all occur together at the same place in nature. My gait slows from Osaka speed down to a nice Kyushu pace.

I jump back on the trail after reaching the junction of an unscalable sandstone cliff (no iceplant here!) and delta. No fish are visible from the edge, only a huge flock of sea gulls who are busy bathing in the fresh water.

I continue along the trail, and gaze down on the fields of sourgrass sitting next to the crashing waves. For the explorers who had to tramp through thick forests, plague-ridden swamps, bone-bleaching deserts, and all of the other obstacles and challenges, views like this must have helped to balance out some of their hardship and suffering. It pains me to think that some of those explorers probably enjoyed a view similar to this as they unwittingly rubbed up against a huge patch of poison oak (which also looks beautiful this time of year).

The trail, once again, veered toward the sprawling houses along the beach, and so I once again took a small, neglected trail. It appeared to be used mainly by maintenance crews working on the water lines that fed the neighborhood, and the furry woodland creatures, judging by the various turds (thankfully none human) and tracks that they left.

This part of the hike could have come straight out of the back roads of rural Southern Japan. Like many of my hikes along the many neglected roads, I encountered not one person, but many strange and beautiful plants and animals.

Why is the Pacific Grove Natural History Museum filled with such a variety of stuffed birds? Back in the old days, I have no doubt that the men who collected and prepared many an unfortunate avian bagged not a few of them somewhere within the view afforded from this hill side.

I find it highly amusing that hunting groups, like Ducks Unlimited, are the main evangelists of conservation of natural areas like these. Groups who kill the animals who live here have shifted to become their stewards. This is how most resources will have to be managed in the future, by those who traditionally exploit them. But I digress...

My hike ends in a fallow field, with a collapsed barn in the distance. In the space of two hours, it seems like I have experienced much more than I should have been able to, even if I was given a whole day. This, I reflect, is why some people have the exploration bug. Even if you get lost, hungry, scared, angry, or hurt, you know that you may come away richer for the experience. And maybe, if you are really lucky, you can have it all, if just for a moment.