The Wanderer

The mud on my city shoes testifies to its dichotomy. One minute your walking on flat concrete near the Strawberry Creek Recreation Center. The next your sauntering up a gentle, small path leading from a parking lot. But give it a half hour or so, and only the bay view can serve as a reminder that your not in the Sierras. Having grown up with the Colorado Rockies (the mountains I mean) as my second home, and climbed over a dozen of the fourteeners in that state, I felt pretty assured I would be telling my trusty hiking boots goodbye for some time when I headed to Berkeley for college. Despite all the ramble I heard about Berkeley being a college-run liberal town, it immediately struck me as a typical urban landscape. Dirty streets, apartment complexes, and the absence of parking lots all testified to that same suburban aversion I had felt towards ever living in the middle of a city. When I first transversed the fire trails in the Berkeley hills last year, I expected a typical walk in the park, easy loop hike. But a few scrambles up some of the very steep dirt paths to the top of the hills put an end to that. They often left me breathless, and the scenery all the more so. Met by the view of San Francisco and the extent of the water as far as the eye could see, the place immediately struck me as interesting. Our connection was a deeply personal one.

I was drawn by the mold of typical mountain scenes with the distinct seascape. The trail offered an ascent into the elements of sort, away from the seemingly chaotic urban life I have come to experience everyday. In the hills, I become attentive of the details of my surroundings, from the feel of the earth beneath my feet to the occasionally stealthy red mushroom under the eucalyptus leaves. This power of observation escapes me in daily life, where I am frequently in a hurry from place to place in a one track state of mind. An everyday retreat from such a life was certainly welcome not only to me, but as I discovered, to many other city dwellers as well. The trail was undoubtedly the most used around sunrise, when many, like myself perhaps, would sacrifice a good night’s sleep for a good morning’s hike. There is certainly an inexplicable sense of empowerment in rising with the sun early in the morning, and commemorating its descent at the end of the day, a thought shared by a middle aged Berkeley resident I stumbled upon meditating near a reclusive section of the path. The man was difficult to notice, a blend of dark color beneath the shroud of an oak. I have to admit I felt some contempt for him, sitting completely at one with nature, stable with no worry in the world for the moment, so unlike the flickering lights in twilight which were dwellers below scurrying on their daily business. I felt insecure about photographing people on the fire trail for two reasons; first, I had come for the nature and to be away from the crowded streets of the city, and second I felt I would be ruining the experience for someone that had similar motivations. Looking towards the distant pacific past the flat city, I felt a sense of regret for those that never headed up this path. If they had only once traveled up, never again would they be satisfied with life on a two-dimensional plane in a concrete jungle, hidden from the elements of a dynamic world.

There are a lot of runners on the fire trails. Anyone can probably imagine the leg strain that will result from such a feat, but it seems that only the trail runner is familiar with the satisfaction that results in overcoming such a challenge. It is not surprising that the fire trail serves as a training ground for many athletes, who tread up to the Space Sciences Lab and back in one loop, interestingly avoiding the higher, more rigorous part of the trail that I find more inspiring (although certainly less adaptable for routine exercise). Like mountain climbing, there is more to trail running than exercise. More than just adjusting a treadmill to incline. Perhaps it has to do with the image of the unconquerable that comes to mind when looking into distant hills or mountain ranges, or a sense of the idea of how small an individual is compared to nature when looking into the horizon. In any case, reaching the highest point of the fire trails sweating and panting for air to catch a last glimpse of the sun descending below the golden gate has a spiritual feel of overcoming a challenge. For a mountaineering enthusiast like myself, it is hard to compare anything in the bay to life back home. But running the Berkeley Fire Trails provides a taste of the nostalgic feeling of meandering a steep ascent in the Rocky Mountains. As far as challenge is concerned, what the hills lack in height they make up for in mud paths that can leave you sliding about, grappling tree trunks on a day after a rainstorm. Strange as it may be, the risk of losing control is certainly part of the excitement that comes with a real climbing experience, and is the main reason I never carry anything beyond water when I’m out hiking (more than once I’ve had to pay the price for this with mud drenched clothes and bruised legs). Improvisation and adaptability is a large part, if not the main part, of approaching any challenge.

In exploring the region at the climax of the trails, I stumbled on what appeared to be a potentially alternate route downwards. After following this not so simple trail down several hairpin turns, I was very disappointed to come onto an extensive pile of refuse. It is disheartening that one of the few remaining, if not the last, wild place in the city of Berkeley is treated so poorly by the public. This realization really drew away some of the marvel I had discovered on days earlier in being in this place, pulling me back towards the city below in a way, towards those careless aspects of human nature I face daily in my encounters. Gone was the attentive and exploratory mindset I had felt, and the urban one track part of my mind was back. I glanced at my watch, and decided it was time to head back to town.

Sources:

1.) Crumpacker, John. "Cal Men's Rugby: Trail by Fire on the Fire Trail." San Francisco Chronicle 14 April 2009, Print

2.)Weinstein, Dave. "How Berkeley Became Berkeley." East Bay Express 21 Oct 2009, Print.