From Boujee to Brutal: The Trans Catalina Trail is Tougher Than it Seems
Part 1 of 3 (or 4) pieces detailing my three days of thru-hiking the Trans Catalina Trail. This bite-sized thru-hike is the perfect sampling of ocean views, steep climbs, and a lot of cacti.
(This post originally appeared on The Trek)
Hi there! I’m breaking from my usual Trail Logs to introduce my mini-series of the Trans Catalina Trail: a 38ish mile hike on Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles.
If you’re here for the death doula/life content, don’t worry - those will be returning soon. Ish. For now, I’m writing about all things nature-nut as I wrap up my Trail Logs and shift my focus to my book…. Hope ya’ll enjoy!
A Departure and a Homecoming
I woke before my alarm, disoriented, almost toppling off my loaner air bed. Half-awake, I fumbled for my phone to flick off the alarm before it began. That’s when I felt the first tickle of nervous anticipation.
Today I will begin my hike of the Trans Catalina Trail. It would be my first long(ish) distance journey since my Appalachian Trail LASH.
I was jittery with nerves, but in an odd way, returning to a trail felt like a long-awaited homecoming: returning to a self I’d lost at the end of my last long walk.
My friend, Songbird – a badass flipflopper I met on my LASH – tapped politely on the door to see if I was awake. I appreciated the gesture but still found it funny; I was crashing at her home, after all, since she lived conveniently close to the ferry that would take us to Catalina Island. I had done a decent job of staying in touch with my AT tramily, but I hadn’t been great at maintaining contact with Songbird. I regretted that, but I was happy to reconnect with her on this hike together.
In the course of plotting our trip, Songbird invited a few others to join us: Songbird’s sister-in-law, Ann, who in turn invited two of her friends, Mat and Pete, along with Pete’s adorable pup, Joey. And so we made quite a little troupe as we piled into Mat’s SUV and drove to the ferry.
Catalina Island sits about 25 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, making for an hour and a half ferry ride. I didn’t mind; it gave me plenty of time to catch up with Songbird, who I hadn’t seen in two years, the morning our tramily unintentionally split up in New York. Re-living our Trail days was bliss. Anyone who has spent a considerable time on Trail knows the unspeakable joy of being able to reminisce over favorite Trail moments that people from “real life” just don’t get.
Boujee Hiking
After disembarking from the ferry, we stepped into the charming town of Avalon. I blinked in the sunlight, gazing at the tan cliffs dotted with sage and stacked with pretty white houses ascending the hillside.
We walked through a downtown area complete with quaint storefronts and lined with brick sidewalks and palm trees. In other words: it was a certifiable tourist trap. I loved it, despite having to dodge around the crush of people. I grinned a stupid grin as I trailed behind Songbird, taking in the turquoise sea that lapped peacefully at the shore. In the distance, a hulking cruise ship was anchored in the bay.
Over breakfast, Songbird and I analyzed her FarOut map. I located our position in Avalon, perched on the southeastern edge of Catalina Island.
We would follow the crisscrossing trail for 38.5 miles, traversing the length of the island to end at Two Harbors, another town northwest of us. The Trail could be hiked in either direction, but seeing the adorableness of Avalon, I was glad we chose to begin here.
We debated if we should be moving a little faster considering we had ten miles to cover today. Then I slowed us down further with my last-minute grocery stop for a lighter (for my camp stove) and water bottles. By the time we set out, it was 12:30 and the temperature was climbing even faster than the long roadwalk out of Avalon.
We stopped to de-gear about 1.5 miles in at Hermit Gulch campsite, stripping off our layers. Waiting for everyone, I surveyed the well-maintained campground. There were toilets a few feet away, along with water spigots and perfectly flat tent pads and picnic tables.
The primitive Appalachian Trail this was not.
I wondered if the rest of the campgrounds would be this nice.
Strange Creatures in a Zoo
We followed the road a few more feet before it intersected with the Trans Catalina Trail, veering off the road and onto a dusty dirt path that was marked by a simple wooden sign. We made our way sluggishly up the trail, climbing into the heat; nearly 1,000 ft in five miles.
I turned to wait for the others, staring down into the valley below. In the distance, I saw the massive cruise ship that we’d noticed on the way in, dominating the harbor. It looked so small from up here.
Surrounding us was an abundance of dusty sagebrush that reminded me of hiking through the Utah foothills. But the ground was covered with bunches of cacti, which was decidedly un-Utahish. I tried to give them a wide berth so I wouldn’t end up with a leg full of needles.
Altogether, the views were objectively pretty, especially with expansive views of the sea as we ascended higher and higher.
But something about it felt familiar, as though I’d seen this place before. I chalked up the strange déjà vu to the desert-y, Utah vibes, wondering if I’d be more enchanted by the landscape if I hadn’t spent the last year and a half immersed in the towering alpine mountains of the Wasatch Range.
I rounded another corner and took in the row of powerline poles, marching off towards the horizon. I was surprised by how this trail felt – was – so developed. I guessed the industrial nature of it couldn’t be helped since Catalina Island was such a massive tourist stop.
At an overlook, while tracing the powerlines from one ridge to another, I noticed a small fleet of black dots cruising up the dirt roads. Ann said they were tour SUV’s for visitors who wanted to see the island the easier way.
A few hours later, we’d tackled the steepest vertical gain for the day and were dropping into a valley that contained Haypress Recreation area: a tiny park with a playset, picnic table, bathrooms, and potable water.
I filled my water bottles from the available spigot, almost warily, as if I were doing something wrong. Not needing to carry my water filter felt downright sacrilegious. I was impressed by, yet simultaneously unprepared for, how boujee this Trail was.
Then we heard the loud rumble of a tricked-out all-terrain SUV. The vehicle pulled up beside us on the dirt road adjacent to the park, full to the brim with tourists. As I stared at them, they stared back.
The PA system crackled to life: “…those are thru-hikers, walking the Trans Catalina Trail.” The tour guide pointed at us and smiled. “Are you headed to Black Jack Campground tonight?”
I grinned and tilted my trekking pole in a tiny salute. “Yes’sir!”
As they drove off, Mat erupted in laughter. “Did you guys see that? A lady on that tour took a photo of us.” I grinned. A photo of thru-hikers, like we were strange creatures in a zoo. I guess to the tourists, attempting to walk 40ish miles in the heat was incomprehensible, animalistic.
Where’d the Switchbacks Go?
We got moving again a few minutes later, knowing we were going to hike into the night. Still, we took several more breaks for everyone to catch their breath. I shuffled my feet self-consciously whenever this happened.
I didn’t consider myself to be in impeccable shape, but I was absolutely feeling the elevation difference between 1,000 ft above sea level, versus the 4,000 ft at which I lived and trained in Utah. My heartrate would speed up on the ascents, but I never got short of breath. I was barely even fatigued.
What I was worried about was my right knee.
I rubbed it, feeling the familiar twinge at the side of my kneecap. It was an unwelcome reminder from a knee injury that temporarily took me off-trail during my LASH. But the knee had held up so far. As long as it didn’t get any worse, I was set. Besides the knee, I was a hiking machine. I felt like I could go all night.
I wouldn’t feel like super-hiker for long.
We walked into the golden hour that descended while Mat, Pete, Joey, and I waited for Ann and Songbird by an information kiosk. Bored, I glanced over the bulletins, including several maps, information about camping, and strong warnings about the plentiful bison that roamed the island. I was relieved when Songbird and Ann appeared as two tiny dots on the hillside far above. The temperature was dropping as quickly as the sun and I could feel hunger beginning to close in.
Ann and Songbird chose to move a little slower, so I hiked on with Mat, Pete, and Joey while all around us, night fell like a blanket.
We maintained a strong pace that grew into a steady lope, propelled by our unspoken desire to beat the sunset. But it soon became clear we couldn’t win. The terrain seemed determined to ensure that defeat. I thought this morning had been steep, but at least then, there had been switchbacks.
In stark contrast, these last few miles plowed straight up, feeling similar to trudging up the unrelentingly steep mountains in Vermont’s section of the Appalachian Trail. At this point, I was definitely huffing and puffing, a super-hiker no more.
Onward Into the Night
Once we made it past the worst of the relentless ascent, we realized we hadn’t seen Ann and Songbird in a while, so we settled down to wait. I was antsy to get going, but Pete shrugged and summed up our situation in a nutshell: “I was in a hurry before, but now that I know we’re stuck hiking in the dark, I’m fine to take our time.”
And so we sat. And waited. “They’re dead, right?” We chuckled, wondering where the hell the others were.
“Lemme’ try calling ‘em,” Pete murmured, almost too quiet to hear. “SKEE-YEET!” he yelled, a hand cupped to his mouth. I practically jumped out of my skin. Whatever that was, I figured it was a mutual signal that would be understood by Ann and Songbird. The three of us strained into the night, but there was no response.
We sat a while longer, watching the brilliant red line of the sunset slide further and further beneath the spine of black mountains. My stomach was roaring by now. I contemplating ditching them and hiking to Black Jack Campground, which I knew was less than a quarter mile off – we could see the little headlamps in the distance, temptingly close, pinpricks of light from other hikers enjoying their campsites. When Pete tried his ear-piercing call again, we heard an answer, faint and distant as a feather.
“Thank goodness,” I muttered, hangriness rapidly descending. The same primal rush that would overtake me every night on the Appalachian Trail had returned in full force. It was a deep desire to nest, to lovingly set up my tent and crawl inside it, the juicy reward at the end of a day of hiking. I wanted to devour a dehydrated meal, set up my tent, and experience again the supreme pleasure of zipping myself into my own tiny home.
Once Ann and Songbird caught up, we walked together the rest of the way to the campground. But first, we had to find our campsite. Black Jack Campground was large, eleven individual campsites far-flung in the darkness. I marched into the first site that contained people and asked if they knew the whereabouts of site #4. After they kindly pointed us in the right direction, I bolted to an empty patch of ground to pitch my tent before joining everyone in cooking dinner.
I turned in early for bed and lay thinking in my tent. All things considered, I felt pretty good for not being ready for this hike. My feet were screaming, as I knew they would, but my biggest concern – my right knee – hadn’t flared up. I knew I’d be dead sore tomorrow, but I chalked it up as a win all the same.