Rising from the coastal Oxnard Plain is the often-brown, coastal scrub covered Santa Monica mountains of the western Transverse Ranges of Southern California. Growing up in the shadows of the mountains, I never knew it was called the Oxnard Plain, and I never knew the Santa Monicas were part of a range called the Transverse Ranges. They were just “the mountains”, my mountains to ascend.
Upon cresting the hills dividing the coastal plain from the Santa Monicas is the Conejo Valley, with its affluent capillary communities branching off of the US101 artery which pumps workers into the Los Angeles basin and vacationers out to the coasts of Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. It’s from the Conejo that Old Boney mountain turns it’s back on the insatiated “improvement” of soil, bush, and tree to asphalt, concrete, and stucco.
Old Boney is so named for its backbone ridge of exposed beige sandstone vertebrae breaking the seasonally green scrub and chaparral. For the native people Old Boney is sacred land.
I grew up in the shadow of the mountains and spent many afternoons while a teenager scrambling up and down their trails. Whenever I needed time to ponder, to address my thoughts, I would go climb the nearest mountain. I’d begin my ascent in a run, to relieve and exhaust my emotional energy. I’d run up the steep trail start and through the saddle where parasailers would launch their bodies off the mountain into an updraft of ocean breeze under brightly colored nylon crafts. I’d run up constricted rocky crags, my adrenaline masking the fear of surprising a rattlesnake. As my pace slowed to a jog and then a walk, the calming influence of the mountain set it.
I’d stop short of the summit and sit on a large boulder facing the coastal plain and ocean beyond. My eyes first fixed on the distant ocean, hoping the atmosphere would allow me to view Anacapa and Santa Cruz islands some thirty odd miles to the west, across the Santa Barbara channel. The northern Channel Islands, of which Anacapa and Santa Cruz are part, are a continuation of the Santa Monicas, rising out of the ocean in defiance — resisting the unrelenting battering of the Pacific. I loved to see the islands. I, like Walter Mitty, would untame my imagination to find myself sailing alone to the islands — to a solitudinous life marked by ocean and mountain adventure.
Returning my mind to my body on my mountain perch, I’d then focus on the closer human geography imprinted on the plain below me and note the landmarks — the cemetery near the start of my hiking route, US Highway 101, Adolfo Camarillo High School tucked up next to the freeway, the Catholic church in old town, and in the distance the municipal airport and the beginnings of the neighboring city, Oxnard — then turn my attention to the dominant feature of the coastal plain: agriculture.
The Oxnard Plain is rich farmland, growing many varieties of vegetables, flowers, and even sod. I would survey the cropland identifying, where my knowledge allowed, which crop was planted where. I would study the extent of the citrus orchards on the opposing hillets from where I sat. This was my satellite map before satellite maps were widely available. Now, the orchards have been hewn down (recently verified by a satellite map) — the hill carved into multi-million dollar sub-acre residential lots.
Eventually I would just find myself unfocused, letting the expanse of the plain fill my view without a single feature penetrating my sight. This is why I had ascended, to lose myself to thought and nature. To fully let go. My mind would drift and wonder and explore. Many times I’d discover a feeling and question in me, something offering a thread to pull. As I mentally pulled the thread a singular thought or problem would fill my mind, and I’d set to task to resolve it, to make sense of the world. As this mental work ensued, my transcendent state would gently dissipate until I was left fully aware of myself. Of the hard beige sandstone underneath me. Of the cooling breeze on my skin. Of the setting sun and reddening sky.
And at this, I’d descend; slowly returning to cares and toils and trivial things waiting at the base of the mountain.
Bribunk 