Search And Rescue On Catalina Island

“Yeah, someone’s gotta go back to look for that old couple,” Nick said.

I looked up from my crackers and peanut butter (the last remnants of the MRE I’d just devoured) and met Nick’s eyes across the huge, metal campsite table.

I sighed. “Yeah, I know.” I glanced around at Kyle and Kevin to see if they agreed—it was clear from the slow nods and vague looks up toward the setting sun that they did. Still, none of us wanted to fully commit ourselves, and the reason was obvious.

The four of us had just completed day one of backpacking across Catalina Island, having labored through 10 mostly uphill miles in the blazing sun, each with a 30-lb pack on our shoulders. We were in the middle of enjoying a few well-earned comforts (those comforts being self-heating camping meals and lukewarm coffee in a bag). Oh, and we had just taken our shoes off. That was the most exquisite comfort of all.

“I will say though, it’s not like this trail is way out in the middle of nowhere,” I said. “Like, worst-case scenario, let’s imagine the old guy had a heart attack or something. I feel like the trail is close enough to the roads and stuff that his wife would’ve been able to get help pretty quickly.”

“Yeah, that’s true,” Kyle said. “Or maybe they just got really tired and walked to the road to get a ride back to town.”

That made a lot of sense. I could feel the burden of responsibility easing its ponderous weight off of my already abused shoulders.

“Yes,” I agreed, “see, that’s the kind of thing that I feel is much more likely than anything bad happening.” And that was a completely true statement. Everyone agreed, and I let that comment marinate while I finished my meal.

But it was no use. The sky overhead was steadily darkening, and I had that sort of bubbly feeling in my stomach that I’d experienced enough times over to know there were only two things that made it go away: taking decisive action to remedy the problem immediately, or doing nothing and then letting a lot of time pass so the whole thing begins to feel hazy and unimportant.

Unlikely as I knew it was, I had a brief portentous vision, in which I was back home—back in the land of internet connection—and reading a news article about the first death on the Trans-Catalina Trail in decades. And as I scrolled down, would you look at that: it was the very same old couple we had passed on the way in!

If that was how the future turned out, it was one thing—but if I could have prevented it and chose not to, that was another thing entirely.

“Alright, I’m gonna go on a little walk to look for them,” I said. I drank down the last few ounces of coffee (which, even though it was lukewarm and chunky, still tasted much better in the context of a camping trip than any pot I could brew at home) and stood up to put my pants and boots back on.

“Are you going all the way back down the mountain?” Kyle asked.

“No I don’t think so, I’ll just try to get to a spot with a view and see what I can see,” I said. “What’s your guys’ plan if I don’t come back?”

I forget what the response was here, but I think it was something funny.

I went into my tent and grabbed my knife, flashlight and phone. I briefly considered bringing my little medical kit with me, but decided that was a bridge too far. I was a little worried, but almost certain nothing was actually wrong.

Feeling like I was floating without my pack on my shoulders, I exited the campsite and started back down the trail.

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The first thing that happened as I walked was that, to my surprise, an entirely separate section of the campsite that had previously escaped my notice appeared on my right. Looking down into it, I could make out around five other campers—and sure enough, the old couple was with them.

Feeling relieved but not all that surprised (like I said, I was almost certain nothing was actually wrong), I briefly considered just doing an about-face and returning to the campsite to get ready for bed. But since I had already started on my little walk, I decided to continue on.

The trail dipped and rose, descending into little wooded sections before emerging again onto exposed hilltops. The temperature was falling slowly and biting ever so slightly through my flannel shirt, but the utter ease of walking without my pack on my shoulders made the bargain a good one.

The air was almost perfectly still, which was a striking contrast to the whistling wind we’d felt for most of the day. Besides the sound of my footsteps, everything was completely silent, giving the impression that I was, somehow, the main event. For this moment in time, the world watched me as I walked upon it.

As I went on, I could scarcely believe this was the same trail the four of us had trekked up a mere hour or two ago, since almost nothing looked familiar. I suppose we were all so tired from this first day of trekking, and—being so near the night’s campsite—so consumed by thoughts of showers and food that the serene beauty of this section of trail had totally escaped our notice.

And what a bitter tragedy it is to have passed over beauty when it is first presented, even if there does come a second opportunity to perceive it at a later time. For the existence of this second opportunity is always a question mark, always uncertain, until the very moment it actually comes into being, which itself is often due to random, lucky circumstance: forgetting to close your window, wondering what that sound was, or going to look for some strangers who may have gotten lost on the hiking trail. And for every scene of beauty that is missed the first time and then redeemed by the second, there are multitudes of others for which this second time never arrives—and which, by extension, are rendered experientially nonexistent by the carelessness of the first encounter, or else doomed forever to that void of existence without perception. And a truly beautiful thing with no one to perceive it is perhaps the saddest thing I can imagine—the most needless form of futility.

The scrubby bushes to my left rustled jarringly, startling me. I caught just a brief blur of textured gray and ochre as a tiny island fox darted out directly in front of me, barely larger than a squirrel. I stopped short and watched it cross the trail and disappear once again into its unseen world underneath the brush, a world forever inaccessible by we humans. I wonder what it’s like under there.

After a few more minutes of walking, I emerged onto a vast, wide open section of trail. To my left, the steep side of the mountain continued up, dotted in relatively unremarkable bushes. But to my right, the land dropped away spectacularly—how did we miss this on the hike in?—revealing one of the most majestic sweeps of land I have ever seen.

Gently undulating hills of a deep, rich green color extended in layers for miles, row upon row texturing the land in an immaculately imperfect pattern. The sun, which had just passed beyond the horizon, bathed the scene in a heavy orange light, beneath which, and beyond the very last layer of hills, lay the shimmering presence of the sea, seemingly unmoving, unbothered, existing in a state of perfect peace, seeming to promise eternity.

I permitted myself a few moments to be silent, to empty my mind of discursive thought, and to engage in no activity except pay attention to all the phenomena my senses were delivering. I have found this practice to be profoundly enriching. The human mind is at all times in conversation with itself: automatically replaying conversations, troubleshooting the future, or wondering what someone else is thinking. Even while unconscious with sleep, the mind forces narratives upon its owner in the form of dreams. To turn the entire spotlight of one’s focus onto the experience of merely existing can result in an appreciation for life itself (and, more specifically, this life, your life) of an intensity that would be impossible to come by otherwise—and made even more precious in the modern age because the actual carrying out of such an act has become, sadly, so rare.

As I continue to gaze out upon this remarkable sight and time passes, thoughts nevertheless begin to resurface, as they always do. But these thoughts I welcome.

I think of how it was my concern for the elderly couple that had brought me here to see these wonders of nature. I think about how happiness isn’t reliably found by those who chase after it, but rather, discovered as a byproduct by those who chase righteousness instead. My resolve to always act honorably, nobly, and selflessly is redoubled.

I think of how I’m beholding this glimmering ocean in peacetime, when better men than I, carrying heavier packs than I, have beheld the very same ocean amidst crippling gunfire that quickly ended their capacity to behold at all.

I think of the vast stretches of time that this land has weathered—the uncountable masses of creatures that have lived, reproduced, and died, lived, reproduced, and died, over and over and over, underneath the same sun and the same moon, across days of such number that they can mean nothing to the human mind, creatures which will continue to do so without even a hiccup at a time so far in the future that my own bones feed the trees.

I think of how the slightest difference of decision five years ago could’ve placed me at this very moment on a different continent, perhaps beholding a sunrise instead of a sunset, and under entirely different circumstances. I think of everything that had to go right—perfectly right—for me to end up on this exact hilltop, seeing these exact patterns of light and shadow, and even having the kind of mind that’s able to appreciate it all in precisely this manner and not another.

I think of a child existing 100 years from now, in what could very well be an AI-controlled urban dystopia, looking at photos of nature on an LED screen and wishing with everything in her that she was born in a time before it was all destroyed and replaced by concrete and metal, when she could look for even just one second upon the soft hills and fields and forests available to me now for free in such massive quantity and variety.

I think of all the complexities that underlie the phenomena I see—the fact that the light of the sunset appears to deepen from orange to red because those specific beams of light have long wavelengths, which my eyes and brain receive, notice, and decide to display for my consciousness as “the color red,” a concept which is itself indescribable through words alone devoid of experience.

I think of all the angles of beauty this world offers. This sunset-bathed scene before me is beautiful, and my brother’s firstborn daughter is beautiful—and yet, to try to compare the two, to ask which one is the most beautiful, is ludicrous beyond measure. How can we compare the loveliness of a sunset with that of the smell of coffee in the morning, or a page-turning novel, or a woman’s body, or the first day in a new country? We cannot, of course we cannot—and yet somehow, gloriously, we live in the kind of world that gives us access to all of them.

And finally, as I sit here writing this now, I think of you. I think of what hidden struggles you’re wrestling with, what barriers have risen up to prevent you from seeing this world’s beauty in all its fullness, from knowing and being known. I consider telling you that I’m eager to know you, hoping to be that person who’s always there for you, even if just as a listening ear—but I hope that’s something you already know. I think of the title you read (that I still have to come up with) that made you click on this article. I think about whether this piece is any good, or if there was too much unstructured rambling for you to like it. I think about what exactly it is that I want you to take away from it.

And after thinking for a long time, I still don’t know. I hope you do.