If you have ever planned a trip with a group of women, you know that there is nothing unusual about having three-quarters of our “nations” devoted to the preparation, cleaning, and consumption of food. For women, food is of paramount importance: we need to be fortified at least and completely satisfied at best. No matter where we lay our heads, we had to ensure that all of our carnal desires—chocolate, carbohydrates, booze—were within an arm’s grasp. And indeed they were, as we settled in around the fire, debating the finer points of marshmallow roasting (browned versus burnt), compiling s’mores, and chatting well past camping lights out.
The next morning, after the blue jays and blackbirds gave us a rousing wake-up call, a ranger stopped by to tell us that, eh-hem, some of the campers had complained that we were too loud the night before. This was not an unusual sentiment. Although our collective average age hovered around thirty, get us in a group, and we regressed to earlier times. Most of us had been roommates during or after college, and had lived in San Francisco during our twenties. Back then, we always seemed to be trolling the city as a large group of girls, every additional person or cocktail ramping our decibel level up another notch. Now that we are older and more geographically spread out, our large gatherings are less frequent and more organized—but still very loud. Maybe louder. We had to make up for lost time.
But we didn’t want to be those people, so we promised to be, or at least to try to be, quieter that night.
Over breakfast, we discussed that day’s activity. Six of us decided to do the Molera loop, a nine-mile hike in Andrew Molera State Park. The rest opted—or wimped—out (“we’ll do a shorter hike and wait for others to arrive”).
Our sextet packed a lunch, laced up our shoes, and drove ten minutes north to the start of the hike. We set out on the ridge trail and started climbing, destined to work off last nights s’mores (Elaina setting the butt-busting pace with “we’re getting a workout here, right ladies?”). Passing by sticky monkey flowers, Indian paintbrush, Lupine, and yarrow, we made our way up the mountain, finally arriving at an exposed ridge that afforded great coastal views. As we headed west to a pink sandy beach (our lunchtime destination), we realized that one of the great things about hiking in Big Sur is the diversity in landscape: we had gone from hot, dry oak groves to cool, redwood canopies to turquoise water within a couple of hours. However, while bushwacking our way to said beach, we also realized that one of the bad things about hiking through Big Sur is that there’s a ton of poison oak nestled amongst the blackberry and wild grape.
