hiking – chartopia

1988 - Yosemite - Whitney, Soma, Russ, Kerryn

The “Hippie” School

I crawled out of my tent as the sun creeped over the horizon. My legs were covered in bruises, scraps, bug bites, and not to mention insanely sore because the day before I biked 53 miles up and over a mountain. I was 14 years old, and this was a normal day at school for me. Last year I graduated from an experimental/ outdoor education school, Santa Barbara Middle School. Overall, we were out of the classroom for over 30 days of the school year from backpacking in Catalina Island to biking through dust storms in Arizona to swimming in the lakes in Oregon. It was the best thing for a kid growing up to experience, being pushed mentally and physically in a loving community of people of support who you are.

We got the reputation as the “Hippie School” just cause the teachers didn’t believe in conforming to the “norms”. Why should we when there is a whole world out there to explore and learn from? Let’s go back in time starting from the 1970s to see how this school became a close community of learners and how they taught me to Carpe Diem.

1987 Hutch and Robin 1991 Matt & Elio

The year was 1976. Some people came together, as the school’s website (sbms.org) puts it, “…sought to create a school that would combine an innovative, challenging academic program with an environment responsive to the many needs of adolescent students.” Their wishes came true with hard work. The crazy thing is these people who had this dream of creating this school and made it happened, were some of my teachers, 35 years later. The first picture of the four people taken in Yosemite in 1988, on the far left, is Whitney. Whitney is still the Director of Admissions, and the lady who accepted me into the school 3/4 of the way into the school year. A true savior. I came from another school that was not a good fit for me. SBMS instantly felt like home and even when I go back and visit it feels like I never felt.

Two from the right in the picture, was my math and science teacher, Russ. I am very lucky to have had him as a teacher. I have never witness a teacher to love the subject they were teaching as much as Russ does. I remember he told our class to read the Physics textbook for the fun of it because thought it was an interesting. As I may disagree with him, I do respect his passion for teaching math and science, and also for teaching me to notice small, intricate things nature can create like leaves that can be so beautiful.

1987 Driving home over the Golden Gate Bridge 1987 Six O'Clock Sunrise Swim

As this is hard to wrap up, since I have so many stories and things to say about my experiences of biking, backpacking, and camping with this school, I would like to finish with the quote I said at graduation that sums up most of my experience (also one of my favorite quotes):

” Peace comes from within, do not seek without.” -Buddha

Think about that quote. What does it mean to you?

1979 new 1980 Petula and INa

Much Love and Peace,

Charlotte

♥︎

*All pictures are taken by SBMS alumni (www.sbms.org)*

San Ysidro Falls

On my previous post (Secret Gardens [check it out ;)] ) I dared everyone to take a hike this past weekend, including myself. So I did.

There are many, many trails where I live (Santa Barbara / Montecito), but since it just rained, I decided to go to San Ysidro Falls. You can access the trail from Park Lane off of East Valley Road. I enjoy this hike because along the trail, you are next to the a creek almost whole way. Plus, there are so many awesome natural pools of water to SWIM IN! Yes you can swim in! It’s a cold, wet, but fun adventure. The best part is the waterfall (pictured above). The volume of water in the waterfall is not a ton, but it is decently tall, about 50 feet. The picture I took only shows the top of it, so it does not look that large in the photo, but it is. The waterfall is about 2 miles up the trail, so in total it is a 4 mile hike (up and down).

But what is hiking really all about? Why do we choose to walk up a mountain then done the mountain?

It’s about the scenery:

all the wildflowers, the odd shaped boulders, the birds’ singing, the eucalyptus trees

I went on this hike with my dad and while we were walking past a green field of long wild grass, he said, “It’s funny how people pay all this money to have gardeners, who make water drip systems, remove all the weeds, and put wiring under the soil to protect it, so your garden can survive and look nice, but then you go out in nature and see a tree growing out of a rock, and you’re like, that’s so much cooler!”

It’s true. I remember in eighth grade my English teacher read us this poem a kid wrote about a desert plant. I don’t recall word for word what it was, but it was the comparison between a pretty garden flower versus a stark desert plant. When I grew up I was told to like the delicate attractive flowers that are watered each day and taken care of, and I do like them very much still, but this poem brought to my attention to the inner strength of a plant. A cactus for instance, stands in the middle of a dry, hot, dusty, windy terrain. It’s surviving and thriving. Yes, they are not a beautiful small flower, but they are some bad ass plants that can with stand a whole lot more than a rose.

I think the poem explains nature well as a whole. It’s not like anyone is taking care of the natural world all the time, and it’s almost the opposite, since nature now has to suffer from deforestation, trash, and global warming mainly due to the PEOPLE that roam the Earth. Yet, somehow through all this bad, it still looks beautiful. Though, if people keep treating it like it is for granted, it will change for the worst. Give nature some love and take care of it, so it remains green and happy!

That is why I love hiking because it is the time I can really appreciate my natural surroundings.

Have a great weekend!! Give nature some love!

Much Love and Peace,

Charlotte

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Tag: hiking

Because of Them

Resilience