2026
The second California Walk. 2025 had been seven days in a group: San Francisco to Big Sur, two of us most of the way, four for one leg, the full arc and a baptismal swim at Fernwood. 2026 was different by design and by necessity. One walker, four days, Santa Cruz as base camp, Big Sur as a day trip on the way home.
Three places, three very different hikes. The frame that arrived on the drive up, from a G.K. Chesterton audiobook on St. Francis, turned out to be the whole trip: all goods look better when they look like gifts. And on the descent of Tan Bark Trail on Sunday morning, the thing the walk had been pointing at landed: the work is in the walk.
Day 0, the drive up
Thursday, April 16. Los Angeles to Santa Cruz.
A six-hour drive up the spine of the state. Chesterton's St. Francis of Assisi on the stereo for the first three hours. A long stretch of quiet through the Salinas Valley after that. The descent into Santa Cruz at dusk.
The line from Chesterton, all goods look better when they look like gifts, landed somewhere outside Paso Robles. Written down as the theme of the trip before any walking had happened.
Day 1, Henry Cowell
Friday, April 17. Henry Cowell State Park, Santa Cruz.
Trailhead at 8:30am, in cool fog that burned off by mid-morning. First the Redwood Grove Loop, a flat half-mile interpretive trail through the oldest stand of redwoods in the park. One of them is two thousand years old. There's a sign in front explaining what each ring stands for, though the rings are our limitation, not theirs.
A short climb out of the loop and into the Cathedral Redwoods. A clearing the size of a chapel, ringed by trees so tall they feel like architecture rather than biology. The acoustics inside are church acoustics. Sat there a while.
Back down toward the San Lorenzo River, which had to be crossed twice. Colder and higher than the same crossing the year before. On the second crossing a duck swam a slow circle, unbothered, almost escorting, then headed downstream. A walking stick went with it, on purpose.
The back half of the day was a three-hour descent on fire road and asphalt back into Santa Cruz, through neighborhoods and along the railroad tracks. A banana slug on the trail on the way out of the forest. Lunch somewhere. The full day ended mid-afternoon.
Distance: about 9 to 11 miles. Start: 8:30am.
Day 2, Marina State Beach
Saturday, April 18. Marina State Beach to Sand City.
The plan was a long beach walk south from Marina toward Monterey. A flat, open stretch of sand and dune that runs uninterrupted for hours. Pacific on the right. The Fort Ord dunes on the left.
Twenty thousand steps over about five hours on the sand. Long stretches without seeing another person. A hawk riding thermals above the dunes for what felt like an hour, almost stationary. Sandpipers running toward the surf and back. A crow that flew up out of the dune grass, looked directly at me, and escorted me down the beach like it had been waiting. Three well-formed sand dollars carried back to the car.
A line overheard at the beach bathroom early in the morning, from a dad cleaning up a small accident for his small son: it's okay, I understand, but it's never perfect. The lake is not perfect. That sentence walked the rest of the day.
Distance: about 20,000 steps. About five hours on the sand.
Day 3, Big Sur, Tan Bark Trail
Sunday, April 19.
Out of the Airbnb at 4am to drive south on Highway 1 in the dark. The sun came up over the mountains as the road wound into Big Sur. The view stops the car.
Tan Bark Trail starts just off Highway 1, about thirty miles south of Big Sur Village. Eight in the morning at the trailhead, which felt like the latest reasonable start. The first half mile is a redwood grove with a stream and waterfalls, a secret you wouldn't guess from the road. Then a landmark called Three Trees, where every first-timer takes the wrong path. Then the climb. An hour and a half of switchbacks, steep enough that the trail becomes the only thing you think about.
Near the top of the climb, a bluejay landed on a rock. Watched him for a full minute, motionless. He poked around. Then pushed off, floated in the air for a second, glanced back at the rock once, not forlornly, just a look, and with one flap of his wing rose forty feet into a tree above.
On the descent at 10:58am, with no one else on the trail, the thing the trip had been pointing at landed and got spoken out loud into a voice memo: the work is in the walk, not the leading of it. It's the walking. It's the walking.
The drive home that afternoon: 304 miles down Highway 1 and the 101, with John O'Donohue on the stereo. Home in Los Angeles by evening.
Distance: about 7 miles, significant elevation. Start: 8am.
What the walk was about
The recognition that arrived on Tan Bark, the work is in the walk, wasn't new. It felt like something being returned to, not discovered for the first time. The good truths don't announce themselves with trumpet music. They're re-found.
Three hikes, three very different feelings, no one else's pace to manage. Solo because that's what this year could carry. Not because solo is better.
The compression was a feature.
People
- Vipul. 2025 walker. In the conversation for 2027.
- Ruben. 2025 Big Sur leg. In the conversation for 2027.
- Stuart. Monterey and Carmel guide. In the conversation for 2027.
For 2027
Five days, four nights, two of them in Big Sur. Day 0 a San Francisco pickup: Presidio walk, lunch in the park, train south to Santa Cruz. Tan Bark as the last thing, not the middle. Moving south as the journey shape: through, past, beyond.
A design principle from this trip: build for the too-busy person. Alternatives. Choose-your-intensity paths. That person keeps coming up in the planning. Partly the people who need it most. Partly all of us at one point or another.
The invite is a phone call. Not a registration form.