Once past the bustling intersection of numerous trails I was beginning to experience that feeling when immersion into the forest takes over my consciousness. It's hard to describe unless you have felt it, but the ineffable nature of this spirit is part of the personal experience of walking in the woods solo-style.

Memories flooded my mind's membranes; college days where following the creek up the West Fork of Mission Canyon provided a natural swimming pool and playground for a sunny afternoon. A decade has passed, and still there are groups of young adults taking advantage of this beautifully refreshing feature of the foothills of the Santa Ynez Mountains. To get to my goal of Cathedral Peak, the trail I was following provided a glimpse down upon the frolicking youth.

From a tunnel-like narrow single track the trail wound further and further up, each step a significant gain in elevation. The hard chaparral of dense woody shrubs almost completely enclosed me during this initial section of incline. An orange-hued, light brown dirt covered sandstone boulders that formed the bedrock of the trail -- where my boots were slowly starting to pick up a rhythm.

Manzanita and scrub oak began to take over as the prominent guard of the sides of the trail the higher that I climbed. I tell you there is no better friend when you are in a steep section of trail than the smooth and yet fiercely strong Manzanita bough. Many times during my ascent I spotted a foothold nearly out of reach, but when I combined pulling myself up by the skin-like branch of the Manzanita and then using that force to propel my boot into the nook or cranny in the rocks above, I was able to climb as nimbly as a deer. Well, let's not go with the hubris of comparing human trail navigation to that of the innate abilities of the family of Deer to conquer mountains in graceful leaps and bounds.

Every moment the trail looked skyward. Vistas of the neighboring peaks became so awe-inspiring I was forced to continually reach into my pack for my camera and then after snapping, to goggle for several moments of the turning-to-dusk landscape before me.

The transverse ranges of the Santa Ynez Mountains are one of few in North America to run in an east-west direction. This unique geography allows the canyons and upper foothills to retain a sub-tropical environment, good for growing exotic fruits like cherimoyas, sugar sane and rare flavors of bananas. It also provides some dramatic views of the Channel Islands as they form a symmetrical alignment with the Santa Barbara front range.

Again, as in past hikes, Chumash culture begins to resonate in my subconscious. The gigantic piles of sandstone boulders have smooth circular basins weathered into them -- no doubt once utilized by the tribes who lived in a manner where television and refrigerator are obsolete and unfathomable.

Suddenly a middle-aged man came charging up the nearly 30-degree pitch towards my meditation zone. He was sweating, glowing, and huffing and puffing. He should have been -- he was not climbing and hiking like myself, but somehow RUNNING up the trail. Heart strong, that one? I would say so. He informed me of my proximity to my goal of Cathedral Peak, I was not too far away, and there was still a sun above the blue, plate glass sea two thousand something feet below us.

I did not have time to pause long at the top, daylight was dwindling, and I had already been "oooing" and "ahhhing" at several different vantage points along the trek. Time to charge down. Fast. A necessary part to my total experience of immersion in the mountains is the descent. The return. Flying down the trail I used the manzanitas again, but in a different capacity. The reddish brown snakeskin that passes for limbs of a short tree became my brakes, slowing me down on the severe, precipice-like sections of the trail.

Thoroughly drenched in sweat, sliced up a bit by the sharp hard chaparral, hands dried and sloughing from constantly grabbing onto sandstone, I finally made my way back to the bottom. To civilization. I returned, but left a little dash of my essence somewhere up there, among the living, breathing forest.

ER Harris