Posted: May 8, 2017, 2:13pm
At the beginning of the Spring break, we decided to hike the stress out of the semester. I had planned to undertake the Solstice Canyon hike earlier, but the plans never really materialized. The daunting assignments took a little break and so did we. Straight to the hills facing Malibu.
Solstice canyon offers several trails to undergo an easy to moderate to more strenuous hike. We started at 6:30 am from the Exposition Blvd Metro Station close to USC and got down at the Santa Monica Station. The weather, fortunately, was perfect for the hike. It was quite cloudy and misty at that hour, but as the day progressed, it got bearably warmer. We took a bus from Santa Monica and got down at Malibu. From there, we had to take another bus that dropped us right in front of the Solstice Canyon trail.
Charged with those granola bars and some breakfast with our bags loaded with water bottles, we started on the Solstice trail itself, our destination being the famous Solstice waterfall. Being surrounded by the rich green of the trees and the hills with patches of white – a deceitful blend of clouds with the water of the Pacific, we felt rejuvenated.
With our heavy course load, though we meet each other every day, there’s only so much we talk about our lives apart from the present. This hike served a perfect opportunity to achieve just that. We bonded over the funny photograph sessions, the mimicry and made fun of how our first impression of each other is quite different from what we think about each other now. It was great to know that I was perceived to be a very serious person but then, sadly the truth about my clumsiness with friends showed its face right in time.
We reached the waterfall well in time and chilled there for a while. A lot of photographs were taken and we had the oh-so-delicious sandwiches that one of my friends had brought. He loves cooking and that was pretty evident from what he brought. As I went more and more towards the origin of the waterfall, holding those rocks, my aim being to reach the end of the area, I saved myself, just from centimeters from touching a really long brown and black snake. I stayed calm took two steps back and then ran! These people wanted to see at least one snake during the hike and I pretty much made their day. All the artistic photographic skills came ablaze and so many pictures were then taken. After this short break, we decided to move on. Right beside the waterfall, are the architectural ruins of The Robert’s Ranch House. There are several such ruins one encounters at the different parts of the trails.
Moving on from there, we decided to take the Sosotmo trail. It’s a circular trail and we expected us to reach the same place where we started. During our way though, we decided to digress and took another circular trail. Even in this trail, we were expected to find a waterfall. We did find one and sat there for a while. We decided on doing some soul searching there. Everybody was quiet and the only sound to be heard was that of the water from the fall. Sunburst through the leaves fell on our faces as we laid down with our heads on our backpacks and our eyes closed. Others might have been introspecting but I properly dozed off!
It was around 1 and we decided to get down the hill and reach the entrance again. More granola bars and fruits were taken and we made sure we were well hydrated at all times.
Downhill, we chilled at the Malibu Beach for a while and then took another bus that brought us straight to Santa Monica. Here, we went to the shopping plaza near the Cheesecake Factory, had an extremely healthy lunch and took more photos. It was a really refreshing and productive day overall.
Published on July 25th, 2017
Last updated on August 10th, 2017