Can you fall in love with a place?
Not “love” in the generic sense of enjoyment or appreciation. But rather a deep sense of mutual care and joy.
Can love, the joy and appreciation from the presence of another, extend beyond the human? Can it encompass not just animals but also landscapes and places?
Such is the main idea of science-fiction writer Kim Stanley Robinson’s memoir, The High Sierra: A Love Story.
Robinson, famous for his award-winning space-faring trilogy about Mars, has lived his life very much grounded upon the high granite of California.
A child of SoCal who settled in Davis, Robinson’s latest work describes his time hiking and exploring the Sierra. A loose biography of sorts, Robinson describes his life in the mountain range with continual wonder. It is, quoting John Muir, a “gentle wilderness,” perhaps unique among the world’s alpine areas.
Robinson calls the ridges and basins above the treeline the “god zone,” a space of material divinities—streams, ponds, lichens, mammals, plants, all gathered together in beautifully contingent ways among the granite undulations.
Robinson loves these mountains and writes rapturously about why so many people have been made better by being around them.
The book made me think of the spaces where I’ve spent time, especially Redwood Regional Park.
The park rolls down from the Oakland hills, fenced by ridges along its eastern and western edges. Moisture flows off the Pacific, across the Bay, and into the valley. When this marine layer is heavy, the park is cool and damp, even in summer droughts.
This fog sustains groves of redwoods, eucalyptus, live oak, and Pacific madrone. Microclimates abound as moisture moves dynamically from meter-to-meter, funneled by tree trunks and hillsides. Exposed trails cut through the chaparral in one area while a baseball throw away lies dense, evergreen foliage. Temps within the park swing considerably.
Reinhardt Redwood Regional Park—named after one of the five original members of the East Bay Regional Park District board—lacks the grandeur of the old-growth redwoods further north. But the regional park is a wonder and proximate to extensive urban space.
When the fog is heavy, the park feels ineffable.
Moisture drips off tree leaves, water collects and runs along the ground. Trees tower cathedral-like, celebrating the wondrous potential of the forest. They lean out over the footways, shining a green hue over everything, even during the dusty dryness of high summer.
A crucial term Robinson employs is “psychogeography.”
Coined by the Situationist philosopher Guy Debord, it describes how different places affect how we feel and behave. Unique terrain changes not only how we move, but also shape our minds, moods, and ideas of the world.
We adapt to running through specific natural spaces.
In Redwood Park, the best trails sit midway up the canyon walls, winding along the hillside in series of mild switchbacks. The ascents come in 70-150m bursts, usually switchbacking at the intersection of an arroyo or ravine. So one moves along the canyons in V-shaped notches, requiring continual shifts in the orientation of your body.
The redwood and eucalyptus root systems slow you considerably. They force an eye down toward the trail 3-4 meters in front of you. Your hips adjust, turning your body in athletic pivots as you negotiate the uneven footing.
When you’re feeling good in the park, when your legs and cadence seem to match the pitch of the climbs and descents, it’s as if you’ve tuned your effort to the exact slope and footing of trail. It’s an exhilarating feeling, flowing with the land in sync with its contours and movements.
In moments like these one feels enmeshed. Robinson references ”actor-network theory,” a concept from the French philosopher Bruno Latour, who argued the social and natural worlds exist in network of hyper-connected relationships that extend beyond the human. That feels correct when you dash along the trails, almost a part of the dirt and roots, adjusting your pace to match your fitness and exertion, embedded and interconnected and influenced by the minute details of the ground.
We can't escape these relationships. Reinhardt Regional Park only exists the way it does because of the impact of humans. We ravaged the canyon twice before deeming it worthy of conservation and protection.
The park’s redwoods are third-growth trees. Californians, not sated by plundering the grove in the 19th century, felled the second-growth trees after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
And yet, despite humanity’s recurring and relentless stupidity, the trees returned. And afterwards, people took action.
The new growth of redwoods were just striplings, affording far less cover and shade than today, but they were still impressive enough to create political engagement. Bay Area Californians were already caught up in the progressive politics that animated the area in the early decades of the twentieth century (the Sierra Club was and remains headquartered in the Bay). But it was local notables, like Reinhardt who made this particular canyon into a park.
Perhaps they were struck by the meandering creek as it bubbled southwards. Or maybe the light caught the redwood needles of those young trees in a way that glinted green and holy.
Even now the park exists through a network of staff, volunteers, and the political actions of boards and local politics. And the park’s network extends beyond California to the machinations of Washington DC. Efforts (or lack thereof) to curtail Americans’ ceaseless consumption of carbon will impact temperatures, the prevalence of heatwaves, how much moisture blows off the Pacific, and whether the groves survive an era of endemic wildfire.
I hope it does. Because I love this park.
The first time I ran in Redwood Park was the day I met my wife. We ran along French Trail and back up along the creek as she showcased the basic routes. Redwood Regional will always have the warm glow of that association.
But the park has its own relationship with me. When I first saw those redwood groves, I was struggling with depression and anxiety. As worked toward a healthier relationship with myself, Redwood Park was a quiet place to get out of my head for an hour or so in the woods. In this sense, it provided a sort of care right when I needed it.
Caitlin and I moved up into the hills be close to the park. We spent seven years running in and around the park, almost daily. We grew together with the redwoods, spending hours and hours jogging through foggy mornings. And we still do.
Redwood is Oakland’s great backyard. An oasis in the East Bay. And I’m so grateful it exists.
Thanks for reading.
The weekly run
Breakfast Club's weekly run meets every Thursday morning in the Oakland hills for an 8-mile run.
When and Where: Thursday, 6:30am at Lake Temescal
Pace: ~7:00 to 7:40 pace; routes include a few hundred feet of climbing. See route on Strava
Parking: lots are closed early in the morning, but street parking along Broadway is plentiful just beyond the park's northern entrance. Be careful with belongings as theft is common.
Meeting spot: north side of the lake at the toilets near the northern parking lot. The group runs a clockwise loop around the lake before heading out of the park.
Quick splits
Here's what I've been reading/listening to of late:
Kim Stanley Robinson in conversation with Ezra Klein. Mentioned above, Robinson’s recent novels confront the climate crisis with verve and optimism. He and Klein focus on his memoir and why he’s hopeful for the future. (NY Times)
On aging into athleticism, Anne Helen Petersen’s lovely essay about growing into the enjoyment of running: “Maybe this genre of awe is akin to what some people feel after giving birth. For the first time, I’m treating [my body] as the remarkable assemblage of systems that it is: deserving of rest, and respect, and nourishment.” (Culture Study)
East Bay marathoning great Peter Gilmore on the Morning Shakeout. Gilmore talks with Mario Fraioli about his return to competitive running. They talk about loss, growth, and gunning for the Olympic Trials standard. (Morning Shakeout)
The greatest version of rock-paper-scissors ever created. (Twitter)
The next-level heat waves facing one billion people. A startling essay from Dr. Dhruv Khullar on the medical and social impact of extreme heat becoming the norm in India. (New Yorker)
Tweets of the week
Parting thought
“The whole world was awesome then, a vast mysterious unfolding; and the thing is it still is. You just have to go outside and look. Walking also helps.”
- Kim Stanley Robinson
That’s all for this week. Thanks for reading.