Laying in bed on the eve of my friends’ arrival in Los Angeles, I was feeling jittery about the adventure that lay ahead. Tanner was flying in from Jacksonville, Cristian from New York City, and Hunter from Boston. Two mornings from then, we would be boarding a train, then a ferry to Catalina Island to ride our bikes and camp for 3 days.
It wasn’t the most physically demanding, the most dangerous, or even the most remote route out there, but it would be the most complex trip my friends and I had planned together in our 20+ years of friendship so far. It was a trip that we’d been talking about doing for at least a handful of years at this point. We either didn’t have the time, the money, and often both to pull this trip off until this point in our lives. Until we all turned 30. Until I got engaged and Tanner and I each got our respective businesses running. Until Cristian got his own apartment in the Big Apple. Until Hunter got a stable job that allowed him to save, take meaningful time off, and kit out our whole crew with Beloved Outdoor Retailer™️ gear. Serendipitously, Tanner’s 30th birthday (he’s the last one of us to leave his 20’s) landed on Sunday, the last day of our ride.
Hunter and Cristian even bought new bikes for this trip specifically. Twin Surly Bridge Clubs, courtesy of Tanner, arrived at my doorstep a week ago. They also had to procure camping setups and bags to carry everything. I got the bikes built up and installed racks a couple days before everyone arrived.
Our group had mixed levels of cycling experience; Tanner and I were the most seasoned riders, Hunter had ridden a lot in the past but hadn’t this seriously in a while, and Cristian was the newest. Fitness levels also varied, so I picked a route for us that was about 50 miles and 6000ft of elevation gain spread over 3 days of riding, not including the 9 mile cruise back to the train at the end of the ride. The thinking being it would hopefully give us ample time to really take in the scenery, do short hikes, take in the views of the wildflowers, hang out with buffalo, swim, lounge at our campsites, take photos, and goof around. Our route took us the length of the island, southern tip to northern tip, stopping at 3 scenic campsites along the way.
We managed to pull off a shorter boys trip to visit Tanner in Jacksonville this past November on the way to Sarasota, our shared home town in Florida. There were some avoidable logistical difficulties that led to a couple members of the group leaving a day early. One night before we all parted ways, under the influence of some entheogenic substances, we had a long conversation about how we all needed to be more intentional about carving out time for each other in the future. Our world seems chaotic right now and things in the future feel very uncertain. The only certainty is that we’re all getting older and busier, and unless we put lots of effort into creating time for each other, these critically important hangs will become fewer and further between. These are friends of mine since early childhood, so not seeing them for a while feels like I’m missing family.
Miraculously, through shared effort and financial commitment on the whole of the group, we turned a rambling stoned conversation into airtight concrete plans just a few months later. Soon, we’d be on our way to the island and embarking on what will hopefully be our first of many bikepacking adventures together.
The next morning, Hunter and Tanner arrived. We built Tanner's bike and ran a couple last minute errands around town, including a mandatory stop for tacos.
Cristian arrived a few hours later, and a few hours after that we were packed and ready to go. Sleep came with difficulty as I awaited our departure the following morning.
DAY 00
Morning arrived and we were up early for a fancy coffee and tamale mission before we headed to the LA Metro that would take us to downtown Long Beach. From there we hopped on the Catalina Express ferry and set off on our hour-long ride to the island. Tanner was dressed like a Minion and we laughed a lot about it.
The ride was pretty rough, so we decided to brave the wind outside as it felt less nauseating than sitting indoors in the main passenger compartment. Long Beach and Palos Verdes faded into the distance as Catalina inched closer. At one point, we saw the spray of whales in the distance, before one breached a few hundred feet away from the boat.
Approaching the island, now minutes away from docking, the land and the mountains appeared foreign and unreal. Jurassic Park vibes. Steep and rocky cliffs extend almost vertically from the ocean, covered in brush, glowing rich emerald green in the diffused afternoon light following the recent rains.
Hunter’s parents had taken the ferry from Laguna beach earlier in the day, so we met up with them for about an hour once we got off the boat. They brought us a tin of delicious blueberry muffins for our breakfast the following morning.
Avalon is a slow-paced beach town at the mouth of a mountainous canyon. Its small streets are lined with restaurants, bars, shops, and galleries for the cruise ship tourists and the locals. Its steep hills are peppered with houses. It reminded me of Puerto Vallarta in Mexico, similarly feeling like a place that, in a charming way, hadn’t been updated in decades. People get around via a combination of bikes, golf carts, and tiny imported Japanese trucks. Oh man, those little trucks are so cool.
We biked a loop around downtown and ended up getting seafood for dinner. When on island…right? Cruising up the canyon from town a mile or so, we arrived at Hermit Gulch campground as the sun was setting behind the mountains. Before we knew it, it was dark. We put all our food in a bear box at our site, and took a little walk up the road in the dark to check out the gate to the then closed Botanical Gardens.
Upon returning back to camp we realized that Hunter had forgotten to stash the muffins in the bear box, and a tiny mischievous fox had located it and devoured the whole thing, leaving only crumbs behind. It lurked close by in the shadows the whole time we were getting ready for bed, scampering away when we’d beam it with light from our headlamps. Bummer, but hilarious.
We turned in, knowing that tomorrow would be our first real day of riding for the trip. It would be our longest of the route and require us to clear the most elevation gain. If we could handle this leg, it’d be smoother sailing for the rest of the weekend. Anxiously excited, we fell sleep taking in a clear, starry sky and the sounds of the woods.
DAY 01
I woke up with the birds and the faint blue sky at 6am sharp. Walking around camp to warm up a bit, I saw that Hunter’s lean-to had collapsed on him in the middle of the night. He packed the lightest shelter-wise, but struggled the whole trip with pitching his tarp properly and eventually gave in to the cowboy camp and was much happier for it.
Slowly, the rest of the group crawled out of their tents and we packed up camp. The first goal was breakfast, which we found at the Chinese Bakery in downtown Avalon. Some delicious chorizo later and we were on the way up Wrigley Road to Renton Mine Road, which would slowly lead us out of town and up to the ridge line above Avalon, circumnavigating the southeastern tip of the island.
When planning, I had seen that there were two options for mounting the ridge line out of Avalon. One entirely paved and steep, but short. One, longer by several miles but seemingly much less steep in comparison. I figured with a few members of the group relatively new to loaded climbing (and climbing mountainous terrain in general), an easier overall grade would allow us to move faster and conserve energy, balancing out the extra miles we’d have to cover.
As we would learn, there is no easy way out of Avalon. Less steep only meant less steep, not lacking of steepness. The sharp incline announced itself as soon as we hit dirt and what I was hoping would be a mellow climb turned into a hot slog, crawling our way up in between countless heat and snack breaks. The shade at the bottom of the climb gave way to sun-exposed scrub as we gained elevation. Time was passing us by.
We climbed until we reached a saddle on the back side of the island that had a little pavilion, marking the end of our first big segment of elevation gain. Disheveled, we stopped for lunch and looked at the clock; it had already been 3 hours and we had covered less than 10 miles. We hadn’t even passed the junction with the shorter climb out of Avalon yet. Another group of bikepackers with kits straight out of a catalogue zoomed by us without stopping. We never saw them again, but would hear about how fast they were moving from everyone we subsequently passed. It was as if they were ghosts.
Finishing lunch, we looked down the mountain at our first descent which bottomed out at a lower saddle and climbed steeply again, painting a distant thin line wiggling up the next ridge over. Beyond that ridge sat the tallest peak on the island, Mount Orizaba. Even further beyond that, a flattened and silhouetted plateau identified the Airport in The Sky, a goalpost marking the end of our climbing for the day and our stop for some hot food…if we could make it all the way there before the restaurant closed. That wasn’t even our final destination; we still had to descend a handful of miles from the airport to our campsite at Little Harbor.
Seeing how far away it was, how seemingly little ground we covered so far, and how ragged our crew was at that moment made me nervous that we’d either be riding in the dark or not making it altogether. I told Tanner my concerns and he helped me rally the troops, who were relishing the shade and food, back onto our bikes and down the hill ahead of us.
The descent was equally as steep as the climb, and everyone blasted down without any drama. You’re either climbing or descending on this island, and moments later we were pointed back uphill. By now it was peak heat, and this climb was unwelcome and uncomfortable. We fully ran out of water at some point on the way up. I put my head down and spite-pedaled myself into the red before cresting at the top and finding another gazebo. It was here that we finally met the junction of Climb Option 1 out of Avalon.
I wondered how much sooner we would have reached that spot had we chosen to ascend that way instead and I kicked myself for making us take the long way. I was really hoping that I hadn't made my buddies over-exert themselves to the point that making our miles for the day would be a serious struggle. I was so hot it felt like my blood was boiling in my head. I bet this is what a potato feels like in a microwave.
Minutes later, my friends arrived and we surveyed the map to see when the next water resupply would be. There was fortunately an indication of water a few more sun-baked miles ahead.
As we were trying to cool down, a group of older women backpackers popped out of the bushes next to the gazebo. They were about a mile away from finishing their days long hike, and seeing how hot we were (in temperature and also maybe in virility), offered us the rest of their water and food, expanding our dinner menu and lightening their pack load on the way down the mountain. They felt like our guardian angels. One of them told us to keep doing trips like this together. Her wise advice made the moment, and the trip, feel more special and like the beginning of something even greater.
Feeling re-energized, we parted ways with our benefactors and skirted along the ridge line a couple miles until we saw a grouping of trees and a small pond appear around a corner. A bit further and we were rewarded with a whole rest area with shade, a bathroom, and at last, a water fountain. I started singing Cool Water by Marty Robbins as we rolled up to the oasis. A lone buffalo sat close by at the edge of the pond, similarly trying to find some respite from the heat.
The riding from that point forward was much easier. The heat of the day had passed and we were quickly traversing long rolling hills of patchwork pavement at the top of the ridge with ocean views in both directions. Faster than expected, we were rolling up to the gates of the airport.
We were unfortunately a few minutes too late to get a full meal at the restaurant, but they sold us one of their famous cookies and some ice cream and told us that we could cook our own food on their patio. We made some noodles and used their bathrooms, washing our faces and filling our water again before making our final descent down to the campsite at Little Harbor.
I’ve ridden some pretty incredible descents in my biking career, but this one will live amongst my favorites. The riding was technically dead easy. A 20 foot wide, silky smooth dirt road quickly took us downhill from the airport. The magical golden hour light bouncing off the water and the fact that we knew we had earned the blisteringly fast downhill with all of our hard fought climbing all day that made it so much sweeter. I was going so fast my eyes were watering. The miles flew by, and before we knew it we were at the campgrounds pulling into our huge site, hidden amongst a grove of palm trees and soft grass on which we pitched our tents.
We stripped down and ran to the beach, dunking ourselves in the frigid water and washing away the day's dirt and sweat. It felt truly incredible on my tired legs. On the way out of the water, fellow campers told us that they had seen multiple sharks right where we had been swimming….neat.
I had the foresight to order firewood to be delivered to our campsite ahead of time (you can do this when you book), so we made a fire to warm us up and dry our clothes. We made a filling, multi course feast utilizing some of the food gifted to us by the Grand Mamas. After dinner, we sat around the dwindling flames and had one of those deeper conversations that can only be had by best friends around a campfire. We were so proud of ourselves for surviving the day and we were excited for what was to come, knowing that the hardest part of our journey was already behind us. One by one, fatigue hit us, and it was time to turn in and formally end the first day of our adventure.
DAY 02
Our second day on island started slowly. We made coffee and walked back down to the beach with the goal of enjoying our brew from atop Whale’s Tail in Shark Harbor, which is where Sublime shot the music video for Badfish in 1997. On the way, we passed a couple dead seals and a dead dolphin that had beached after consuming a toxic fungus that had been reportedly blooming for the past few weeks. It was a sad sight, and I couldn’t help but wonder about humanity’s fault in this. We’ve had so much bullshit wash into the ocean after the fires this winter, on top of all the other bullshit we’re dumping in the ocean regularly already.
We spent a good amount of time on top of the rock, drinking our coffee and warming up in the sun before heading back to camp to make breakfast and pack up. By the time we got on the trail, it was already mid morning and getting hot. It felt good to move at a slower pace though, knowing that we had much less ground to cover that day on the way to Two Harbors and Parsons Landing.
We passed an old cattle ranch and saw a lone buffalo grazing in the hills above. Hunter had been chastising us for our choices of sun-exposed break locations the whole trip, and about halfway up the climb he shot off ahead around a corner claiming to have found shade. He was lying. Roasting and banter ensued.
“Bro is being treacherous and deceitful.” “Bro is engaging in trickery."
The saddle arrived surprisingly quickly, and after taking a moment to admire the views, we bombed down a screaming fast descent into Two Harbors just in time for a delicious loaded hot dog lunch and a siesta on the sand under some shade. It was the perfect way to pass the hottest part of the day.
Coincidentally, I had another group of friends bikepacking the island that weekend as well. They were just doing an overnighter at Two Harbors, and started from Avalon a day after us. I checked on FindMyFriends and saw that they were descending into Two Harbors at that very moment. Minutes later, they rolled around the corner and joined our crew for some shaded rest.
Though they were sleeping in Two Harbors that night, they wanted to check out Parsons Landing as well, so we opted to all ride together out to our campsite at the northern tip of the island. Once the heat died down a bit, we were off.
The following 7 miles or so were probably the most enjoyable of the whole trip. The trail gradually rose and fell, traversing high above steep cliffs dropping straight into the turquoise water below. It weaved in and out of canyons, sometimes hilariously far away from the waters edge. We’d round a corner and see the trail cutting into the next ridge a mere 50 feet away as the crow flies, but would have to spend 10 minutes riding around the interior of the canyon to get there.
Our group of 7 was flying in tight formation, hooting and hollering and kicking up lots of dust. Less than a mile from camp, the trail gave us one last kick in the guts in the form of a steep hike-a-bike, before descending all the way to the beach where we’d be spending the night.
Our friends turned around in order to make it back to Two Harbors before dark, leaving us to set up camp and start cooking the remainder of our food for dinner. Once again, we had ordered firewood to our site and we enjoyed the warmth of a campfire as the sun set behind the steep rocky cliffs that enclose the beach.
As last light faded we could see mainland LA illuminate across the water, twinkling in the sea mist. It was surreal to imagine the city bustling on a Saturday night while we were watching it from afar, on one of the most remote beaches in the country. We'd come so far to be at that spot in that moment, and we felt so lucky.
It was the eve of Tanner’s 30th birthday and our last night on the island. I couldn’t help but feel heavy at that moment knowing that this adventure, one that had been on our minds for years and took months to plan, was coming to an end so quickly. In a couple days, my friends and I would be headed back to our busy lives and my calendar would soon be empty once again.
Through the sadness I felt grateful. I was grateful for my good health, physical ability, and privilege that allowed me to reach these places and see the things I’ve seen. I was grateful that this ride had gone off without a hitch. I was grateful for my best friends who stepped up and committed mentally and financially to executing this trip, flying across the country, buying bikes and gear, and trusting me to lead them on the adventure of a lifetime. All I can hope for is that they let me do it again and that we might make a habit out of doing trips like this every year.
I fell asleep to the sound of the gentle wind and the waves, heart full.
DAY 03
We were up at first light the following morning, brewing coffee and hanging on the rocks as the sun came up to warm us. A curious seal, thankfully not visibly sick and dying, kept us company.
We packed up quickly and retraced the previous day’s ride back to Two Harbors, where breakfast and our return ferry to the mainland awaited. Shout out to the barista at the restaurant who gave all of us an extra shot of espresso with our iced coffees; I’m sure we looked like we needed it.
We boarded the boat and waved goodbye to the magical island of Catalina. Dolphins and seals frolicked in our wake as the island vanished into the mist behind us, as if it were all a dream.
This mystical feeling was only reinforced by our ride through the sickly industrial sprawl of San Pedro to our train in Long Beach. How could somewhere so undisturbed and wild exist so close to the cancer of industry?
The train home was the final return to reality. I felt fulfilled and proud of my boys for accomplishing our first of hopefully many bikepacking trips together. I eagerly daydreamed about what we could do next, knowing that until then, I’d be satisfied looking at the jagged silhouette of Catalina off in the distance and forever remembering the hell of a time we had out there together.