San Jacinto Wilderness

June 3, 2025: While visiting Idyllwild to help with the annual Earth Fair festivities, I found myself exploring my old stomping grounds. This trail and the places it leads are old friends—having spent countless hours here since my early years as a Boy Scout, later as a State Park wilderness park aid, then as a graduate student conducting wilderness research, and finally as director of the James Reserve. The landscapes remarkable geology, ancient old-growth forest, diverse flora, and abundant wildlife have become part of me through decades of intimate familiarity. This connection runs so deep it defies easy description. No other place resonates with me quite this way, and todays walk stirred a flood of cherished memories.