The landscape in the Temescal Canyon canyon trail is charred almost beyond recognition. Lush green hillsides are now bare, blackened by the Palisades Fire.
The trail itself is buried in many places by landslides after the first rains.
And yet, on the canyon floor, life once again defies the odds as the first green shoots of spring emerge after the fire.
I hiked Temescal Canyon on Sunday, February 2, at sunrise. Officially, the trail is closed and off limits. It is — as I would find out — extremely dangerous, as many cliffside pathways have been reduced to treacherous loose slopes.
The lower stretches of the trail were reassuringly intact, though many of the structures had been destroyed. A notorious stop sign in the parking lot was destroyed, though the hidden camera to catch infractions was still there.
There was a healthy flow of water in the canyon, the result of two days of rain last week (several more days are expected this week, which will almost certainly cause more flooding and landslides on the denuded mountains).
The wooden dams that hold back debris in the event of winter flooding were still there — but appeared damaged.
As I ascended the upper reaches of the trail — or what was left of it — my heart sank. Few trees had survived. A hidden waterfall with a secret cave — known only to a few — is still there, but the trail leading to it has been completely lost.
The walls of the canyon, once dark green, glowed fiery orange in the light of the rising sun above the coastal fog.
The waterfall at the end of the canyon is still there, as is the steel bridge across its basin — but the wooden boards of the bridge have been consumed, making the bridge impassable, and hence the upper reaches of the trail as well.
One or two secret waterfalls remained accessible. And there will certainly be water, with an “atmospheric river” from the Pacific Ocean on the way.
But the trail will never be the same, and there will be a long wait for it to reopen.
I leave you with an image of some more green shoots. Some species in the canyon only germinate if there is a fire.
And some will blossom, relentlessly, despite the fire — because spring is spring, and there will be water, and sunshine, too.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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