We saw the mounds of dirt, covered with rocks and some marked only by simple wooden crosses. Yet the messages they carried were often poignant. Here lay true and loyal friends ..."We'll miss you"..."M&M, the M-ster"..."Rock Star"..."Fredie Fish: He drowned."
We had stumbled upon a resting place for man's best friends. We pushed along the dusty trail, eyes darting, searching. It was quiet in this cool, dappled alcove, and we were alone just the seven of us.
Sean, 15, with his bloodhound nose and Sherlock Holmes instincts (and a nifty GPS device), pointed the way through the trees. Matt spotted it first, overturned the bricks and said, as offhandedly as only a 13-year-old could: "Found it." As Holly, 16, and Nick, 14, inventoried the loot, Ellen, 3, said: "Carry me. Somebody carry me."
That's what I wanted too. But long, sweaty geocache hikes and camping were the point of this early July weekender to sunny Avalon, where neither heat nor crowds could dim Catalina Island's lapis lazuli beauty.
Newbies to the island, we wanted to remain within walking distance of the main drag and get to know Avalon. For seven people on a budget, that meant staying at the only Catalina Island campground that's within the city's 2 square miles: Hermit Gulch.
It's a bit more civilized than Catalina's four other campgrounds, which include -- at the opposite end of the spectrum and the opposite end of the 21-mile island -- isolated Parson's Landing, a hike-in primitive site with no fresh water.
Hermit Gulch, on the contrary, is "close to Avalon, with hot showers and flush toilets, a microwave, vending machines, shuttle," said amiable ranger Waylon Graham.
Another perk: Graham lives on-site. That does provide some peace of mind, but it didn't solve our Night No. 1 problem.
But first, Day No. 1. We arrived aboard the Catalina Express, which we caught in San Pedro, with our daunting pile of gear. Hermit Gulch is about a mile and a half from downtown, a slight uphill hike all the way. A taxi ferried our stuff, and us, to the campground (less expensive than having our things transported and walking there and less heinous than the idea of carrying it all up ourselves). After setting up a trio of tents and discovering, to my extreme dismay, that the battery-powered pump I'd brought for my air mattress had had a meltdown on the trip over, we took off for town on foot along Avalon Canyon Road.
