Pleasures of Summer Long Days Are Never Long Enough
Words by Jen See | Photos by Jacopo Degl’innocenti
By the time you read this story, it’ll be fall. You’ll be riding through the last golden aspen leaves in the high mountains, dreaming of powder runs, or preparing for winter escapes to the desert.
I’ll be here in coastal California, watching storms form in the North Pacific and imagining perfect winter swells. We all have our dreams to chase. As I sit here in my favorite coffee shop, watching the ceiling fans spin, it’s still peak summer—the season for rides that are too long on days that are far too hot. It’s the time of popsicles and swimming holes and that long, lingering twilight that seems to last forever. If you don’t go skinny dipping at least once, did summer happen at all?
Of course, it’s also now the season of heat waves and forest fires whose smoke turns the mid-day sun an unsettling orange and makes the air burn in our throats like the cheapest whiskey. Climate change is making life feel more precarious with every passing season. That’s all the more true out West, here on the edge of it all. Our favorite trails are here today but might not be for too much longer. Get it before it’s gone.
And so, we ride. It was high noon during a heat wave when I slid an almond butter sandwich—its bread perfectly aligned—a full bag of gummy bears, and a half-eaten, shareable- size package of M&M’s into my pack alongside the stray gels, probably expired, that have taken up residence in there. I added a frozen water bladder and snapped a bottle into the bike’s cage. I felt prepared for anything. I met my four friends in a nearby parking lot and together we began the steady road climb toward the trailhead. We’d counted on the blistering sun to keep the hordes at home. We’d hoped to have the trail to ourselves. Survive the climb and rip the descent, that was the plan. Parked cars lined the roadside and we soon realized that we might have made a tiny miscalculation.
There was either a raging party happening, or far more people were out on the trail than we had expected. In fact, when we reached the dirt’s beginning, we saw hikers clustered under every inch of available shade. In California’s low-elevation chaparral country, there isn’t all that much of that precious commodity.
With more climbing ahead of us, we stopped for snacks and stupid jokes, that essential ritual of every ride. Then we set off. As the climb bit into our legs, we spread out along the trail and sunk into our thoughts. I passed a couple wearing flip-flops who clutched plastic water bottles, and I wondered about their life choices. I listened to the sweet sound of my own water sloshing in my pack. I pictured my candy stash and smiled. I’ve got this, I thought.
Heat radiated off the trail’s tawny dust and, halfway up the climb, I was ready to rethink my optimism. There were still people on the trail, but their numbers dwindled quickly as the terrain steepened. A few switchbacks ahead, I could see another rider, churning through the dust. Soon enough, he disappeared into the tall brush, and I never saw him again. I wondered if he had even been there at all.
There was nowhere to hide from the sun’s relentless searing. I slung my helmet over my bars and dumped water over my head. I was going too slow to catch a breeze and the water evaporated almost as soon as it left the bottle. I considered turning around, but the siren song of the descent and the prospect of sharing it with friends kept me going. I didn’t want to miss out. I was determined to reach the top.
When I did, it came so suddenly that it surprised me. I scootched under the dubious shade of a scrubby ceanothus plant. There was a nice view from nearby rocks, but there was no way I was leaving my smattering of shade. My friends scattered around the clearing, each tucked away as far from the sunlight as possible. I dug into my pack in search of snacks. Ripping into the gummy bears, I slurped my water and tried to pretend that it was still cold. My anticipation for the descent almost made the heat bearable. I was out on my bike with friends on a summer day. What more could a girl want? I ate my sandwich and washed it down with still more water. Then I passed the M&M’s around.
We slung our packs over our shoulders and clambered on our bikes. It was time to go. The descent began slowly and I twostepped through a series of switchbacks. There was no one around out here, just my friends, the trail beneath my wheels, and an infi nite blue sky overhead. Soon we sped up, and I didn’t think about anything. Shift my weight, move the bike, keep it rolling—that’s all there was to it.
From the speed-blur of color, my brain grabbed brief snapshots of clarity: dried lichen on granite, a lizard doing push-ups on a sunlit stone, a late-blooming fl ower bright against the parched grasses. We sank deeper into the canyon and a lazy stream of water left from past winter rains crawled through the rocks. Poison oak lurked in every shady nook, and I hoped that the layers of sunscreen, sweat, and dust barricaded my skin against the demon plant.
Giddy, I hopscotched across the creek bed, swinging my bike along beside me. I pulled a few gummy bears out my pocket. They were dirty but I ate them anyway. Then, it was on again, whipping through trees fi ltering magical afternoon light. Up ahead, I could hear my friends laughing as they bopped through the rocks and slid through the trees.
When the descent ended, I popped out on a paved road. Cars, buildings, cement— out on the bike, I’d forgotten such things even existed. Together, we turned down the road to the nearest gas station, where we descended on its convenience store like a shriek of seagulls on a bag of chips.
I opened the cooler door to a blast of air that felt arctic after the heat of the trail. Gas station donuts. Coke. We grabbed everything we could find—the more sugar, the better. Collapsing in the slim shade of the building’s overhang, we surveyed our haul. I ripped into the donuts first, and the powdered sugar exploded like an audition for the Fourth of July. It went straight to my brain and I giggled like a fool.
There was only one thing left to do and we turned our bikes downhill toward the beach. Laughing, we ran through the sand, flailing with our bikes over our shoulders. We looked like a team of the worst cyclocross racers ever. I dropped my bike and my pack, pulled off my shoes and socks, and sprinted toward the water.
We all jumped into the perfectly cold water, laughing and splashing. I floated on my back and stared at the sky. Later, I sat on my front steps still in my wet clothing and ate a popsicle. Summer was made for days like this one, and there’s a simple joy in knowing when we’ve made the most of our chances. If it all ends tomorrow, we’ve had today. And that’s enough.
