walking

Walking the rails

Aliza3 Comments
Walking the Oaks Park Railway line.

It occurred to me this morning that I have written a lot about the places I’ve walked, but little about walking itself.

This thought occurred while I was walking on the railroad tracks below Sellwood Park. It’s a private railway line that runs between Oaks Bottom Nature Preserve and the Willamette River. Around Christmastime, a cute little steam train runs up and down, carrying mostly children and their adult companions. The train makes a wonderful nostalgic tooting sound we can hear from our neighborhood, which is situated on a plateau above Oaks Bottom Nature Preserve and the railway line.

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Urban hiking: the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve

Aliza3 Comments
Mansions of West Hills, Los Angeles, California, visible from the east portions of hiking trails in Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve.

Early spring is a wonderful time to visit Los Angeles. I congratulated myself on my foresight as I began my hike in the Upper Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space Preserve, a 3,000-acre open expanse of hills and views networked with trails — enough for even the most ardent hiker to roam for hours.

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Barefoot walk to Skandashram

Aliza9 Comments

Bare Feet 2

We decided that today we’d try walking up to Skandashram barefoot. That’s the traditional way to ascend to this holy spot, and many (even most) people do it that way. Alan had walked up barefoot many times in the 1970s, but on this visit, we’ve been wearing sandals or shoes everywhere except in the ashram or in temples. So this was going to be an interesting experiment.

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