Hiking & Camping on Catalina Island

Happy October!

Tomorrow marks 5 years since I married my man. Normally I’m not huge on anniversary celebrations, but since 5 years feels like a milestone, I wanted to commemorate the occasion by doing something memorable and fun together.

Instead of going on a relaxing weekend getaway to wine country or something obviously romantic like most normal couples probably do, us nuts decided to embark on what turned out to be the toughest endurance challenge of my life hiking around Catalina Island. Buckle up for this long weekend recap friends – it was most definitely an adventure with a roller coaster of emotions!

Catalina is a gorgeous little island off the coast of SoCal that has this sort of Mediterranean vibe to it. I visited there for the first time earlier this year with my mom for just a day trip, and wanted to go back with A to show him this cool place.

We decided to go away for a camping & hiking weekend pretty last minute – probably before I had much time to consider how heavy a backpack is full of food, camping gear and clothes. When I first put it on I kept giggling because I felt like I was being pulled backwards.   

We took the hourlong ferry ride out of Long Beach over to Catalina Island. As we approached the island, I was excited to see the mountains we’d be hiking on.

Our first campsite, Hermit Gulch, was pretty close to the busy town of Avalon – somewhere between a 30-45 minute walk. Since staying at hotels in Avalon is pretty pricey, I got the feeling that this is the place that people go to vacation on Catalina on the cheap. It’s a nice in-between for people who want the outdoorsy feel of camping while also being close enough to walk into town for dinner, booze, entertainment, swimming and so on.

After we got settled in at the campsite, we walked back into town to walk around a bit before dusk. Catalina had a film festival happening, and there was a new Nicholas Cage moving being shown that night, so we got to peak in on some red carpet action. We also split an ice cream cone while coming up with a game plan for our hiking excursion.

Before going on a trip with a lot of variables like this one, I usually like to come up with a decent idea of how things are going to go. Prior to going out to Catalina, we reserved our campsites, and the campsite for our second night appeared to be a good 15 miles from our first campsite. I was prepared for a challenging hike, but it was kind of strange in planning for it though, because there was little information available online as to how long the hike would take. I figured that once we got to Catalina, we could talk to people more to get a better sense of things, but we found that no one working on the island knew much about it either.

We quickly learned that the ranger at Hermit Gulch Campgrounds was not very knowledgeable about the island. After much back and forth, he told us that it would take us about 17 hours to hike to the second campsite, though he had no idea how long the hike was. We pretty much dismissed his estimate after much discussion when we realized he had little to idea what he was talking about, smelled like booze and was new to the job.

Another guy we spoke to, who was working at the liquor store when we picked up a bottle of wine on the first night, said he’d done the route before and it should take around 5 hours.

So, waking up Saturday morning, we were prepared for the hike to take somewhere between 5-17 hours. I was hoping it’d be between 6-8 hours…. and we were off!

Let’s just say that the start of the hike was challenging.

15 minutes into the hike, I was already very sweaty. I looked at my watch and thought, Oh crap, we’ve only been at this a few minutes. 

30 minutes in I was seriously questioning my ability to hike with a 35-pound backpack strapped to me. I felt like it was pulling me backwards as I tried to hike up a mountain. My hubby offered to take my backpack for me, but I knew I couldn’t give up that easily.

45 minutes into the hike my face was beat red, my sunglasses were getting fogged up, my heart rate had been between 170-180 the whole time, and I was very unsure of how good of an idea this hike was.

But then the terrain got much easier. I was able to catch my breath and take in the sights a bit, and it was gorgeous around me! The weather was perfect for hiking – low 70s, partly sunny and sometimes breezy.

Why hello beat red face and workin’ quads.

We came upon something that we found to be a constant during our hiking on the island – a totally empty reservoir. All of Southern Cali is experiencing a pretty serious drought, there were signs all over Catalina about it, and the first campsite had only cold showers due to the shortage, but it really hit me when seeing bone-dry reservoirs: This drought is pretty damn serious, especially since Catalina is an island with more limited water supplies.

The next couple of hours we got into a happy rhythm – chitchatting and enjoying the scenery. I kind of got used to carrying the backpack and it didn’t feel as heavy after awhile.

The animals on Catalina are pretty fun. When we first spotted buffalo I got excited, obviously. The first night on the campground, foxes and deer were swarming our tent looking for food. I’ve never seen deer so unafraid in my life, and it makes me sad because they must be pretty damn hungry to be leaving their miles and miles of untouched terrain to come into the busy town looking for food. 

Around mile 8, I started to get annoyed. The signage on the trails on Catalina Island is HORRIBLE. The Trans Catalina Trail – the 30-something mile route that takes hikers around the island – was the only sign we could find, and it was everywhere. You look north, south, east, and west, and there’s signage noting the Trans Catalina Trail, but pretty much nothing else. We had planned out a route off of the Trans Catalina Trail but couldn’t get to it because there were no signs. 

At this point, we were in the middle of nowhere – just us, the mountains and the buffalo. We turned on our iPhones to figure out our location, but with very little cell service, my phone could only muster zooming in to show this:

We had camped near the southeast side of the island and were trying to get to the west coast of the island where that cove looking area is, so seeing how far we had to go was not in the least bit comforting. 

Eventually, my hubby’s phone matched GPS coordinates on the map that we had printed out from Catalina Island’s website, and we felt pretty confident because the route we were on was shown to connect to this other trail we needed to get on to get to the second campsite.

Well, the map turned out to be total crap. We were on this trail for probably 5 hours, and all of a sudden, it suddenly stopped. STOPPED. We were at a pretty high elevation, and we could see the trail we wanted to get to, but it did not in the least bit connect to the trail we were on. We had a choice to turn around and retrace our route, but that seemed like complete and utter torture, so we chose our only other option — to somehow get our butts down the mountain and over to the other side.

We followed a deer trail, which was at times steep, at times okay, at times full of loose sand and gravel that had me falling all over the place, cursing at no one in particular. At one point I stumbled upon actual bones of a deer. I was a little scared that a bear’s lair was nearby, but naturally stopped to take a quick picture (as any blogger would do, yes?).

Eventually we made it down to where we wanted to be, and we were back to a place where we’d pass another human being every once in awhile. The next bunch of miles were a little up and down emotionally. I was tired, our map was little help, and any person we passed and asked how far away the campground was very confidently gave absolutely inaccurate answers. I discovered that people driving in a car aren’t very good at deciphering how far away things are. “Right around the corner” is in reality 5 miles away, and “a few hills up and down” is really 20 minutes of straight ascending up a mountainous road, which doesn’t sound like much but certainly feels like much after all of the miles we’d hiked. My spirits were lifted again when we came across a buffalo up close:

I don’t think he wanted his picture taken, because after this we had a bit of a standoff and he seemed pretty annoyed with us. Luckily he ran off eventually and we were able to continue on the trail.

When we finally came upon this sight, I was a very happy girl. You can’t really tell in the photo below, but there were tents visible and we knew that the beach campground we’d be staying at couldn’t have been too far away:

Whew, those last few miles felt longgggg. At this point, I wasn’t just tired – I was exhausted. My feet were throbbing, my calves were in knots, and one of my knees was tweaking and achy. We had also run out of water due to us not passing one of the water fountain points that was noted on our faulty map. I wasn’t sure exactly how far we’d gone at this point, but I knew it was much further than the 15 miles we had anticipated.

When we got to the beach, I must have looked borderline ridiculous, because I literally plopped down in the sand, unbuckled my backpack, threw my shoes off and collapsed. A nice man asked if I was okay and offered me a beer. When I declined, he said, “Yeah, you look like a health nut…” and promptly came back with tomato slices, which I gladly accepted. I was drained and thirsty, and if it had been watermelon, I just might have told the guy that I loved him.

I envision that I looked like one of those people that crawls their way over the finish line of a marathon. This hike was just that – a hiking marathon. My FitBit logged us having walked 23+ miles that day over our 9 1/2 hour hike. I’m happy to share that A was impressed with my ability to have carried my backpack the entire day. I like to show him that I’m tougher than he thinks sometimes!

All in all between Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (when we painstakingly wound up hiking another 9 miles to the airport to get a ride back to the ferry), I walked over 40 miles.

I was never so happy to lay down in a tent as I was that night. We stayed at the Little Harbor Campgrounds, which was more primitive than Hermit Gulch, with no real showers or bathrooms. The campsite was situated next to a gorgeous beach spot. I wish we had more time to enjoy it and not be completely exhausted, but maybe we’ll be back one day. 

In the end, my hubby and I had to laugh at the crazy weekend we had. We knew in the midst of it that it’d be a story to tell and an experience we won’t forget. We were also reminded of something during our hikes: we’re a pretty awesome team. Instead of taking our frustrations out on each other, we worked together to figure out how to make it through, and more specifically in this case, get off that damn mountain and over to our campsite. He is such a great partner, and there’s no one else I’d rather be on a crazy adventure with!

We also realized sometime during the 9 1/2 hour hike that our last bunch of getaways have been fitness intensive: there was skiing in Lake Tahoe earlier this year, and hiking to the world’s largest ice cave as part of our European vacation last year. Don’t get me wrong, I love some excitement and adventure, but I think I may be looking to do a more relaxing getaway next time – one where I don’t come home more sore and beat up than before I left!

Also to note: I’m not a runner or endurance athlete. Most of my workouts are 90 minutes or less, and my hikes tend to be just a couple of hours long, but I’ve always wanted to do a marathon or something just to challenge myself. Well, let’s just say that last weekend took the endurance event itch right out of me!!

Question: What’s the hardest fitness endurance event that you’ve been through? Do you usually prefer active getaways or more relaxing ones?