From 1979 – 83, my friends and I lived a rich, varied, sometimes-studious, and vibrant life in and around Chapman.

Once my friend Paul Carey ’83 (MBA ’00) and I went camping near Big Bear. We got lost, then spotted a wildfire starting, watched the fire crews and helicopter water drops fly right over our heads with scoops of water from the lake. The next morning we woke to the sound of a pack of coyotes howling…seemingly surrounding us. For a few moments that cold grey dawn, nature pressed in around us. And it was awesome.

Another time a few of us we were swimming in the first pond at the base of Taquitz Canyon near Palm Springs. We discovered that if you dove straight down about five feet, you could see a triangle of daylight about 10 feet away; that triangle of light was too hard to resist so I took a breath, went back down and into the tunnel formed by boulder leaning in against the wall of the waterfall. It was too tight to really swim so you had to dig hands into the gravel bed and pull yourself through. Good idea? Well, yes, at the time it seemed like an excellent idea!

The incident that most formed who I am and how I interact with and cherish nature came while my friend Ron Schmoll ’83 and I were hiking through Black Star Canyon. We were about an hour into the canyon when we came to a beautiful, stone wall with nice distinct handholds and ledges. “I think I can climb that,” I thought. So I did…easy enough. I was strong and fit and within minutes I was about 40 feet up the wall. Looking for my next handhold, I realized that the wall above me had begun to bulge outward and I couldn’t see or feel any more handholds. The ledge my feet were on was about three or four inches wide. Stable enough so long as I stayed flat to the rock. From down below, Ron was trying to direct me on finding a way down but as I now know, coming down is an entirely different thing than climbing up. I was stuck. No going further up and no coming down. “Hang tight and I’ll go to the fire station for help,” Ron called to me.

california-sycamore
“OK…but wait a minute. Let me think a sec,”  I replied. There flickering in shards of sunlight, in the far corner of my eye, was one bright green leaf of a sycamore tree. By straining my arm up and behind me, I could touch that solitary leaf. Then I got a hold of it, gently pulling it to me, fingertip over fingertip. Now I had a pencil thick twig, then a slender branch. I don’t know how much time passed but I think it was a long time. Branch like a broom handle in hand, neck and shoulder twisting up and behind me, I slowly turned my back to the rock wall, and leaned forward and into the branch, straining to get a thicker purchase on it. I stood on that ledge of rock, wavering, leaning out into the void, holding that branch, looking straight down into the round boulders, rocks, pebbles, gravel and sand of the dry stream bed 40 down. As I now know, sycamore trees grow in riparian zones and in this case, the most beautiful, majestic of them all had grown up and along the very rock wall that I had climbed a half hour earlier.

With my 187 lbs. leaning out and down onto that branch, I remember whirling through my strategy for getting far enough down that branch quickly enough to not give it enough time to split or break. That was the key from here. I was clearly committed to the tree the moment I turned my back to the rock. I don’t remember if it was a deliberate move, or whether some primal instinct took me, but in an instant I was sliding and swinging down, down the branch, faster then wrapping my legs lightly around it to not slow down to quickly. It was a moment where my relatively frail human form took the strength and agility of our primate ancestors as I came gently to a stop at the base of the sycamore. Ahh. Easy as that. I rode the branch and trunk of a tree to safety. My inner thighs and hands were scorched ragged with blood and plasma welling up but I could only see that, not feel it.

So, we hiked out together. I don’t really remember talking about what had happened and I can’t really remember if Ron or I ever really told anyone about it, but here we are these 25 or so years later and I am telling you that this happened and it was stupendous and awesome and taught me about frailty, fear, caution, patience, perception, primitive motion, guts, confidence and respect, all in a moment. Oh, and far and away, California’s Native Sycamore Trees are my favorite tree.

headshot-ollendorff-maxMax Ollendorff ’83