canyon light

In a city obsessed with polish, why does everyone hike?

This episode explores Los Angeles’ quiet obsession with the canyon — and why dirt, wildness, and golden hour might be the most important contrast we have. From Baldwin Hills stair climbs to watching a child run free in a ballerina costume, this is a reflection on nature, smallness, and the part of us that still belongs to dirt and sky.

The canyon light swallows you whole — and sometimes that’s exactly what we need.

hosted by Kathy Patalsky

healthyhappylife.com

IG: KathyPatalsky + notes.kathy

Transcript

You're exhausted. Your shoes are dusty. Your kid is suddenly screaming that they need to be carried, and you're just dreaming of getting home to a hot shower and a screen glowing in the dark, playing trashy reality tv. But still, you never regret the hike.

 You are listening to Notes with Kathy Patalsky.

Canyon Light.

Los Angeles is a city in love with shine. Fame, palm trees, award shows. Perfect glass skin. Fast cars. Curated yoga sets. Spa days. The skyline that glitters mid sunset. LA is glamor. Performance. Presentation. It's ambition with a ring light.

And yes, it's also gritty. Traffic that never ends. Beauty culture. Status games. It can feel like a mirage sometimes, like you're squinting at something beautiful and wondering if it's real.

And that's why this city hikes.

There are two things that redeem Los Angeles when someone says they hate it, "Ugh, I just hate la." The two things: the ocean and the canyon.

The ocean is obvious. Waves folding in, sandpipers, darting.

Seagulls gliding across a flat blue horizon. The noise of the city dissolves into that beachy rhythm, but hiking. Hiking is different.

Hiking makes you earn your peace. Up in places like Runyon Canyon or Griffith Park, or along the dusty stretches near the Hollywood sign, you'll see it all the hardcore climbers with their electrolyte packs and trekking poles. Sometimes with their speedy dog in tow.

Or you'll see the chic friend groups in matching $300 yoga sets. Chatting, barely sweating, sunglasses, perch, just right. Dogs, strollers. Paparazzi on the trail. But here's the thing. Even in Lululemon and vuori, you are still in dirt.

Dry grass. Bees hovering over tiny bursts of wild flowers. Tall grasses catching the light, against a rusty blue sky.

You can't fake that canyon light. It hits the hills in molten gold. It slips between tall grasses.

It swallows the edges of the city until all that's left is sky and earth beneath.

As you wind into the hills, you'll turn back and you'll lose track of where you're headed. Where is the ocean? Where's downtown? Where am I? And there's no concrete up here, no plastic, no architecture. Trying to impress you. Box you in. Just dirt, grass, wind, sun.

When I first moved here, hiking was what we did. It felt like discovering a secret. I always loved hiking, growing up in Santa Cruz, so I knew that since hiking was a thing in la. I'd find some really beautiful paths, but there's no grand hiking center. No official welcome desk. You still have to kinda learn where to park. Which trail forks left, which one dead ends.

You figure it out. That's part of the magic. Then like me, you might have a baby and hiking shifts. But even with a baby in tow, I would not let go of my hiking love. I used to carry Rosalie up the Baldwin Hills stairs, like a crazy person, and a superhero.

were two bodies climbing in one. It made me feel feral, powerful and strong, in a way that no gym ever could. And then something changed. She started climbing on her own, scrambling ahead of me, sliding down dusty slopes, picking one tiny bloom and stuffing it into a pine comb like it was a purse. She wore a ballerina in a costume last time we went, to climb a mountain, I told her to put on some hiking clothes.

That's what she chose. Shoes were filthy. Her cheeks were streaked with dirt, and she was completely, utterly free.

And that's when I realized what this is really about. Children are born wild. They roll, they grab. They flail and reach. They learn gravity by falling. They learn love by missing someone. They learn the earth by touching it. And slowly, we trade dirt for polish, posture, presentation, productivity, social choreography.

but hiking. Hiking gives you a small permission slip back to that wildness.

When adults hike, we're not just exercising, we're reconnecting to that child version of ourselves who thought rocks were treasures, hills were our kingdoms.

Out there you are just a body on a planet. if you took a photograph without context, it could be a thousand years ago. The same dust, same sky, same wind. Technology evolves. Cities reinvent themselves.

Dirt is still dirt. The earth, the one consistent home for every human who has ever lived.

When you step into the canyon, on a hiking trail, you're stepping into something timeless. Something that doesn't care about your status or your skincare routine. Your industry or your title or your mask.

Watching my daughter run through those hilltops, basking in the canyon light.

I saw it so clearly. I don't know if hiking is better for me or for her, but I do know it's a necessary contrast, a grounding. Wildness. Sometimes it's joyful. Sometimes it's heavy, dusty, and you're tired and your kid's screaming all of a sudden that they need to be carried.

Yes, that happens too. And you're just dreaming of getting home to a hot shower in a clean bed and a screen glowing in the dark, playing trashy reality tv. But you still never regret it. That hike. The canyon light does something this city can't.

 Maybe that's what this really is. Not just hiking, but contrast. In a city that runs on visibility and velocity, the canyon asks nothing from you. It doesn't need you polished. It doesn't need you impressive. It just asks you to walk one foot in front of the other. To breathe. To be small, dirty. And in that smallness, something wild comes back online.

Something older than performance. The part of you that belongs to dirt, and sky and wind and wild flowers.

 The canyon light swallows you whole. And in that smallness you remember who you are, just a human on a planet, alive.

And that is always worth putting on your busy schedule. 

 This was Notes by Kathy Patalsky

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