At day’s end in Ojai, even the mountains seem to meditate.
Like Santa Ana Winds, Pink Moments can make you uneasy. Anything can happen.
Near day’s end I hike Way of the Hawk Trail through Ojai Meadows Preserve as clouds and setting sun set the stage for what may be a resplendent light that may turn the skies a dusty pink. With heavy clouds and red sun on a low horizon, conditions are favorable, but a Pink Moment is no sure thing. The light show could be thwarted by humidity, upper atmospheric winds, precipitation, or particulate matter.
I like the unpredictability of Pink Moments. You can’t chart them years in advance like high and low tides, sunrises and sunsets. The magical moment when the fading sunset casts a brilliant shade of pink for several minutes on the mile high Topatopa Mountains is all the more precious for its irregular appearances.
It’s about a 45-minute drive from my home in Santa Barbara to the preserve, and I’ve been fortunate to catch a Pink Moment more often than not. When the moment comes, the sun projects its moving light on what seems to be a perfect screen, the reddish rock faces of the Topatopa Bluffs towering over Ojai Valley. Even when the horizontal glow was a no-show though, I have fond memories of my day’s end hikes around Ojai, just as I have similar memories of stellar hikes to the tops of mountains that yielded poor or no vistas.
I’ve pursued the Pink Moment from several different pathways and promontories. I like the mostly flat Shelf Road Trail that extends along the base of the mountains and features strategically placed benches along the route where you can watch the approaching pastel colors. Easiest hike, a stroll really, and consensus best place to view a Pink Moment is Meditation Mount, a Zen retreat center. Here you can walk along the Path of Spiritual Approach, as guided meditations on your smart phone help you reach for Essential Divinity, Goodwill and Right Human Relations, all the while watching the Topatopa Bluffs catch the pink light.
I can attest that the hardest way to go is a hike up Gridley Trail and seemingly endless switchbacks to Nordhoff Ridge. The opportunity? A front row seat to pink and purple light coloring the monumental Topatopa sedimentary rock layers. The challenge? After your six-mile ascent, you’ll need to make a long dark hike back down by headlamp.
I’ve been hiking Ojai Meadows Preserve since the beginning of the 21st century when developers wanted to build a shopping mall on what remained of a patch of marshy meadows. Enter the Ojai Valley Land Conservancy (with the mission of “Protecting your Views, Trails, Water and Wildlife”) in 2001 to purchase the 58-acre parcel and offer a new vision for the much-abused land.
Over the last quarter century or so, the land has been restored to something resembling its original state by replanting native oaks and grasses and by re-habbing and expanding the wetland. This re-wilding brought more wildlife, especially more birds. Way of the Hawk Trail has many times delivered on the promise of its name. I’ve spotted lots of red-tailed hawks and a few colorful American kestrels, aka sparrow hawks.
The magic of the moments for me was undimmed when I learned the science behind them.
At day’s end, low on the horizon, the sun beams its light through a greater distance of atmosphere than it does when the sun is overhead. Due to a phenomenon known as Rayleigh Scattering, blue and violet colors, which have relatively short wavelengths disappear while red and orange light —which have longer wavelengths—persevere to light up any clouds. The pink in a Pink Moment comes from mixing the red part of the spectrum with additional white light.
For many visitors and locals alike, the mysterious alpenglow is more than an optical phenomenon, it’s the pink frosting on the spiritual sheet cake that is the Ojai Valley.
The native Chumash, whose word for “moon” gave Ojai its name are said to have felt the valley’s mystic energy.
Ojai’s transformation from a drowsy small town into a draw for spiritual pilgrims may have begun with a self-described epiphany experienced by the celebrated mystic Jiddu Krishnamurti in 1922 when an epic meditation left him “God-intoxicated.” Soul pilgrims have journeyed here ever since.
Come for the sunshine, stay for the spirituality,” might be Ojai’s promise to would be visitors. Main Street is lined with New Agey shops and galleries, spas and wellness centers, along with eateries offering Burmese-Californian fusion and vegetarian Mexican cuisine.
As for the area’s signature Pink Moments, local entrepreneurs have transmogrified the reddish alpenglow into products. An Ojai-based chocolatier makes Pink Moments bars.
Another local enterprise makes Pink Moment kombucha. A perfumist offers a Pink Moment Eau de Parfum; you can take home a 1.7 oz bottle for $148.
Not everyone finds the reddish alpenglow soothing to mind, body, spirit. By some accounts, Spanish missionaries saw hell fires burning, the flames of light a reminder that pagans and padres alike were sinners in the hands of the angry god over Alta California.
I’ve witnessed red-black clouds colliding over the mountains in a violent sunset more like a Cosmic Code Red than a Pink Moment. During one such moment, while hiking the preserve’s Way of Peace Trail, I saw five vultures tearing into a deer carcass. In the gloaming, the birds’ black bodies were all but invisible, their disembodied blood red heads an eerie sight as they gorged on the fallen animal.
As I hike east, I pass by four cheery sunset-seekers—three young women in yoga wear and a middle-aged guy with a long salt and pepper beard—heading west.
“Good evening,” I greet them.
“Isn’t it though!” one of the women returns. Nods and blissful smiles from the others.
“If you’re looking for the Pink Moment—”
The foursome doesn’t break stride and my voice trails off into the fading light.
“You’re looking the wrong way!” I want to shout but stop myself, remembering all spiritual gurus and mental health professionals tell us to “Stay in the moment.” Few moments are better to stay in and savor than Pink Moments. Besides, they’ll soon figure it out for themselves.
At the end of the day, Californians reflexively turn toward the ocean and setting sun. But the Pink Moment is a reflection. Inland, toward the mountains is the place to look.
The Pink Moment is a trickster. It looks like it comes from one direction, but really comes from another.
I hike across a land re-wilded, past swales and vernal pools and along a former drainage ditch that got a makeover. The straight-line course of Maricopa Drain (re-christened Maricopa Creek) was altered to a meandering course, and its banks planted with native sycamores and cottonwoods. I like the quid pro quo in the preserve. Nature heals us. We heal nature. It’s all-so-Ojai.
I meander toward the drifts of oak on a low ridge. A Pink Moment is greater than a god wink and more like a god nod, I muse. A nod down from the heavens that silently says “Yes, I see you people, and this is a reminder of my power and glory.”
The last rays of day play upon the stony ramparts of the mountains and reflect rose and magenta hues back at me. A spectacular Pink Moment it is, one resembling the Dawn of Creation, clouds boiling up over the earth, just after God said, “Let there be light.”
Let’s join in the chorus, raise our voices in earth song, and sing out like Annie: “The sun’ll come out, Tomorrow, So ya gotta hang on ’Til tomorrow come what may.” Sometimes it’s not the end of day or beginning of night you see in a Pink Moment, it’s a ray of hope.