Ferried out to Catalina from Dana Point to see if we could hike a little; not likely, it turns out, with only six hours before the return. While "88 percent" conservancy-owned, the island's start-off point is the small town of Avalon, a compact but cleanly Californian resort which does not serve up trailheads easily. We found one after lunch and the museum and after a trolley ride to the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Garden (spotted with endemic species including Catalina Mahogany: "only seven of these small shrubs or trees occur naturally in a single canyon").

It was too late to start a hike that would take us far enough inland to have any real sense of scale. Had a brief chat with the shirtless, shoeless trailhead nametaker who quenched his crippled feral pig's thirst with a bottle of beer and told us stories of rattler comebacks, but we explained we just didn't have enough time to head up that steep switchback behind his tent-slash-home.

I'm glad they saved this island as much as they could and are working to put it back together after ranches (bison, Arabian horses, Cubs training) and wild pirate nights, both Spanish and Chinese. After you boat in for 90 minutes dodging the loose elbows of wobbly teenagers reeling from the swell and chop, the first part of Santa Catalina is a shaved vertical cliff, with cranes and other mechanical contraptions at its base. Looks like a quarry, and it turns out it is. Only as the ferry turns do you see the distinctly bright town and then beyond that, a magnificent open-space preserve of canyons and steep hillsides spreckled with variances of the coastal scrub oak found on the mainland here and indigenous poppies and succulents. In fact it looks almost the same as California does in Wendt's paintings, from a distance. Avalon, tasty treats and all, is not this wilderness. One day I will go there and stay overnight so I can explore the real thing.