JB King
Oretega Trail
Ojai, Calif.
January 2012
Halfway up the trail, just as your legs start burning and your lungs start huffing, there is a rock carelessly tossed by the side of the trail. The rock itself is fairly insignificant at first glance. There is little that discerns it from any of the other trail side boulders in the backcountry. It is not particularly large, nor uniquely shaped. It has a dull drab coloring unlike many of its flashier sandstone compatriots.
Truth be told by this time in the walk your concentrating more on your feet then anything else. By this time you have climbed over broken rocks and ankle-biting gravel, over a thousand feet into the hills. The sun is pounding down on your back. The trail has dropped behind the ridge line. You've been swallowed up by the foliage. Yet you are only half way up. You are only looking at your feet, grunting away with each step, get higher and further with each stride. The rock in question does little to grab your attention.
It would be quite easy to keep trudging right by this rock. I'm sure many have done just that. However as you get closer, if you pause to stretch, gulp air, rest tired feet, you notice there is something different about this rock. If you look close you may notice faint carving breaking up the face of the rock. As your brain struggles to switch into an analytical mood, shapes and words begin to form. You pear in, look closer, study the faint scratches. Your eyes squint, your head tilts.
Then it clicks, coherency is reached. "JB King, 1908, Jan. 30th." It makes sense. Or does it? Who was JB King? Did he die here? Was he carried up here by loved ones to be lain to rest? Why here? Why this rock? Why not in the valley below, next to a waterfall or along a grassy creek side meadow? Why not at the top with the expansive views and commanding vistas of the Ojai Valley and the Channel Islands? Why here?
These questions have perplexed many hikers, historians, and other gatherers of long lost oddities. There is no record, no surviving memory to answer the who or why. Its a mystery, a riddle. Guesses have been wagered by men much smarter then I. Erudite explanations have been offered, disproved, reworked, and offered again. Through it all the rock remains, the riddle of JB King still to be solved.
Oretega Trail
Ojai, Calif.
January 2012
Halfway up the trail, just as your legs start burning and your lungs start huffing, there is a rock carelessly tossed by the side of the trail. The rock itself is fairly insignificant at first glance. There is little that discerns it from any of the other trail side boulders in the backcountry. It is not particularly large, nor uniquely shaped. It has a dull drab coloring unlike many of its flashier sandstone compatriots.
Truth be told by this time in the walk your concentrating more on your feet then anything else. By this time you have climbed over broken rocks and ankle-biting gravel, over a thousand feet into the hills. The sun is pounding down on your back. The trail has dropped behind the ridge line. You've been swallowed up by the foliage. Yet you are only half way up. You are only looking at your feet, grunting away with each step, get higher and further with each stride. The rock in question does little to grab your attention.
It would be quite easy to keep trudging right by this rock. I'm sure many have done just that. However as you get closer, if you pause to stretch, gulp air, rest tired feet, you notice there is something different about this rock. If you look close you may notice faint carving breaking up the face of the rock. As your brain struggles to switch into an analytical mood, shapes and words begin to form. You pear in, look closer, study the faint scratches. Your eyes squint, your head tilts.
Then it clicks, coherency is reached. "JB King, 1908, Jan. 30th." It makes sense. Or does it? Who was JB King? Did he die here? Was he carried up here by loved ones to be lain to rest? Why here? Why this rock? Why not in the valley below, next to a waterfall or along a grassy creek side meadow? Why not at the top with the expansive views and commanding vistas of the Ojai Valley and the Channel Islands? Why here?
These questions have perplexed many hikers, historians, and other gatherers of long lost oddities. There is no record, no surviving memory to answer the who or why. Its a mystery, a riddle. Guesses have been wagered by men much smarter then I. Erudite explanations have been offered, disproved, reworked, and offered again. Through it all the rock remains, the riddle of JB King still to be solved.
JB King.
**An interesting account of one reporter's sleuthing can be read here.**
