Where the mountain had been cut to create this trail many years before, they saw round rocks suspended in the sandstone like chocolate chips in a cookie. Small trees and bushes grow from the rocks, and berries of various shapes and sizes were plentiful.
Jennifer stopped to smell the yellow flowers dotting the dull green Santa Susana tarweed.
"Smells like raspberry jam," she said.
Jennifer stopped to pick one of the berries, a deep maroon in color, almost black. Her father reached out and lightly stopped her hand.
"Those aren't for us, Jen. Look."
He gestured towards a small tree, on the other side of the trail. A brown bird - perhaps a Towhee or Wrentit - landed and deftly skipped into the branches, where a second bird flitted from its perch. Jennifer and her dad laughed as they watched the native fliers nimbly pick berries, then, one after the other, alight into the canyon below.
As she looked back down the winding trail, she could see little of the path they had taken on their fifteen minute hike. It was almost as if man had never cut this road.
"A good trail is easy to follow and easy to hide," her Dad said.
The sun was beginning to set on the other side of the ridge, making the temperatures cooler. The afternoon adventurers zipped their jackets snugly and continued their search for the place where the legend would be told.
The terrain was now marked by more jagged rocks, some standing out like statues. Others looked like huge marbles, polished by the wind. The travelers occasionally startled a small animal, Coast Horned Lizard or California Ground Squirrel more than likely. But they never actually caught a good glimpse of the critters, which always seemed to scamper away the instant before they could be recognized. More than once, they heard the rhythmic yip of a distant coyote.
The sun was now setting across a valley and over a companion ridge. At a distance, Jen could see the ocean. Now, unlike before, the colors of the water blended with those of the furthest mountains. The colors were not all that different underneath the clouds, making them altogether beautiful.
"Daddy, let's stop here for a minute and watch the sunset. I've never seen anything like this before."
The harmony created by the distinct faces of the universe, sky, mountain, ocean, and sun, was comforting. This was the place.
They climbed a few feet up a collection of rocks seemingly laid out as steps towards a flat spot where they sat. Jennifer noticed footprints beside their own, proving that others had been here before. Perhaps to hear the same tale, she wondered.
They sat in a silent gaze as the orange spread wide across the sky. The sun would disappear in a few moments.
"Look over there," Jennifer's father pointed away from the sunset, into the valley behind them. A wide path of light was seeking a focal point between two peaks, illuminating an orange rock. Balancing on top of what appeared to be a natural pedestal was a wide, flat rock with several indentations which gave it the look of a paw print.
"That is the paw print of Sabré."
Long ago, when the mountains were mere children, grand animals roamed the Earth. You have heard the Lion called the King of the Jungle. Where there were not jungles, there were other rulers. Here, the Saber-toothed Tiger reigned supreme.
As big as the biggest cat of today, these tigers prowled this land along with the Woolly Mammoths, the largest mammal to ever walk the planet. But the world would be ice soon, and many of the animals would not survive.
Then, Man would begin his time.
God so loved the creatures of the Earth, and the wonders of nature, that he knew all must be protected from man. For Man would have wondrous gifts, but powerfully dangerous flaws as well.
So was created the greatest of all beasts: a Saber-Toothed Tiger twenty times the size of the largest before it, standing longer than the widest river was wide and taller than the tallest tree could reach. She was named Sabré.
As the Great Ice Age came, Sabré was like a mother to all the world's creatures, her great body provided warmth for the species which were meant to survive. She refused any more than the little food needed to sustain her own strength, instead seeing that none in her care would starve.
Just as Sabré was sure she would not survive the cold and hunger, the sheets of ice began to melt away, and trees and grasses began to grow. There was great movement across the Earth, as the smallest insects began to crawl again, soon followed by birds, and fish. A multitude of animals covered the land where man now walked, too.
And an aging Sabré, with streaks of silver now providing sparkle to her muscular black and yellow coat, rose to roam the Earth one final time.