Travel

For a Friend, Answering the Call of the Wild

IT began with a call. My best friend, Liberty, wanted to celebrate her 50th birthday by tracking wolves in the wild. I thought to myself, ''Isn't this precisely what the Discovery Channel is for?'' Then, she added, she would like me and seven other women to join her.

THERE is, perhaps, no better way of understanding the history of Los Angeles than by walking its Backbone Trail, which runs through a spectacular sweep of nature preserves extending along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains, where the land meets the sea.