Some places choose you before you know you're looking. For Lynna, Idyllwild was always there. In her grandfather's fishing lines cast at dawn, in her father's Forest Service codes, in the snow her family threw on the helipad when she was small enough to believe the mountain was hers alone. 

She remembers a man standing in the middle of town at four in the morning, his arm arcing through the darkness, releasing a boomerang into the mountain air. She was sixteen then, off-roading with her aunt through Idyllwild's quiet streets, when they stumbled upon this strange, solitary ritual. The man had just finished his shift as a chef, and this was simply his way of greeting the sunrise. His pockets full of patience, his trajectory aimed at dawn.

It's an odd story to hold onto, but perhaps that's exactly why she keeps it. Because Idyllwild has always been a place where the peculiar becomes sacred, where a girl from Hemet who grew up singing Phantom of the Opera in kindergarten might finally find her frequency.

Roots in the Foothills

Lynna's connection to this mountain began before she had words for it. Born in Hemet, just down at the foot of the hill, her family's history with Idyllwild runs deep as pine roots. Her grandfather was a firefighter up here first, then her father joined the Forest Service. On her mother's side, her grandmother came hunting and jeeping through these mountains, drawn to the wild the way some people are drawn to water.

Growing up, she was an only child with an artistic soul in a town that didn't quite know what to do with her. Her mother, a hairstylist, introduced her to things that seemed out of step with childhood: Phantom of the Opera at three years old, while other kids were watching cartoons. "So I was always different."

Her earliest memories of the mountain are sensory and sacred: the Forest Service helipad where her family threw snowballs, her father's access codes opening doors to adventure. Lake Hemet at four in the morning with her grandpa, fishing in that holy hour before dawn when the world is still deciding what it wants to be.

The Grumpy Mountain Man

She was nineteen, working at the Mountain Center gas station just after COVID ended, trying to make meaningful connections in a world that had forgotten how to gather. "I really wanted good friends that weren't city people," she admits. "And literally the first person I put that intention toward, I found him."

Him being AJ—curly-haired, bearded, wearing overalls—working across the street at the feed store. He was twenty-six and grieving. His father had died just months before, and grief had turned him inward. "He was just this grumpy guy," Lynna remembers. "I could tell he was like, 'Get the hell away from me.'"

But she didn't. She walked right up to him and showered him with compliments, refusing to accept his walls as permanent structures. "I was like, 'No, I'm not going to get away from you. I'm going to bug you, and I'm going to be up your ass.'"

Three days later, she was spending the night at his house. A few weeks later, when they went to her mother's house to collect clothes, Lynna didn't just pack—she took everything. Plants, belongings, pieces of her former life. "My mom was like, 'Where are you going? Are you crazy? You can't just move in with this guy. You've only been dating for a month.'"

But she did. She moved in with AJ and his mother, into a house still heavy with the absence of his father. "That's why we were so close," she explains. "I had to kind of get the edge out of him."

Five years later, they're engaged with a fourteen-month-old son named Wesson, living in their own apartment near the fire station.

The Mountain as Medicine

"There's something about the altitude," Lynna says, leaning into an idea that feels both scientific and spiritual. "Nepalese people—their diaphragms are different because of the altitude. And they're more spiritual. Does that make us closer to God? What is it about the altitude that makes it so spiritual?"

She doesn't claim to have answers, only observations. "I definitely feel like I'm more connected to nature up here," she says.

There's an ancient energy to Idyllwild that she feels in her bones. The legend of Lily Rock alone gives the town a mythical undercurrent. "That makes you feel more spiritual because your town has a purpose," she explains. "It's not just a place. It's a story."

She's met herbalists and arborists here, people who've opened doors to spiritual practices she'd always been curious about. Her friend Liliana teaches yoga and makes pottery. They've formed a creative partnership—Lynna making macramé, Liliana making vessels. Abby, who works with her at Wildland, has encouraged her to merchandise her art, to trust that what she creates has value.

"I've met a lot of people who want to constantly push you to be the best version of yourself," Lynna reflects. "And I feel like you don't really get that in other places. People don't go out of their way to be like, 'You're an amazing person. I see that you want to thrive. Let's make it happen.'"

The Pull of Home and Its Complexities

Even when she's off the mountain, visiting her parents in Hemet or at Disneyland, Lynna finds herself daydreaming about Idyllwild. "I catch myself thinking about the community and the overall wellbeing of the mountain," she says. "Even if I'm away for a day, I can't wait to be back."

The distance feels exaggerated somehow. "Riverside feels like a four-hour drive right now, and it's not," she admits. "It takes me twenty minutes to get down the hill."

It's a perception of isolation rather than reality. "You can get cabin fever up here without actually feeling that crazy fever," she explains. "You can just never want to leave."

The population of Idyllwild is roughly the same as Lynna's high school class, about two thousand people. "Imagine your high school class being two thousand people, and then the town you live in eventually," she says, understanding immediately what that comparison means.

It can feel like high school sometimes, she admits: the gossip, the cliques, the way one bad day can become your reputation if you're not careful. "My reputation means everything to me," she says. "I want people to see me at Wildland and be like, 'Oh my gosh, Lynna, she's so sweet. You can rely on her for almost anything.'"

In Hemet, she didn't worry about this. But here, things feel different, more intimate, more lasting.

The Wildland Magic

What makes Idyllwild work despite the smallness is that there's a market here for artists and spiritual seekers. "People don't want to walk into Wildland and see 'Made in China' on the back," Lynna explains. "If you go into the rock shop, you might find a crystal from the mountain. The artist is from here. They live here, they breathe here, they cook here."

This creates an ecosystem where creativity isn't just tolerated but celebrated. "There's a market for your art to be your life, your spirit, everything," she says.

Lynna found Wildland through intention and a little bit of magic. She came into the store with her grandmother and met Abby, who told her they were hiring. "I texted the owner Marissa every single day when I applied," Lynna admits. "'Please, please get back to me. I'll do it for free.'"

Marissa—yes, that Marissa, from Twilight—had been on vacation with no service. When she returned, she appreciated Lynna's enthusiasm. "She went, 'I like that you've been texting me. I like that you're into it. Let's meet and get you hired.'"

Lynna's first day was Fourth of July, one of the busiest days of the year. She'd never worked there before. "I was just like, 'I'll figure it out,' and I did."

Now, Marissa has become more than a boss—she's a mentor. "She's taken me under her wing completely, has let me kind of manage her store," Lynna says. 

The relationship feels different from any job she's had before. "You don't get to text your boss when you work at Target," she points out. "It's more personal here."

Through Wildland, she's also built her community of mom friends, going on walks together, building the support network she needs now that she has Wesson.

A Open Portal

One thing that surprises Lynna about visitors is how they underestimate the mountain's size and wildness. "People don't realize how big Idyllwild is," she says. "The San Jacinto Mountains go from the Santa Rosa reservation all the way to Palm Springs, all the way to Pine Cove."

More importantly, people forget they're in genuine wilderness. "People think they're out of the woods literally because they're in this little town," she explains. "But just because you're not in Big Bear doesn't mean you're not in the wilderness. There are bears up here."

She's learned to respect the mountain's power, the way fire can sweep through, forcing evacuations. It's part of the trade-off of mountain living, the price of beauty.

Since having Wesson, something has shifted in Lynna. "I don't know if becoming a mom has opened myself to a different portal," she says, "but I can manifest things differently now. I can actually put whatever I'm thinking in my head into fruition and make it some type of reality."

She's always wanted to work at a botanical apothecary, and now she's living that dream. She wanted meaningful friendships with creative people, and she's found them. "I feel like everything I put in my head comes true up here, especially when I'm working at this job," she marvels. "It's a trip. I should be studied."

Looking forward, she dreams of a family compound: vegetables, orchards, a take-what-you-need, leave-what-you-can setup. Her parents might need to be about fifteen miles away on their own property, she jokes. Close enough, but not next door.

The Mountain Chooses You

When asked what she hopes for Idyllwild's future, Lynna doesn't hesitate. "I want it to stay like this," she says firmly. "I don't want it to get much bigger. I like how the community is not corporate. I like that it's still small business, mom and pop shops."

But Lynna believes in the mountain's ability to choose its own. "I've seen it happen in real time where people are like, 'I've been here for two months and I'm already being kicked out,'" she says. "The mountain is saying, 'This is not for you.' If you have good energy, that's what keeps you here."

She thinks about what she wants to leave behind in this place that has given her so much. "I want people to know that I'm caring," she says simply. "That you can rely on my family, me, AJ, and Wesson."

At night, just before dusk, Lynna walks Wesson through town and watches the lights come on while it's still light enough to see everything clearly. "That's probably my favorite time," she says. It's a liminal moment, day becoming night, the ordinary becoming luminous, the small town revealing itself as something more.

After it rains, she breathes in the smell of cedar and pine and earth. "Right after it rains is the best time to come take a good whiff of Idyllwild," she says.

And somewhere, maybe, a man is still throwing a boomerang at dawn, waiting for what returns.