Moments in Dirt and Ink

Sketches created "in situ" for December. A glance over the mountain to see the ocean. Some fall color along the line of water. It gets rocky near the top of the mountains . An oak providing some of the rare shade along the trail .

Santa Barbara front country Map link. I don't remember ever going all the way up Tunnel Trail and set myself to doing so. It is very near to Rattlesnake Canyon, which was such a common trail for us as children. The trail follows Mission Canyon up and has a number of other trails coming to it. Hiking starts at a gate on Tunnel Road and proceeds up a utility road. Jesusita splits off to the left as the trail starts properly a ways up the road from the gate. About halfway up, the Rattlesnake connector trail joins from the right. At the top, it meets with Camino Cielo as the road to Gibraltar Dam turns off. The trail was apparently the route used to build the tunnel from the dam but existed before that. As near as I can tell, reading an old guide book , this was either the La Cumbre trail (as it comes up near that peak, so most probable) or Las Canoas (which as near as I can tell is what we call Rattlesnake now. The streets of the area still bear the name.) This was th...

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Map link. From the time we hiked the upper canyon area, I'd wanted to hike the lower canyon. I didn't then know what was there. The folks at Hike the Geek planned to go there and at first I'd remembered wanting to go. After reading a little bit about it, I remembered that I had actually got up there one afternoon and done a couple sketches although I didn't have the camera that previous time. I decided I would go again anyway. Trails make a number of loops of different sizes and further trails hike up the canyon after the loop. The largest loop is about 3 miles with a high road and a low road. The high road gives views of the ocean and odd houses in the neighboring canyon and an overview of the canyon. The low road passes by old ruined cabins with more just off it. Little waterfalls tumble down the canyon near the largest ruins of an elaborate estate. A couple signs give a little history for the most subst...

Los Padres National Forest Map link. Looking around for hike suggestions, I clicked on this hike , thinking, "Alder Creek is in LA!" I miss the now somewhat recently burned and still closed Alder Creek trail and decided to try out this one. The directions on that site tend to be sketchy at best, but Franklin Trail is easy to find on the Carpinteria and White Ledge Peak quadrangles. It comes down to Juncal Road along the Jameson Reservoir on the back side, and that goes west to something that may be driven by the public (when the road is open), namely Romero Camuesa, which is the continuation of Camino Cielo after an intersection with no other open choices. Just find a place to park that isn't blocking the gate nor on the road a few feet after the ford of the Santa Ynez River, then start hiking up the closed road. The road behind the gate is currently a lot better than the road in front of the gate. It probably helps to have very little travel. The regular ga...