Moments in Dirt and Ink

My "in situ" sketches for the month. The rocks along San Ysidro . One from the park. Then a few from the short backpack. Dove pointing into the wind on day one . At the spring for camping . The view over the valley from Reyes Peak .

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Map link. I was slow to get up in the morning at Haddock Campsite. I was happy in my dry socks, but didn't want to soak them by sticking them into my wet boots. The top of the tent seemed to have caught condensation like crazy, which is a neat trick without the rain fly on. Eventually I pulled on my warm things as needed and took down the wet socks hanging out to dry on the side of the tent. They were even wetter than when I put them up. I wrung them out and pulled them and my wet boots on. I looked around the camp with the clarity of light. I still liked my spot. There are a number of grills installed around the meadow, but most don't even have fire rings. One to the north got some use, but mostly it was the one by the tents. Everything outside was wet, there had been a very heavy dew in the night. A little bit of the edge of the huge campsite through a filter of moisture that was on the l...

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Map link. As the sky brightened at Chorro Spring, it was still very quiet. The wind started up again with the slightest light, but slowly. A few birds sang for a some minutes here and there. I boiled water for breakfast and packed up. The snow patches seemed smaller than they were when I went to sleep, hinting the night had not dropped to freezing. I headed up the trail toward the road. From the spring, it is a more gentle climb that parallels the road a bit to skip some rocks, then comes up at a lower spot. Someone long ago felt this trail needed a metal marker to point which way to go up the mountain.

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Map link. I decided to give up hoping to find someone to go backpacking with and strike out on my own. Again. I got a new backpack a while ago and still had not been able to try it out. This one is larger than the ultralight (that I got for and use as a wonderful day pack) that seemed to fill halfway with the sleeping bag and wasn't comfortable over 20 lbs. It is smaller than the cavernous bag I have that is comfortable even when far too heavy and I can't pack because there is too much room and the sleeping bag at the bottom seems to keep the compression system from working properly. Also, that old pack has no place for my Platypus. I filled up my new pack's 65 liter interior and things didn't seem to quite fit with the tent inside, so I repacked and let the tent get tucked under the top. I still go with a close cell foam pad, a cheapie in basic blue, so that gets tied onto the outside, too. They...

Santa Barbara front country Map link. There are a number of route to reach high Camino Cielo from the city below. They tend to be 4 to 4.5 miles and climb somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 feet and have insufficient parking along a neighborhood street where the people are sometimes a little wary of all the public. The climb gives ever increasing views of the front country mountains and ocean and islands. The top gives a whole new kind of view in the form of a rolling sea of mountains. I've gone up San Ysidro to the falls, but never taken in its upper reaches. With 1.5 inches of rain falling the night before last, I thought it was probably a good time to visit that waterfall again and see if it could gush, then check out the further heights along the trail. Even with the storms rolling in one after the other, the previous day had held lots of sun, so I had lots of hope for maybe having a good look around at the top, if I was early enough. Rain seemed likely a bit a...

It has been too long since I've gone on a proper backpacking trip, meaning something lasting on the order of a week. The last time was in September 2003 when I went on the Y-hike with my fellow Techers. This hike is open to everyone from the pre-frosh just about to start to the graduates about to finish who are collected into four groups of different levels and limited to 6-8 people per group. There's a 12 miles a day, 8 miles a day, 6 miles every other day, and few miles hiking around so I signed up for 8 miles since that's what I've generally considered a good day. We had a plan to go out from North Lake over Piute Pass and then turn north over Pine Creek Pass and take a loop, as shown on the maps above. These are from the USGS 15' series, from the bottom right counterclockwise: Mount Goddard 1957, Mount Tom 1954, Mount Abbot 1953, and Blackcap Mountain 1962. Red dots mark the path and numbered purple dots mark the campsites used. Day 1: We've done all o...