Moments in Dirt and Ink

Rather uneven sketching this month, but then that's always true. One from the western ridge of Arroyo Hondo . A spot among oaks for lunch on Baron Ranch. Looking down the valley toward the islands on Baron Ranch. Just before things got noisy at Baron Ranch. Taking in the grass lake on Dry Lakes Ridge .

I took to the hills to try my hand at microtrash cleanup.  The poor old guard station was removed perhaps 50 years ago and what is left is a turnout that has been claimed by target shooters.  This makes a lot of microtrash, and rather macrotrash, to clean up.  The shooting is illegal and this is a particularly bad spot since it is next to the only road out for anyone up on the mountain.  This situation is particularly evident to me since I have once spent time up on that mountain trying to determine if the billowing smoke meant my exit was cut off.  You can read about the cleanup on the ForestWatch web site .  (Pictures too!) The good: You get to go into a wonderful area.  Sweet Piru is flowing nearby.  That's a creek that holds great promise of adventures. The bad: The actual area you go to has had people working very hard to make it somewhat less than wonderful and you don't get to wander around very much. The indifferent: Looked like ther...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. The route up Dry Lakes Ridge cannot properly be called a trail. It is a well trod use trail up a wide fuel break. As such, it is actually a network of intertwined routes that meander across a wide swath along the ridge edge. Occasional false routes spread out from it to viewpoints or for explore a ridge branch or forming dwindling downhill routes or all of the above. It can be a bit of a mess, but while it is easy to get a little wrong, it is hard to get it a lot wrong. A turnout on the left and a second on the right bookend the start of the trail with ample parking. There is no sign, but it is just a bit over a mile from the turn to Rose Valley when headed north. I can see the trail to my left as I pass the intersection, just past a nearby hill, so know where to aim. It is empty when I get there. Crossing into a gully and starting up the steep hill, there are numerous footsteps and a few of them very sharp and fresh. ...

Los Padres National Forest Locate the trailhead. There seems to be an effort to check off the area trails, for this week I join the group from the Sierra club evening hikes as they return to NIRA, but this time head upstream along the Manzana. Nine year old me remembers that this area can have difficult to follow trails when it gets into the creek, so why not hit it with a guide? Also, I'll get to try to compare the slightly further areas with those memories. With twenty-seven years and a fire to change things and fade memories, I'm unlikely to sort things out. Still, the game must be played. As we start, the old paved ford over a wide creek is gone in favor of narrower, rocky channels. It is completely dry and the white rocks seem like bleached bones in the sun even though it is cool and cloudy. The clouds don't look like they'll yield the much needed rain and I haven't even thought about bringing rain gear. We sign into the register and start down the...

Santa Barbara County Park Locate the trailhead. This trail is certainly an oddity. James Wapotich seems to have the most complete description of it. The southern half of the ranch is an orchard and special rules are in effect because of this. The trail is open to the public Saturday, Sunday, and Monday from 8AM to sunset as long as they are on foot and without any pets. No bicycles, no horses, and no cars (belonging to hikers) are allowed past the gate. The trail is only seven or eight miles long total, so I figured I would have plenty of time to dally along the way and loaded up the GPS with cache locations to try geocaching out properly. Taking the right turn off the highway and a quick left onto the rough frontage road, I park at the gate and get the GPS going to find that I've already missed one of the geocaches associated with the trail. Really? I can't be bothered to go back for it, so the first one is at the trailhead. It turns out I can't be bothere...

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. While wandering up Romero Canyon in the dark as part of the Wednesday conditioning hike held by the local Sierra Club, I got an offer for a hike down to the Manzana Schoolhouse, something I've wanted to do but never quite got around to planning for myself. That could partly be because it is a little bit more than eight miles down to the schoolhouse and partly because this area can become quite blistering in the summer when the hours to do a long hike are easier to come by. The hike on offer didn't just go down the creek and back up, but would make a loop taking in the western section of Hurricane Deck, so is exactly the hike I would have planned. This does bring the total distance to a bit more than eighteen miles and adds some actual climbing to the otherwise very flat route. We start downstream from NIRA shortly after the 8AM meeting time, following the Manzana Creek to Potrero Camp. The trail along this section stays up ...

Land Trust for Santa Barbara County Locate the trailhead. I decided that my next monument hunt would be around Arroyo Hondo where there should be two witness corners along the boundary of the forest. One is in the canyon at a wide spot and could be reached either by an abandoned trail up the canyon or an abandoned road at the end of Upper Outlaw Trail on the eastern ridge that comes down into the strike canyon to meet more abandoned trail. The second is up on the ridge to the west and can be reached by continuing up the abandoned trail to near its end or taking an abandoned road along the western ridge. The key to this is how abandoned these routes are. The first is just a little ways past where the trail is not abandoned via the canyon and has a structure marked a quarter mile into the forest to pique curiosity, so this looks like a nice one to start with. Going up the canyon, it looks like only a narrow spot just above where the trail is currently maintained is the only d...

 Arroyo Hondo , Land Trust for Santa Barbara County: Jan 5  Manzana School House , Los Padres National Forest: Jan 12  Baron Ranch , Santa Barbara County Park: Jan 20