Cuyama Peak

Los Padres National Forest

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The automated weather says today is the brief sunny moment between a couple small storms, or did when I could get a weather report. There are some clouds, but they are clearing. Getting up to the peak is going to be a 12 mile hike if I take trails. I plan to go up using a ridge for a shortcut and come back on the trails, but it will still be a 20+ mile day. If the gate weren't locked, it could be shortened by three miles, but I'm pretty sure my car wouldn't make it across the river so it doesn't really matter that the gate is locked. My arms still hurt from shifting trees on Deal Trail, so I really hope Tinta is not in a similar shape.

Starting the same place as for the loop with Deal Trail, but a bit earlier.

There's a bit more ice on the unstable log that crosses most of the Cuyama River, but I'm not keen for another spill into the water. It was 24°F earlier and probably hasn't got much warmer yet. Just 10 feet further are some rocks that make perfectly stable steps to cross without any threats at all.

There's more ice now than before. It's not so much the river crossing as the river edges that I don't think my little car would get past.

A fork in the road once more. This time it is right for Tinta.

The road to the right got torn up even more than the road to the left when the rains came. The crossings are all dry. Tinta Creek doesn't have as much in it.

Rancho Nuevo doesn't seem to be thinking too hard about getting sunny.

On the road to Tinta. This is not the worst bit.

The campground looks a little done over. It has been looking that way for a while. The trailhead hasn't had much change either. No wilderness just beyond on this one, it's a motorcycle trail. It is rated "more difficult" but it sometimes seems like the Pinos Ranger District is out to get the lesser rider or vehicle and underrates things.

At the trailhead. The canyon is about to change.

The old road that was here quickly vanishes as the canyon narrows. The water appears by the first crossing. There is flow here after all. It grows by the second. There's not much need for the gate since no one but a motorcycle is getting up the hill.

Deep inside a narrow canyon. The trail is about to start climbing that hill to the right, missing the section of canyon ahead.

Above the narrows.

The trees stick mostly to the north slopes, but the next slope over hasn't recovered since getting burned.

At what seems it should be the top, the trail turns and climbs a little more before drifting downward to the long, easy valley below. This is where we stopped when approaching this trail on our bicycles to get the geocaches along it. Silly us, because the rocky climb isn't all that long.

The course of Tinta Creek with a first look at Cuyama Peak at the far end. The scaffold of the fire lookout can just be seen.

My sunny day seems to be deteriorating as I get closer to the peak. It's deteriorating in every direction even. The way down doesn't entirely drift as it crosses a deep gully with a little water in the bottom, but after that it is easy, at least for me. There's a log that has been giving the motorcycles a bit of difficulty. Up and down it goes. I note a switchback that has been lost for a rutted direct route instead. The it gets tough, for me at least, when it crosses the creek at a spot that has become a deep pool. It is with difficulty that I find a way to hop it.

On the trail. There's brush that is sometimes close, but only one very short section is bad.

I'm pretty sure that mountain is getting misted now, but I'm going to finish this climb anyway. I'm a little surprised to see that the road in Brubaker Canyon really exists. There are old signs on the trail and a gate on the road. It passes into private property below and would be a shorter route.

Looking down Brubaker Canyon.

For today, it is a sign post. While Bill told me the Hundred Peaks Section uses this ridge to get to Cuyama Peak, I'm not sure where they start. There looks to be two likely routes, one starting on the ridge right by the junction and the other waiting until the next gully before making the ridge and following it. There's a significant bit of extra climbing to follow the ridge entirely, but that's the one I'm guessing it is. If not, it should at least be passable until I get to the use trail.

On the ridge and climbing. Looking back, I'm pretty sure it's raining in the Cuyama Valley too. Tinta is still dry.

There's not a lot of trail sign on the ridge, but there are open spots, often just to the west of the ridge. Nice, steep open spots. There is more trail sign after I finish the dip. Sometimes I find myself following the bear trail sign instead because he stays closer to the ridge edge. Up ahead is a post with a single insulator to hold a single line. The telephone line came this way, too. They kept a bit to the west, too.

More telephone poles on the west side of the mountain. The visible lines are usually support lines rather than the single telephone wire.

I get a little rain, and then the cloud closes in on me and it stops for the most part. I'm following a rock backbone of the ridge but getting suspicious that others have stayed down low where they can just walk on the dirt instead of doing a clambering balancing act. I try the lower route on the next crest and it works out well. I'm happy there's no wind to go with all this moisture, but still pull on my windbreaker when I stop for a bite to eat. It was just in time as the wind hits me in the next hundred feet. Not bad, but much easier to take with the windbreaker on.

Just a little rocky here with plenty of yucca. Some of the trail sign is from people cutting the bayonet tips. Not all of the mist is the weather. The camera is generally suffering today.

The ramp up is not too bad and is finally signaled just about over when I can see the scaffold of the lookout once again. Down to my left, I can see a bit of road coming up to meet me. Following the ridge, I come over the top, stopping a little while to try to locate more of the benchmark than a reference mark. There doesn't seem to be more remaining.

The old platform where a lookout stood until about 6 years ago.

The lookout cab is now just a pile of wood.

I'm hoping for clearing for my peak time. It's been nice to me like that before on a couple occasions. It begins to snow instead, so I start down the road. It's pretty, in its way. Brown road, red buckwheat, white snow. Careful not to slip on the developing mud.

Following the road down in the snow. The camera is being quite useless now and the one on the phone is being difficult.

The snow turns back to rain before the first switchback. I slip a little once, but today the sticks are enough to keep me upright. There is a huge patch of snow before the top of Tinta Trail and then a huge space for walking on the trail. There's been a tank through here recently. Well, probably a bulldozer or tractor. Either way, it was rolling on tread, not wheels. It plowed out trail under the cliff at the very start by the peak road and plowed out drainage spots along the way and cut away the brush in a wide path.

There's no water this high up in the drainage.

There's been a big storm through here. It has blown down a lot of trees, but nothing is movable on this trail. There's been a motorcycle through since the big snow so some are probably moved for me and some have the branches crushed enough for a motorcycle, absolutely illegal when the gates on the roads were locked, to come through. I'm not amused by the motorcycle, but I'm thinking more about this strange treaded creature. I recall the second half of the trail coming down to Lizard Head being very brushy with only a narrow walkway between.

Upper Tinta Camp is marked by some wood pieces that were probably signs and a cairn to mark the start of the usual route to Lizard Head. There is no water in the creek even though it is still raining lightly.

The trail is wide and easy like the road it once was. The snow is tracked with a motorcycle and bear. The tread is visible in the dirt in some spots.

The treaded thing continues down to Brubaker, where it presumably took the road down. The trail is not so wide or flat side to side or clear of brush afterward.

Trees remain only where there is shelter from the sun.

The buckwheat red is more impressive here than along Deal.

I get across the small but tough crossing long before it is getting dark. That's what I wanted most. Secondarily, I'd like to get to the road by dark. The trail gets on with its ups and downs and I get on with following them until that climb to stay high out of the canyon. I wonder what is being passed by in those narrows down there. Is it just tight? Are there waterfalls?

Passing by the narrow canyon section once again.

I'd have gotten to the road around sunset, but my stomach is shouting at me and there's a very nice rock seat down at the bottom of the switchbacks and across the creek. Still, it isn't long after. There's still those three miles that can be sometimes driven. The road is soggier now and ready to send me sliding. Sometimes I take the grassy edges instead of trying to navigate the puddles and gunk. The crossings are still dry up until the roads join for crossing the river. It has not risen noticeably and the rocks still make a solid dry crossing. I'm willing to count that peak now. I wasn't willing while I had only ridden up it in a truck. The GPS only clocked 20.4 miles. I was expecting 10 up and 12 down, but it was more like 9.5 up and 11 down.




©2020 Valerie Norton
Written 27 Jan 2020