Moments in Dirt and Ink

Santa Barbara front country The rain did not start at midnight and it is still somewhat warm and sunny and I could jaunt at least a little way up the hill before the green shadow passing Lompoc on the weather map gets to here. I almost take the turn for Gibraltar Road before remembering where I am headed up by the water filtration plant. So off I go, on the still quite dry trail. The poison oak is almost entirely dormant making the picnic table in the middle of it look much more inviting. The junction to start up Arroyo Burro instead of Jesusita is still marked. There is plenty of dirt beside the steep paved road to walk on and it remains well marked, too. With the utility road section, it all seems steeper and harder than I remember. Maybe that easy slope yesterday spoiled me for this. Whatever, it does give ample opportunity to just turn around and try to take in what may be the most expansive views of the city that the trails have to offer. The cathedral sized cav...

Land Trust for Santa Barbara County Map link. Where Franklin Creek meets the ocean, a salt marsh once stood. It was abused for many years because people did not see the value of swampy land then, but now has been generally restored to allow the animals to return. Now the greatest need for restoration is a connection to other types of habitats since many of the predators for creatures in the marsh come from other places, thus prey animals can become too numerous now. A short series of trails with multiple entry points from Ash Ave. Beach access parking can make parking difficult at that end, but I find parking easy near the northern entrance. Dogs and bicycles are prohibited, says the sign. Taking a slight jog right, the trail passes along a line of mobile homes with small water channels visible to the south. A couple gardeners are working along the edge of the trail and below, there is an egret fishing. Quick jabs into the water seem to be coming up with some sort of fish....

Rincon Beach Park and Carpinteria State Beach Carpinteria Bluffs and Tar Pits Park Locate the trailhead. Sometimes it is just a good day to have a walk along the bluffs and the beach. "The Rincon" is a legendary place where the highway runs close enough to the ocean to get splash during rough seas and an extraordinary number of people have breakdowns and simply must park by the side for a while. It is hard to find a time when there are no surfers bobbing in the water. Get off the freeway at Bates for a bit more legal access, with a bit of Carpinteria State Beach and Rincon Beach Park on either side of the gated community at Rincon Point. Both have free parking and pit toilets, but the county park has a lot more of it. It also has the trail I want to check out, an old road that extends from the end of the parking lot. As I start, there is only one paraglider drifting low over the freeway and train tracks. I often see them here, generally in groups. A paragli...

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...

Santa Barbara front country Locate the trail head. I decided to go on a loop hitting the Hot Springs Club ruins and giving me an excuse to look for another benchmark that has no reporting since 1964, or maybe that's the other way around. The day is hot but the trail parking is full and I have to park on a side street. The trail passes between a fenced garden and the creek as it climbs shallowly toward another road. A trail sign points at a dirt path along the side of this trail that ends at an intersection. Continuing in the same direction, the route crosses a ford and then passes again between fence and creek, but now swapped. Past this, it drops onto the fire road and continues up. Generally shaded by non-native trees, it climbs some more to a junction. Trail signs point to a creek crossing to the right while a second trail along water pipes and a road continue past private property signs. I think the road goes to a house, but the trail may now be taken. The tra...

Land Trust for Santa Barbara County Map link. Over a month ago, I asked my mom if she wanted to go to Arroyo Hondo and she said she'd been wanting to. It then took two months to get sorted because Arroyo Hondo is not as easy to visit as most of the Land Trust's holdings. Reservations are needed during open days on the first and third weekend of the month. (Click here for information on visiting.) When trying to make reservations for the upcoming weekend, we were told we were too late to get them and there was a function during next open weekend. Our own schedules conflicted after that, but we finally found a day. So I find myself traveling "north" on the 101 until just the right moment when I take a hard right off the highway at one of the smaller roads along the side, one that doesn't even have a right turn lane or a crossing point to head back the other way. A little sign says "Arroyo Hondo Preserve" and another by the gate informs of the...

Goleta Map link. The monarch butterflies come each year and stay for a few months. The peak for this year has already happened and was not nearly so impressive as the one last year, but there are still quite a few hanging around in the blue gum eucalyptus grove. We went out to Ellwood to see the colony that stops there. There are a few entry points to the Ellwood Bluffs area and we started close to the butterfly preserve area. There are three signs near the beginning to inform about the butterflies and a well established trail leads from there to the grove where they flock. There are a few trees in bloom, but otherwise not so many flowers. A hungry bee taking advantage of the flowering trees and getting heavy with pollen as it does. We crossed a little wooden bridge over a stream bed that was soggy in places, then some planks over a bit more puddled water into the grove. At first, there are a few butterfly shapes easily spotted fluttering between the tree branches. ...

Carpinteria Map link. Disappointed with Toro Canyon for being exactly what a reasonable person with the information I had would expect it to be, and not a way into Oil Canyon, I went down to the bluffs. Below the bluffs, the tar seeps out onto the sand and hardens. I parked in the dirt lot between two people enjoying the area by sitting in their cars talking on their phones. I headed west toward a farm on the end, then turned to cross the tracks at get to the cliffs. I stopped for more drawing on the clifftop, then took the old road down to the beach. A sign marked the beach to the west, where the seeps are, as closed for the harbor seals, but also said that closure ended with May. More pressingly, the tide seemed to be coming in and some of the points of rock were getting washed by the higher waves. With a little timing, I made it to the seeps. Oil hardening into tar on the rocks it seeped out of. When it is warm, it flows, but today is overcast.