Moments in Dirt and Ink

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. 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. ...

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. I come to the gate at Rancho Nuevo to climb a peak, but not today. Today is for another round on Deal Trail, which loops up and around to find its way back to CA-33, then I get to come back down. It's an excellent candidate for dropping a bike off at the top to get back, but I haven't got one anymore, so it will be a road walk to finish. There's one of the many wilderness information beside the gate. Leave no trace principles, a map, and fire recovery information. I think we're getting to year 14 of recovery for this area. The gate is closed for the winter season, not that it would help me if it weren't. The first thing it does is cross the Cuyama River. Today, this is a series of ever deeper ditches until I finally get to one that holds water. It is more of a big creek today. There is a log to cross it. I'm not a fan, but go for the increasingly ice covered and wobbly bridge. Even with poles for balance,...

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. Here I am at Aliso Park again staring at McPherson Peak, or into the trees in its direction at least. My undoing! For seven miserable hours. That was a week short of two years ago now. It somehow feels both longer and shorter. I'm going to reverse my path this time. That way the battle that is finding the peak trail will be done in plenty of light. I've already done the initial part and found where the trail starts from the campground. Just past where the trail starts up the hill heading north, you can find the remnant of the old and official route of the road as it goes south up the canyon. It is easier to see as it rejoins the current road than as it passes through the campground. More importantly, where it once crossed the creek, there is a thin line that does not and instead continues north, climbing, along the hill quickly becoming very distinct trail. The trail starts in the southwest corner of the campground. There...

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. I popped around to Santa Barbara and visited Bernard, who was skipping the holidays for the Wednesday night hikes, but out for the very short Lizards Mouth hike for the weekend. We hiked a mile extra along Camino Cielo on the way in and got that shortened for the way out. That meant passing the Playground, which wasn't so busy, before getting to the rock, which was bustling and humming with all the folks out for the last weekend of the year. Clear, but that doesn't mean there's much to see of Carpinteria on down the coast. The last couple storms through actually dropped some snow, at least on the stuff that's 5000 feet high. Some fell lower, but it's gone now. Some rocks of the Playground below. Further is a reservoir, the lagoon at UCSB, and the Channel Islands. The separation between Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa can just be seen from here. I take the first trail into the exposed rocks around Lizards ...

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. I feel like I have been avoiding the front country since the Thomas Fire except some brief looks early on. I see it on regular evening hikes with folks during the Wednesday conditioning hike and the Friday social hike, but I tend not to write up those hikes. Before leaving easy access to it, I decided to hike up Montecito Peak one last time. The usual approach via Cold Spring Trail is still closed, so the easiest entry to climb the peak is now Hot Springs Trail instead. The exclusion zone signs at the bottom have now vanished, so things are getting better. The very start of the trail looks the same, but things change just a step past that. New fencing is everywhere replacing what was washed out to sea. The creek flows down a canyon deeper and rockier and more open to the sun than before. The creek actually flows, which has not been seen this late in the summer in recent years. For one familiar, it all feels different. For someone who...

Los Padres National Forest Click for map. I signed up for a little more trail work, this time along the trail I bailed along when it got just a bit cold and snowed on me . At the time, I hopped over, around, and even under quite a few trees in just a few miles. Since then, there have been a lot of work to clear them all out. They said 300 trees have been cleared. Surely it was not quite so much? Then again, maybe it was. Another 20 remain and that is what we are out for today along with plenty of brushing and a little tread work. (It isn't that I have any influence. I'm just lucky to have hit the trail shortly before the work was done.) We drove the 20 miles behind the locked gate up to Bluff Camp for the night yesterday afternoon, so had a few miles drive still to get to the trailhead at Alamar Saddle. Safety talk and tool grabbing is quick with a group that mostly has been around and done this sort of thing. So we head down with a plan to make the trail nice from Upp...

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Click for map. The map has reminders that when I have thought about being here at Santa Cruz Station in the past, I had wanted an extra day at least to explore. Down the creek, it claims there is a cabin to be found. Up the creek are waterfalls. The register box has a note pad and someone noted not just the waterfall (which they liked), but some rather large trout up there too (and they liked as well). I decide to note that someone should come down the fire trail with a chain saw. Or at least some flagging. Especially for the flatter areas. After a little more poking around, I am off. Had I not been planning to go out by the trail already, after coming down the road, I would have changed my mind. So that is via the trail. The trail junction. I went north yesterday, now west briefly before heading south. The old Santa Cruz Guard Station is kept locked up tight when volunteers are not using it. ...

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Click for map. The morning is thick and grey, but I expect that will be gone by 10AM. It is higher up this today, so I can see actually the land around me. I get to see the outside of the barn now. It is a simple building and not very barn-like. Poking around the rest of the camp areas is nice, but it sets off one volunteer's dog. I like a spot a couple down from the station where a big oak has fallen and now it is nice and open over the table and camping area. Even next to nice big creeks like this one, I am starting to get wary about large oak limbs. I weigh down my camp gear so it stays where I put it and pack up and take off as the others start to fix breakfast, joining the mowed trail by the register and starting to climb along a tributary out to those meadows I saw in the gathering gloom yesterday. On the other side of the canyon, I pick out the trail going the other way, climbing in easy switch...

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3 Click for map. I am not looking forward to the miles of this day, but I still want to go up Santa Cruz Peak and I do not particularly want another go at McKinley Fire Road so soon. Besides, there is still the old guard station south of it that I wanted to check out. It should be a fairly reasonable hike in, mostly on lovely Santa Cruz Trail, for about 10 miles. The Rey Fire burned out the crib wall at a particularly unstable shale area and later rains made it even worse so that now it is considered impassible. I might try it on the way down, I will see what it looks like from Alexander Saddle. I will not be trying to get up it. Instead, I have to take the road for about 15 miles. But wait, there is more, as the late night infomercials like to say. First Crossing is closed, so I have to park a bit more than 2 miles from the trailhead. The parking around there is day use, so I am not certain how my car m...

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 Click for map. Finally, a night that was as promised by the weather predictions: not cold enough to freeze, not even in exposed places. There was still a bit of wet wrung from the air overnight. Clouds rush in once again as the sky brightens, but they are weaker today. There are open spaces behind them. The cows did not come around in the night, so the closest large animal is still the probable bear that thrashed past the edge of camp at Madulce Station. By the time the sky is getting a bit of color, there have been a few clouds flowing overhead. Since it is only 6 or 7 miles out, I am in no hurry to get started, but since the morning is an easier temperature to live in, getting breakfast and packing up flows along quickly. With everything tucked away again, I head back up to Sierra Madre Road and then turn down it toward the car. Many of the cows are hanging out at the jun...

Los Padres National Forest DAY 1  |  DAY 2  |  DAY 3  |  DAY 4 Click for map. Clouds rush in at the first light of the day again, but this time it is happening down below me in the valley and not threatening to encase me as well. The picnic tables got soggy in the night and I avoid so I do not want to touch them or sit on the benches at all. It feels a little too chilly for getting wet. After breakfast, I put out one finger to find that the water is quite hard. All the dribbles and blobs of clear water is an illusion, it is all frozen. There are no air bubbles within to give it away. When the sun finally hits it after hiding behind the mountain for an hour, it simply transforms from matte to glossy. I am on my way out, so do not get to see the change finish. There are miles to walk and one more peak to bag. The morning view from the toilet, which is probably quite the selling point for Alamar Camp for some. The clouds are rolling in from t...