Here’s me in April 1991 posing in front of a San Rafael Wilderness sign. We had just climbed out of the Upper Sisquoc River watershed. I was as a young buck laying eyes on, what was for me, never before seen territory.

We put in at Nira Campground and had been out on the trail for several days, spending our first night at Manzana Narrows Camp. I vividly recall laying eyes on the sandstone formations at the top of White Ledge Canyon for the first time in my life, the next morning, after climbing out of the Manzana watershed. We popped through a narrow gap in the rocky hills near a creek and right into a huge sprawling albino Lizard’s Mouth. At least that’s how I saw it. Already having a fascination with rock formations and caves stoked by years of scrambling around the Santa Ynez Mountains closer to town, the landscape looked like a lithic playground of epic proportions.

We proceeded down White Ledge Canyon passing through a lush Happy Hunting Ground Camp and on down the trail to spend our second night at White Ledge Camp. The next day the weather began to change and the cloud cover thickened through out the day. It started raining as we approached the last several miles before the Sisquoc River and South Fork confluence, and so we holed up in the South Fork cabin the rest of the afternoon and night. The cabin at that time was little more than a rat nest made of four walls and a roof. But it was dry and we appreciated the wood burning stove and the dry fuel other hikers had kindly stocked. The river outside was dirt filled from runoff and rippin’.

South Fork cabin in 1991.

Lazing the afternoon away reading a paperback at the cabin in June 2011. It is shown here after being restored by the Los Padres Volunteer Wilderness Rangers, which started, I believe, in 2008. Hat tip to all those involved!

The storm bathed the landscape in a gentle intermittent rain, but cleared during the night and the next morning we picked our way along a less swollen Upper Sisquoc. I spotted a large morel mushroom that third day.

We made it to Upper Bear Camp after more deep river crossings than we cared for. It was a mite chilly and there was some snow still scattered about. On a huge pine log near camp, there was what to this day is still the largest clump of ladybugs I’ve ever seen.  The backside of Big Pine Mountain also had a cap of crusty old snow, which we crunched over on our way down the fire road after staying the night at Upper Bear.

The first photo in this post was taken on Big Pine-Buckhorn Road east of Alamar Camp after having climbed out of the Sisquoc headwaters. We followed the road to Bluff Camp that day and set up for the night. It was an easy walk compared to what came next.

The following day we plodded along until well after dark, grinding through mile after curving mile of seemingly endless fire road. It was one of those hikes where you round a bend only to see the road running along the ridge far off in the distance, and you sigh in exasperation, as it winds around numerous hills to disappear and then reappear even further off in the distance. We had hoped to reach Upper Oso Campground. We didn’t make it.

We covered somewhere around 15 miles before my little brother finally could go no further. He put in a hell of a day for how young he was. We ended up rolling out our sleeping bags right on the thin strip of dirt that was the trail, somewhere on the south face of Little Pine Mountain, above Nineteen Oaks Camp.

We must have chewed some jerky and trail mix or something for dinner, but I don’t recall. We surely didn’t cook anything. We were plumb tuckered. The second half of the trip wasn’t the most inspired course to take, that’s for sure, but altogether, the route got us just about as deep into the backcountry as is possible around these parts. It was certainly a remarkable experience for kids of our age.

The last morning we walked the remaining short distance down Oso Canyon and through a vacant Upper Oso Campground. The gate was still closed at First Crossing. We waded across a shallow spot in the Santa Ynez River and hitched a ride to Paradise Store, where we called for our ride back to civilization.

Along lower Manzana Creek in the Santa Barbara backcountry, a rib of sandstone known to some as Castle Rock (Jack’s Map) juts into the air along the west end of the wind swept ridge officially dubbed Hurricane Deck. This is not to be confused with another formation also known by a few as Castle Rock.

Every time I have hiked through the area the north slope of the outcrop has caught my attention with its numerous caves seen from the trail. Yet, despite the lure of the rocks and my unending interest I had never explored the area. Recently I struck out midweek on an exploratory venture to change that.

A rafter of turkeys seen along the flats of Alamo Pintado Creek.

Hideous beauty.

The Castle Rock sandstone formation in the San Rafael Wilderness, as seen in May 2011. All other photos were taken at the time of this most recent hike.

A cold wind howled over Figueroa Mountain and whooshed through the pine trees, as I cinched down the straps of my pack and headed down the Sulphur Springs trail from Cedros Saddle. An unsettling layer of dark clouds covered the sky and blotted out the sun. It was forecast to rain that night.

After finding my way down the unkempt trail and reaching the confluence of Sulphur Creek and Dry Creek, I rounded a bend and surprised three doe grazing beside the creek. They promptly scattered into the forest crashing through bushes and over crispy dry leaves.

Well there goes any chance of seeing more wildlife around here, I thought. I glanced up the mountain slope as I walked by and spotted one of the deer staring at me through the underbrush beneath the oak trees. I clicked my tongue against my front teeth like one might do when riding a horse and then yelled out, “I see you up there.” What happened next was a mite surprising considering all the ruckus.

Walking on around the bend in the trail, noted on the left within the red circle, I came up behind a bobcat. It strode lazily along maybe thirty to forty yards in front of me. I stopped at first sight and watched it saunter on down the road oblivious to my presence.

For a moment its behavior made me think it was a domestic cat. I couldn’t believe that it didn’t hear the crash of the three deer through the forest or the thud of my footsteps or if it did why it didn’t bolt. After a second more I quickly tore my pack off and set it down while watching the cat intently. It was still walking and clueless. Turning my sight to my pack I ripped my camera out as quietly as possible. When I looked up the animal was gone.

I ran on my tip toes down the road, as close to the foot of the mountain it skirted as possible using it as a blind. There it was. Still in the road walking away from me. I knelt, camera to eye and poised ready to fire off shots as fast as my reaction made possible. The bobcat just kept walking. What is with this stupid thing? I thought. I held fire for fear that the rapid shutter clicking would scare the cat into the forest in a blur.

The bobcat wandered off the road and up on top of a small boulder buried in the ground, where it proceeded to sniff around, its head out of sight and its rear end pointed skyward. Crouched in plain sight I waited, concluding that these animals were far less crafty and perceptive than I had grown to believe.

It finally raised its head and began to turn my direction. Upon spotting me it froze dead still. I let rip with the camera and we glared at each through the lens for a few seconds, the shutter flapping away. After a riffle of shots I pulled the lens from eye to make sure I had my settings right and was actually getting worthwhile photos.

The second I turned my head down to view the camera I heard a crash through the underbrush and the animal was gone for good. I turned and headed down canyon shaking a fist in the air knowing that whatever else was in store for the afternoon, my day was already made.

Shooting star wildflowers (Dodecatheon clevelandii)

Dabney Cabin beside Manzana Creek was originally built in 1913 or 1914 depending on the source consulted. It was constructed as a recreational lodge for Charles William Dabney and today stands as Santa Barbara Historical Marker No. 8.

The southwest face of Castle Rock.

The northern face of Castle Rock showing the green of winter ferns and moss.

A moss and lichen covered boulder seen at the foot of Castle Rock’s northern side.

The cave that was my main destination for the day. It appears here deceptively easy to get into.

A closer view.

Having reached Castle Rock, I picked my way up the rocky chute that drains its north face in wet weather. Scrambling up the declivity, and out of the dry creek, I headed for one of the larger caves that is visible from across Manzana Creek on the trail below. The cave shown above. It was readily apparent that the peak was steeper and more treacherous than I had anticipated, and that climbing it was not going to be easy.

For the most part only a thin layer of soil covers the steep sandstone. As I pushed my toes into the grass to climb, the dirt peeled free from the stone in a mat held together by roots and I promptly went sliding downhill. Okay, time for the next option. I gained traction in a crack kept clear and bare by rushing water in rainstorms and slithered up it and through the branches of a downed pine tree.

Once I reached the cave I found it impossible to gain entry despite being mere feet from its entrance. Perhaps somebody with more courage or fewer brains might make it inside. But I was alone, and without a satellite phone this time around, and so could not risk a debilitating fall. Grudgingly, I admitted defeat and turned my attention elsewhere.

The cave I could not get into as seen from above. Maybe one day I’ll return with a rope and make it inside.

The outward appearance of a different cave, which is easily accessible.

Making my way further up the slope another cave came into view, its mouth hidden behind a shroud of bare poison oak branches. When the poison oak is fully leafed out in summer the cave must be unnoticeable from a distance. As I parted the branches and stepped inside I was surprised to see its size. I couldn’t help but admire what a choice campsite it would make and pondered what I would do to turn it into a cozy dwelling.

Looking inside the cave.

Standing in the mouth of the cave looking over lower Manzana Creek.

The view from the cave looking over Manzana Creek and toward the Sisquoc River confluence.

A view showing the steepness of Castle Rock’s northern slope and some of its smaller caves.

After a rest I left the cave and climbed to the top of the outcrop along its lower most saddle and then scampered on back down the slope to the canyon floor. Walking back up Sulphur Creek toward the trailhead, I crossed paths with another smaller bobcat. I had mistakenly walked off the faint path and been pushing through the bushes when I spotted the cat a short distance away.

Yet again, I could not believe it had remained so close. It had seen me, but was walking slowly away seemingly unconcerned. It didn’t dart off, but just wandered away into the woods as I fumbled with my camera in vain trying to get a shot off. Finishing up the last section of the trail before reaching my ride, I thought back on an decent day for seeing wildlife. You just never know what you might find out there.

The circuit I hiked noted on Bing imagery.

I woke early and hit the super slab driving up over the Santa Ynez Mountains, across the Santa Ynez Valley and over Figueroa Mountain to the lower Manzana Creek trailhead in the San Rafael Wilderness. In preparation for getting my arse kicked out on the trail by this suicyco mutha***** I’m soon to do some hiking with, I spent eight hours, plus an hour lunch break, hiking over 21 miles of trail and no less than 4500 feet in combined elevation gain and loss.

Despite the length, the loop is a relatively easy walk as most of the trail is fairly flat apart from the climb up Potrero Canyon to Hurricane Deck and back down to Manzana Creek at its confluence with the Sisquoc River.

As the morning waned the sky cleared to pure blue but with cool winter temperatures. I hiked all day in a short sleeved t-shirt under a long sleeved shirt. Not much wildlife this time around. I only saw a few deer, couple of hawks, a small snake and three turkeys.

A section of west Hurricane Deck in morning light, the red dots noting the trail route. The more prominent grassy face of Bald Mountain is seen rising just beyond the Deck with the Sisquoc River canyon in the background.

A panoramic iPhone camera shot from atop the west end of Hurricane Deck and looking over the Sisquoc River canyon at center frame. Castle Rock can be seen on the left along the ridgeline. The trail follows the crest of the ridge by Castle Rock and then descends to the Sisquoc River and Manzana Creek confluence.

Looking up stream on the Sisquoc River from Hurricane Deck. It’s rugged, unforgiving dry country that is still making a recovery from wildfire.

A view of Castle Rock showing the burnt, barren hills of the San Rafael Mountains.

Castle Rock

A riverside meadow or what the Spaniards called “potrero.”

The slit in the rocks above Manzana Creek.

This rusty remnant of a tractor or tiller of some sort sits in a meadow along Manzana Creek. A stacked rock wall is nearby and judging by the lichen covered stones it appears old. Knowing next to nothing about old farm equipment, I would hazard a guess that, judging by the wheel design, this piece of machinery is from the Depression-era.

Here below is a series of clips captured along the hike and slapped together. It was shot with an iPhone and so the imagery is poor, pixelated and pretty rough, but, nonetheless, it offers a bit more of a peep into what the day was like through my eyes.

Alcove Falls, San Rafael Wilderness, Santa Barbara County.

I recently unearthed this drawing of Davy Brown’s cabin in an edition of The Herald newspaper that was published on September 25, 1898. Santa Barbara backcountry enthusiasts know Davy Brown as the name of a drive-up campground on the backside of Figueroa Mountain; the modern day camp being located near where the old Brown cabin once stood. It is also the name of the small creek running through the campground, which is located in California’s Los Padres National Forest on the edge of the San Rafael Wilderness. People knowledgeable in the details of Santa Barbara history know Brown as an historical figure that sailed on a British privateer raiding American ships during the War of 1812, and who was once described by the renowned John Muir as a great grizzly bear hunter.

Related Posts:

John Muir Writes of Davy Brown

The Storied Life of Davy Brown

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”

―John Lubbock

Senator Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) is widely credited as the father of Earth Day. As the story goes, after visiting Santa Barbara and viewing firsthand the catastrophic consequences of the oil spill of 1969 in the Santa Barbara Channel, he was inspired to found a special day of environmental education and awareness. This would later become known as “Earth Day.”

Today, Earth Day 2013, we have all sorts of people around the nation and the world celebrating by holding huge gatherings that in their planning, carrying out and attendance require the consumption of massive amounts of resources and result in the emission of immeasurable amounts of pollution.

And in so doing the activities of Earth Day promote the type of disconnect from the natural world and heedless consumption that is the very sort of thing the concept of the environmental day of education was designed to lessen. If one really wants to celebrate and learn of Earth, then why not go for a long hike into the wilderness alone? Leave the metropolitan bubble of artificial reality behind. Part company with its hurried masses and material culture. Escape the urban cage and enter the natural realm.

I have found that there are few better ways to reconnect with the natural world than time alone spent immersed in it, with but the bare basic necessities to sustain you. It is a healthy activity for mind and body that requires few material items and leaves a relatively miniscule environmental footprint. It affords time for reflection and the pondering of nature and one’s place within it to an extent that is impossible to achieve within the man-made bounds of a city. It simplifies life and in that simplification reveals its essence in a way that reaffirms one’s bond to the mother of all mothers. Take a hike!

Santa Ynez Valley viticulture as seen on drive to trailhead.

It’s an ordinary summer day. It’s not one of those media hyped heat wave events, but it’s supposed to be hot out. Such forecasts don’t really apply to the backcountry, though, and I expect it to be hotter than called for.

County-wide to date Santa Barbara has received less than half its normal rainfall amount for this season. And a little more than half the normal amount of rain fell the previous season. Bradbury Dam at Lake Cachuma last spilled in 2011.

The San Rafael Wilderness is hot and dry. It’s withered, shriveled, and crunchy. And hordes of tiny flies are out in search of heads to ceaselessly buzz around and eyes, ears, noses and mouths to crawl into. These less than pleasant conditions deter most people, a fact confirmed by my arrival at a parking lot devoid of vehicles.

Manzana Creek

Sun scorched trail

I plod along the trail with my head down and a steamy red face, step by heavy step up the gravely mountainside, glistening and dripping with sweat, my heart throbbing audibly in my head. The world bobs and weaves with the motion of my head as I stomp along, randomly glancing out here and there from under my hat brim. The only sounds are my heavy footsteps, the forceful rush of breath in and out of my nose and the rhythmic dull thump of my heart.

It’s like I’m fighting against myself as I hike, because as I struggle along, sucking and puffing wind, legs laboriously scissoring back and forth, the world around me, the plants and rocks and everything else, it’s all still and silent. It’s not doing anything. It’s not for me or against me. It’s inanimate. Indifferent.

It’s always like that, of course, but on this exceptionally hot day the feeling seems particularly acute as I grind my way up the sweltering slope. I’m working myself toward dehydration, fatigue and heat stroke and all I’m doing is slowly walking up a dirt path.

Mariposa lilies

I slog up the mountainside through the crispy dry chaparral, caught between the life shriveling, merciless glare of the sun overhead and the rocky mountainside underfoot radiating its solar energy back at me.

I come upon a scant patch of shade under an overhang of brush. The shadow falls over a small trailside slope of bare soil. I collapse onto the dirt, scrunching myself up against the shadowy foot of the chaparral and trying to escape the sun’s deadly wrath.

Like a victim cowering from an aggressor, I curl up in the shadow. I’m able to get most of my body out of the sun except my lower legs, which I try to shade by placing my hat on a raised knee like an umbrella. After ten minutes or so I glance at the thermometer on my backpack in the shade: 100 degrees.

I march over the crest of a chaparral covered hill and down into a lightly wooded grassy glen, eagerly looking forward to another rest in the shade. The odd patch of sloping grass on the brushy mountainside is sparsely dotted with oak trees casting big shadows.

I plop down under a large tree to cool down, hydrate, refuel and allow my fluttering heart to slow down. I’ve only covered a couple of miles, but the short hike thus far has inflicted a disproportionately large degree of strain on my body. I feel beat.

The forest seems empty and lifeless in the heat and absence of water. The fleeting splash of vibrant green, lent briefly to the drab hills seasonally by the flush of grasses and other small annual plants, has long since withered and faded to neutral earth tones. It will be months before it rains again.

Peering over the parched landscape shimmering in the afternoon heat it does not appear as if life here is thriving. It’s hard to imagine that the plants and animals are doing much more than merely enduring. Of course, this view is based on my own experience. I can’t avoid projecting my own strain and struggle onto other lifeforms.

Compared to months earlier, or years as the case may be, when the creeks and arroyos were flowing and filling the canyons with the sound of rushing water, now there is a heavy silence, a notable sound of absence. The land feels less dynamic and less alive without the roar and trickle of running water.

Leaving the grassy hollow behind, I wade through the sparse brush, over the sandy soil and rocks and through wildfire scorched skeletons of chaparral and a few little trees. I’m traversing an uneven expanse cut by several deep, but narrow arroyos.

One of these small drainage chutes, while dry like all the rest, drops over a wall of bedrock and into a lush, muddy pocket surrounded on either side by walls of sandstone. It’s a rare seep. The water oozes out of cracks in the bedrock at the base of what would be a small cascade during wet weather, but now it’s a mire unsuitable for drinking or anything else unless in desperate need.

Nonetheless, I take note. I always find springs and seeps in this semi-arid, usually dry landscape interesting and worthy of attention. Time spent in this forest is too often dominated by the need of water so it always catches my eye when I come across it.

Such a seep as this reminds me of something in a western novel. A lone remote water hole hidden from sight in a rough land. It makes me think of the different animals it may attract during day and night, the peoples of the past, Indians, pioneers and early explorers, that may have relied on it.

I find a cave and crawl inside seeking refuge. Laying on my back on the cool sandstone I gaze out over the landscape surveying the desolate, inhospitable backcountry realm. My view of this day is entirely shaped by the sweltering temperature and dryness of the land. It’s a different perspective than when I’ve come here on other milder days.

It’s brutal out there. It can be miserable, painful and deadly. This isn’t a pleasant leisurely stroll. This is a punishing battle. It’s a land where I don’t seem to belong but for fleeting visits. Wilderness, as oh-fficially defined, is a land “where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” Temporary visitation isn’t a choice, though. It’s an undefiable reality.

When facing nature with only what’s in a backpack, one may hold out for some time, even thrive for a period, but eventually she whittles you down and wears you out, and sends you fleeing from her indefatigable elements like a refugee seeking safe harbor and nourishment.

The 100 degree heat has left me tired, sticky lipped and with a thirst that my bottle of warm water cannot quench. Lying in the cave lost in meandering thought, I feel the heavy creep of weariness settling over me and my eye lids growing heavy.

I succumb. My eyelids fall shut.

And I doze.

Sisquoc Falls, located in a restricted condor sanctuary in the San Rafael Wilderness, is officially off-limits to the general public.

The following narrative was originally published in the Santa Maria Times in 1884. It chronicles the bushwhacking exploratory adventure of a group of men who fought their way up Santa Barbara County’s remote, wild and trailless Sisquoc River to its headwaters and surrounding mountains.

Locals with experience hiking Santa Barbara County mountains, and who well know the brutally impenetrable and lacerative nature of chaparral, may find it humorous that the explorers warn readers, “we advise anyone undertaking the trip to take along a sheet-iron suit of clothes.”

Hiram Preserved Wheat, mentioned by last name in the story as a guide, was “the patriarch of the Sisquoc homestead community,” write Blakley and Barnette in their book, “Historical Overview of Los Padres National Forest” (1985). He was known to the pioneers of the Sisquoc River area as “Old Man Wheat” and originally came from Potawanie County, Kansas. Today, a grassy and steep, pyramidal mountain overlooking the Sisquoc River is named in his honor, “Wheat Peak.”

The other guide mentioned, Forrester, was another member of the Sisquoc homestead community, Edward Everett Forrester. He was one of three people chosen to form a board of trustees for the community’s newly constructed schoolhouse in 1893. (Manzana Creek Schoolhouse 1893)

Wheat Peak, as seen from Manzana Schoolhouse, looms over the Sisquoc River which flows along its base.

The Sisquoc Falls: A Little Known Region in California Explored

Having heard so many conflicting reports about the wonderful scenery at the headwaters of the Sisquoc Creek, we, in company with Messrs. Wheat and Forrester, concluded to make a thorough exploration of that section, which has until lately been almost a terra incognita to even the oldest settlers, owing to the dense chaparral which covered the mountains on all sides, and made it almost inaccessible until an extensive fire swept over the several hundred square miles about there. We supplied ourselves with a necessary outfit, mainly blankets, Winchester rifle and salt, mounted the hurricane deck of our favorite caballo and the first day reached Mr. Wheat’s ranch, 35 miles from Santa Maria.

The next day while passing through the narrows, where the canyon is only seventy-five feet wide, the walls above towering hundreds of feet, we met with a slight accident in the same place where two other horsemen had come to grief only a few days previous. On one side a trout pool ten or twelve feet deep, on the other a shelf of slippery soapstone, to cross at an angle of 45 degrees. My horse’s feet slipped, and first the rifle went clattering down the slope, horse and rider rolling after in inextricable confusion. The rifle went off, striking the horse, fortunately missing a vital part. A mile further on we reached Mr. Robert’s camp and were soon supplied with a remount.

After passing the narrows we had to cut a trail for miles until reaching the burned country above the main forks of the river. Ascending the south-east fork about twelve miles from the river we came to Ventura Fall—as we named it—from the great number of them about there. The gorge at the foot of the fall was wild and picturesque in the extreme. Huge boulders and fallen trees, with occasionally a cascade varying in height from ten to one hundred feet to climb around. Grizzly bear tracks were quite plenty, but no grizzlies came in sight on the top, nor were we hunting any.

We climbed above and measured the main fall and found it to be 480 feet in height—a sheer descent with about 30 miner’s inches of water flowing over it. The stream falls about 2,o00 feet in two miles and a half, making a great number of beautiful cascades. The pool below the fall is 80 feet long, 40 feet wide and upwards of thirty feet in depth, clear and cold as ice, and so sheltered by the overhanging bluffs that the sun rarely shines in it.

Fishermen displaying their catch, or plunder depending on your perspective, along the Sisquoc River (1916). The waterway is now an officially designated Wild and Scenic River. Fishing is no longer legally allowed in an effort to protect native southern steelhead, which are an endangered species and cling to existence today at about one to two percent of their former population size.

Near the top of the bluff, and at an elevation of 4,000 feet above sea, is an old beach line about fifty feet thick of rocks and marine shells deeply cemented together. This is the fifth well defined beach line to be found at the various altitudes between this place and the summit at the San Rafael range, all of them showing a different age and different formation of rocks. We found marine shells, etc., in the sandstone at the extreme summit of the range, at an altitude of over 5,000 feet.

Climbing the mountain above the fall we found to be terrific work; the dense chaparral partly burned and partly grown up again, was impossible to get through without chopping for miles. Near the summit of the range, between the Sisquoc and the Santa Ynez, we found a belt of fine timber on the northern slope of the mountain, about three fourths of a mile long and half a mile wide. We made a thorough examination of the whole grove and found it to consist mostly of the yellow pine to be found at certain altitudes on all mountains in California. Quite a number of the finest kind of sugar pine, with a few scattering firs and cedars, the latter being mistaken for redwood by an experienced woodsman, with a few oaks intermingling. We made a partial count of the grove and estimated the number of trees fir for milling to be from 9,000 to 10,000, the majority of them being from three to five feet in diameter.

After a careful search, we could find none of the unmistakable traces which a white man leaves behind him and concluded that the place has been hitherto very rarely visited by them. In one place were three cedar stumps which had been cut at least from 50 to 75 years, judging from their state of decay. It was done with a dull ax by Indians, probably to make bows from.

A clear, cold and deep pool along a tributary of the Sisquoc River.

The slope is so steep that we could find no place level enough to spread our blankets without shoveling, except at the extreme summit of the mountain. There we had a magnificent view of the whole surrounding country. To the south and west lay the Santa Barbara Islands. Far out across the Mohave Desert, upwards of 200 miles distant, the Providence Mountains were plainly seen. To the northwest the wide sweep of the San Joaquin Valley, on the further side the Sierra Nevadas, the snow-capped summit of Mt. Whitney and other lesser peaks, while in the northwest lay the coast range, a succession of sharp ridges and steep canyons, covered with dense chaparral for hundreds of miles, with here and there a beautiful valley nestling below.

The day was exceptionally clear, and the prospect well repaid us for all the trouble of getting there. The following day we tried to ascend the main south fork of the creek, which is even a rougher and wilder gorge than the other, if possible. After climbing a mile and half we came in sight of another fall from 250 to 300 feet high, considerable water flowing over it. We had to give it up as a bad job that day, and we advise anyone undertaking the trip to take along a sheet-iron suit of clothes.

Those falls are about 65 miles from Santa Maria, and the timber belt spoken of about 70 miles. On coming back to camp we found one of the party, Mr. Roberts, in chasing a wounded deer had broken a bone in his foot, compelling us to start out as soon as possible. In another branch of the creek we found a small grove of genuine sugar maples, some of them two feet in diameter, the only natural grove of the kind we ever heard of in California.

Hurricane Deck, the prominent ridge defining the skyline.

There is no trace of water on Hurricane Deck, no trees and no campgrounds. It’s a 20 mile long ridgeline with south facing cliffs and steep grassy slopes on one side and a dense cover of chaparral on the other. It can be hot even in winter and deadly, broiling hot in summer.

Something sort of like a trail runs across the top of the ridge, but it’s neglected and unmaintained, brushy and ill-defined. In some sections it’s downright dangerous as a makeshift trail skirts the cliffs with only inches of space to walk, a precipice on one side and a wall of wiry chaparral poking at you from the other.

The clifftop is shaley and loose, with piles of small domino-like flat, rectangular pieces of interlaced stone covered in thin layers of dirt. Step near the cliff edge and the shale dominoes slide apart and the earth seems to disintegrate underfoot. One misstep could easily send a hiker over the edge and they wouldn’t stop tumbling for several hundred feet.

Lost Valley Trail

Twin Oaks Camp along Lost Valley Trail.

Crossing the top of middle Hurricane Deck recently, I was able to link a combination of old trail cut through the brush, current animal paths and thin use trail left by the occasional intrepid backcountry hiker. I only had to crawl under or through the brush in three areas, but only for a few feet at a time, which wasn’t bad. I had expected worse.

Never having crossed this middle section of the ridge I wasn’t sure how passable the route would be, and was all the while concerned I was going to run into impenetrable chaparral half way into my day, some 12 to 14 miles from the trailhead, and find myself stuck with only fleeting hours of short winter daylight. Sunset comes fast this time of year. I didn’t want to be fighting my way through a bramble of brush at half a mile an hour or less as the sun began setting.

At a certain point on such a hike there is no going back, and you commit to the planned task and just hope you make it through before it gets dark. I’m not the type to ask people for current conditions. Life’s a gamble. And that’s the beauty of it.

Looking over the Sisquoc River watershed as seen from the junction of Lost Valley Trail and Hurricane Deck Trail.

The junction of Lost Valley Trail and Hurricane Deck.

Looking back, eastward, over where I’d come from along the top of Hurricane Deck.

There are no rock formations of interest, no rolling grassy potreros or any other sort of notable features on top of middle Hurricane Deck. Perhaps the most remarkable feature are the views of Manzana Creek watershed on one side and the Sisquoc River drainage on the other.

I’ve heard of Europeans visiting the Santa Barbara area who’ve allotted time in their itinerary to hike Hurricane Deck. I wonder if those tourists made this particular geographical feature of the San Rafael Wilderness a destination based solely on the romantic, adventurous name it was bestowed with, because I can’t imagine what else might have led them to want to spend what little time they had on vacation hiking it. It had to be the lure of the name.

I’ve heard of other people of local origin that set out to hike the trail for the first time by trying to do it at night under a full moon. I don’t know how it works elsewhere, but around the southern Los Padres National Forest it’s not wise to assume a trail is easily passable just because it’s listed on a map. In fact, what’s labeled on a map as a trail may not even exist in any other manner but in old cut branches long buried in a thicket of overgrown chaparral.

What if Hurricane Deck was renamed using the ever expansive Big Book of Tiresome Cliches? What if it was instead named all too accurately the sunbaked, wind-swept, dry as a bone, God forsaken ridge? It certainly would not attract as much attention or foot traffic as it does, which is little as it is.

A section of Hurricane Deck. The trail, or a trail, runs up the edge of the steep ridgeline to the conical apex and then down the saddle on the left.

Potrero Canyon Trail showing Hurricane Deck looming in the upper left-hand corner of the frame.

Related Post:

Potrero Canyon, Hurricane Deck, Manzana Creek 20 Mile Day Hike

Blue skies and golden grass along lower Manzana Creek Trail at the Pratt homestead site.

“The Pratts homesteaded just below Cold Spring on Manzana Creek. They had a stepson by the name of Eddy Fields. At the site of the Pratt house you can still see a large “E” and “F” carved into the trunk of a live oak tree.”

-Historical Overview of the Los Padres National Forest, E.R. “Jim” Blakley and Karen Barnette (1985)

The oak is fairly thin and ordinary, unremarkable, another tree in the forest like so many others. Not like the oaken hulks aside the grassy flat several miles away on the west end of Sunset Valley in lower Munch Canyon, which in their height and massive girth draw attention and would make good targets for a bored mind and idle hands.

The oak must of been a relatively minor tree a hundred years ago when he carved his initials into it. I wonder why Eddy chose it. Maybe it just happened to stand between his family’s cabin and the nearby uncommon pocket of the creek that holds a perennial pool, where I imagine he might of played.

The Pratts stayed only a short time on Manzana Creek and apparently never proved up on their homestead claim. They sold their stove to Edgar B. Davison, a forest ranger who used it to outfit his Fir Canyon station on Figueroa Mountain: Edgar B. Davison’s Fir Canyon Cabin (circa 1900).

The E

The F

Eddy’s oak on the left.

There is a pocket of clear cool water in the creek by the oak. This in the month of July during a record drought while most of Manzana Creek is dry. At the moment of this writing a stack of rocks sits on the bank above the pool to note the uncommon availability of good water for passing hikers in an otherwise dry landscape. It wasn’t a bad choice for a site to stake a claim as a homesteader.

Manzana Creek upstream from the pool shown above at the Pratt homestead site.

Related Post:

Manzana Creek Schoolhouse (1893)

DavidStillman.com standing beside Rattlesnake Falls deep in the Santa Barbara backcountry on a recent backpacking trip, the creek a tributary of the Wild and Scenic Sisquoc River.

Coldwater Camp lies in a meadow under a large oak tree along Lower Manzana Creek Trail, and is rimmed by hills. A detailed profile of the camp can be seen at Hike Los Padres – Coldwater Camp.

The camp was presumably named due to the usual availability of water in the creek nearby during most conditions, when the rest of the area is dry. This remarkable feature of the land must have been appreciated by the pioneering Pratt family who staked a claim in the area.

In the vicinity of Coldwater Camp, with a clue or two, one might find the initials of the Pratt’s stepson, Eddie Fields, who carved them into a tree near the site of the family’s homestead some 100 years ago.

Another site is hidden here center frame under the trees, somewhat on the opposite end of the meadow. The same sign is seen here as in the first photo above.

“Most of these places, however, were not marked as special on my map. But they became special by personal acquaintance. … I remembered what Ishmael had said in Moby-Dick about the island of Kokovoko: ‘It is not down in any map; true places never are.’”

Robert Macfarlane “Wild Places”

The Essence of Place

Our natural inheritance here in this neck of the woods may not include the largest or most spectacular of water parks. But nor have we such wants. We certainly have no need. We barely have water these days, but we get by just fine.

We appreciate each place for its own character. We do not measure our place by the standards of other places. “I—the royal we, you know. The editorial.”

We are humble in our desire. Allow us a small sandstone tub just large enough to dive into, to feel the wash of cool fresh water over our face on a warm day, to sink to the bottom with held breath and pinched eyes, to bob around. And we are happy.

For even the grandest of waterfalls and deepest, largest of pools may find it hard to compete with the affection for a small place in your home county.

Pinners. Scrawny drought-stricken coast live oak acorns in the fall of 2018. 

After seven years of scant rainfall and extreme drought—Santa Barbara arguably being hit hardest out of any county in California—finding pools that aren’t stagnant or moss-covered and still appealing enough to jump into has become increasingly hard to accomplish, if one finds water at all remaining in the watershed. Many places have dried up altogether. Many places have remained dry for years now.

And so one must put in more effort venturing farther and deeper afield where what little rain has fallen in recent years still manages to trickle out of the ground in sufficient volume to fill a few puddles worthy of attention.

My dad and uncle first stumbled upon this swimming hole over 50 years ago when out exploring the wilds of Santa Barbara County, a favorite family hobby.

They knew not what they might find that day so long ago, but went anyway with not so much as a hint from anybody that a cool emerald pool awaited them out there in the forest after a hot sweaty trek.

August 2018

On a hot summer day we sat poolside smoking Cuban cigars and listening to the blues, the two elders telling tales of meeting tobacco farmers in Cuba and enjoying the fruits of their labor.

They told of learning from the farmers how they dried and cured their leaves over the course of a couple of years; of visiting the drying sheds; of sitting in their humble homes; of chickens standing on kitchen tables beside makeshift wood-burning stoves; of a farmer withdrawing from under his straw mattress supple, golden-brown cured personal stash pressed between sheets of newspaper and hand-rolling cigars of exceptional quality for their indulgence.

These stories were those of travelers that went out to find for themselves lively experiences, not tourists having been led to trendy traps detailed in books and articles with explicit directions. That’s personal acquaintance. In that grows a deeper appreciation. It’s to love rather than merely like. And one begins to know something of the essence of true place.

Once upon a time many decades ago in a similar vein, these two adventurous travelers had set out and found for themselves this liquid gem we now enjoyed on a sunny summer afternoon, somewhere yonder deep within the wilds of Santa Barbara County.

It’s the old swimming hole. Where relaxation is found, fun had and memories made.

“It was a rough land that bred a tough man.”

—Louis L’Amour, Utah Blaine (1984)

The observer may glean some insight into the nature of the land by looking at its native inhabitants. When you’re wearing a helmet of horns and shrouded in barbed chain mail, then you know the San Rafael Wilderness is some rough country.

When I was a kid on a Monte Vista elementary school field trip to Cachuma Lake, one of the kids in my class caught a horny toad. It was a raving huge hit.

And so pestered did the lizard become as the center of rambunctious childhood attention that it demonstrated one of the oddest sights in this here county.

The crazy thing spurted blood from its eyeballs!

It was probably the first time most of the kids even became aware that such a wild looking lizard lived in their greater backyards, to say nothing of actually holding one, and then, of all things, watching the lizard shoot blood from its eyes.

It was a wild scene, I tell you what.

All these many years later, despite catching many of them through the decades, and even poking a few here and there, I still have not yet seen another horny toad bleed from its eyes.

Slopes of chaparral in the Santa Ynez Mountains.

On down the slopes and all the way to the canyons was a thicket of varied shrubs that changed in character as altitude fell but was everywhere dense enough to stop an army.

On its lower levels, it was all green, white, and yellow with buckwheat, burroweed, lotus and sage, deerweed, bindweed, yerba santa. There were wild morning glories, Canterbury bells, tree tobacco, miner’s lettuce.

The thicket’s resistance to trespass, while everywhere formidable, stiffened considerably as it evolved upward.

There were intertwining mixtures of manzanita, California lilac, scrub oak, chamise. There was buckthorn. There was mountain mahogany. Generally evergreen, the dark slopes were splashed here and there with dodder, its mustard color deepening to rust. Blossoms of the Spanish bayonet stood up like yellow flames. There were lemonade berries (relatives of poison ivy and poison oak). In canyons, there were alders, big-leaf maple bushes, pug sycamores, and California bay.

Whatever and wherever they were, these plants were prickly, thick, and dry, and a good deal tougher than tundra.

Those evergreen oaks fingering up the creases in the mountains were known to the Spaniards as chaparros. Riders who worked in the related landscape wore leather overalls open at the back, and called them chaparajos.

By extension, this all but impenetrable brush was known as chaparral.”

John McPhee, “The Control of Nature” (1989)

Everywhere and always around here, chaparral. The woody and wiry brushwood that grows in thickets so tangled and prickly it renders foot travel impossible without being ripped to shreds.

I hate it so much I’ve grown to love it. “Worthy ******* adversary,” to quote Walter Sobchak. Chaparral demands respect.

The hideous overgrown weeds are penetrable only through violent force in most places. “Carrying packs and cutting our way down a brush-choked arroyo with machetes,” Campbell Grant wrote, “we made a mile in two hours.”

Through the years chaparral has defined and many times dictated the day’s (mis)adventures by obscuring trails, barring access and making travel afoot exceedingly difficult and uncomfortable.

I can’t deny feeling a certain degree of pleasure whenever a wildfire scorches vast swaths of chaparral. Take that, vile weed!  And how nice it is to walk freely through open terrain when it’s been reduced to ash and bare sticks. That never lasts long, though.

It’s a rather perverse and maddening feeling to have been “lost” one night within sight of people and the city only because an impenetrable wall of chaparral stood between me and Gibraltar Road. I could see cars driving on the mountain road not too far off from where I was stuck in the dark without a trail, but short of a brutal bushwhack–which might have taken hours to cover only a short distance and require an extreme amount of effort and result in being scratched raw and bloody–I could not make it to the road.

In the land of chaparral, the trail is a thin savior through the thicket. A twelve-inch wide life raft promising safe passage home and a return to the comfort and convenience of civilization and the bottomless well that gushes at all hours everything anybody wants.

To lose the trail is to fall from the raft and be cast adrift in rolling seas of chaparral that stretch to the horizon. A puny human marooned in an ocean of dangerous wilderness. A castaway caught amidst heaving peaks and steep mountain slopes that rise and fall like monstrous green swells.

Rancho Nuevo Canyon, Dick Smith Wilderness (Early May, 2012)

“It is possible to be indifferent to flowers—possible but not very likely. Psychiatrists regard a patient’s indifference to flowers as a symptom of depression. It seems that by the time the singular beauty of a flower in bloom can no longer pierce the veil of black or obsessive thoughts in a person’s mind, that mind’s connection to the sensual world has grown dangerously frayed.”

—Michael Pollan, Botany of Desire

This here poppy, Papaver heterophyllum, is one of the lesser seen wildflowers in the hills around Santa Barbara County so far as I’ve seen in my few years and limited experience.

I saw a wind poppy at the mouth of Rancho Nuevo Canyon eight years ago.

Dusty David Stillman and I had just finished up a hike through the canyon—Deal Cyn, Rancho Nuevo Cyn 17 Mile Day Hike—and as we came off the trail I glanced over and spied wind poppies in bloom.

Seven years would pass before I saw another wind poppy.

I don’t think Mr. Stillman had any interest, which is not in any way to suggest he isn’t of sound mind. He’s solid like bedrock. Plants just do not interest him like they do me.

I’ve long been fascinated by the plant world and have been a grower of various plants since I was a small boy. When I was about ten years old I rode my bike down from the top of Hope Avenue to La Sumida Nursery on upper State Street, now no longer there, and bought a load of cactus which I somehow managed to transport back home. The clerk overlooked one of those plants and neglected to charge me and I remember feeling like I had won the lottery.

Later as a young adult I worked for Hilton Sumida at that same nursery together with the wife of Dick Smith’s son, for whom the Dick Smith Wilderness was named.

She held in her head an encyclopedic knowledge of plants and people would stop into the nursery all the time to pick her brain, and she always obliged the interrogators.

Once on the side of a mountain below Owen’s Peak in Indian Wells Canyon, Stillman peered over me in curiosity as if watching wildlife.

I had been collecting a can of granite gravel within which to plant the small piece of beaver tail cactus, Opuntia basilaris, I had just respectfully collected for my home collection.

“You’re a real weirdo, you know that?” he had said.

I couldn’t rightly deny the charge. Several years later the cactus offered up a single bloom, seen here.

Back to the Rancho Nuevo Canyon wind poppies. The flowers were freshly popped and new, but the lighting was weak shortly before sunset, the temperature cool and falling, and the blooms were already half closed hunkering down for night.

The poppies grew in a patch of grass between clumps of scorched chaparral. This was five years after the Zaca Fire burned the area in 2007.

The land in Rancho Nuevo Canyon was still in the early-successional stage of regrowth following the wildfire and the poppies appeared to thrive in this particular habitat.

Lost Valley, San Rafael Wilderness (Late May, 2019)

In May of 2019 a good friend and I ambled down Lost Valley Trail after two nights hiking and lounging around in the San Rafael Wilderness in the Santa Barbara backcountry.

The land still looked somewhat scorched from the Zaca Fire, although that fire was 12 years past. Or did another fire sweep the area after the Zaca? Fire has burned so much around this neck of the woods in recent years it can be hard to keep track.

Small pockets remained between the chaparral, yet to close over, where delicate annual herbaceous plants sprouted with gusto.

Here in one of these pockets, much like in Rancho Nuevo Canyon years earlier, right along the trail just before reaching the old rusty sign at Lost Valley Overlook, I glanced over and saw a number of wind poppies in bloom.

This was late May and the flowers were days old and on their way out, but still vibrant.

Wind poppies resemble fire poppies, previously noted on this blog: Fire Poppy (Papaver californicum). Without a careful look one may confuse the two.

Readers of that post may recall the fascinating relationship between fire and Papaver californicum and I imagine the same phenomenon may be at work with wind poppies:

The burning brush and trees of a wildfire produce chemicals found in smoke that regulate plant growth known as karrikins, which are deposited on the surface of the soil. When watered in by seasonal rains karrikins stimulate rampant germination and vigorous seedling growth.