I was lounging around camp in midafternoon boiling the billy. Had me a relaxation station set up in the shade of a tree, an air mattress propped up against a boulder as a makeshift recliner, and a long view down the creek.

I had pulled my can of boiling water off the campfire and set it beside my lounge chair, and when I glanced up before sitting down, I caught sight of a black bear just before it passed behind a wall of bushes along the creek bank.

I was startled for a second. It was odd to unexpectedly see an animal of that size, a big black beast, so close to me. I’m not accustomed to seeing anything larger than deer when out in the forest around here. It’s not like Sequoia National Park or other places where bears are a daily sight.

I was all alone in that canyon, I thought, the biggest animal around, hadn’t seen anybody in two days. Then seemingly out of nowhere another large mammal suddenly pops into sight. And it was only a short stone’s throw from where I stood and coming directly toward my camp.

I bounded over to my backpack and ripped my camera from its pouch, but when I looked up the bear had already fled back across the creek. It was pushing through the brush and climbing over boulders moving up the slope out of the streambed. It paused briefly several times to glance back down at me as I watched it intently.

It’s only the second bear I’ve ever seen in the Los Padres National Forest. I saw one a couple of decades ago, but just a split second glimpse of its hind end as it charged into the chaparral, after having been surprised by me as I blasted down a dirt road on a motorcycle.

Nearly every time I go out for a hike I see bear sign. Bears seem to be everywhere all the time, judging by the number of footprints I see, but they’re sly and not commonly seen. On this day, however, a bear walked right up to my camp oblivious to my presence.

The upper Santa Ynez River valley.

Upper Santa Ynez River

Looking up lower Mono Creek near the Santa Ynez River confluence.

“During the month of November the trail in Little Caliente and Mono canyons was greatly improved.”

Los Angeles Herald (1899)

The Mono-Alamar Trail is a treasure hunt to hike for the uninitiated. Near constant searching, scanning the brush and ground, straining to see subtle clues and telltale signs that lead to the goods. It may well represent in microcosm much of the world of hiking in southern Los Padres National Forest.

I had little time to spare with nine miles to hike in late afternoon up the unkempt, poorly marked trail. The treasured outcome was actually arriving at camp before sunset.

A short distance from its beginning the trail fades into the poison oak understory of a coast live oak forest and there I stood once again, like last time, wondering where the path went and which way to go.

In a general sense I knew exactly where to go. I’ve been there before. I didn’t need the trail. I could’ve reached the campsite without it and I wanted to forget the damn thing. Not waste time searching for it.

The meadow at Mono Campground. I lost a toy cowboy rifle somewhere down there several decades ago, which for some reason still sticks out in my mind.

The intense mental effort required to search for and follow the trail for miles on end makes it seem like an irrational obsession at times. I feel like an unsuspecting character in an outdoor theater of the absurd compelled to stay on the trail whether it makes the hike easier or not.

I waste time and energy searching for the trail, wandering around in circles over here and over there, into the brush and back out, up the creek and back down.

Where is the damn thing? How can it just disappear? It’s clear as day here and then a few steps later, poof, it’s gone.

An adobe at Ogilvy Ranch along Mono Creek.

Another view of the adobe looking up Mono Creek canyon.

Late afternoon reflections on a clear water section of the creek.

I stand gazing over the land straining to recognize some trace of the trail’s presence cutting through the grass or bushes or across a patch of soil, but I’m also thinking that I could easily hike on without it. I could make a lot better time hiking without a trail than standing around looking for one.

Sometimes I’m standing around looking or walking back and forth searching for the trail in the midst of a thirty or forty foot-wide gravelly wash beside the main creek channel. It’s open country in a wide, flat-bottomed canyon, but rather than hiking easily up the creek without need of the trail, I’m erratically wandering around staring at the ground searching for it.

It’s like a sick obsessive-compulsive disorder. That I must stay on the trail at every turn, even when it requires more time to do so and doesn’t make hiking any easier. As if the entire point of the trip is walking the trail as an end itself.

Looking upstream into Mono Narrows. The location of the campsite can barely be seen frame left as a tiny touch of brown, the top of the dead oak tree, at the foot of the shadowy cliff.

Mono Creek Narrows after a little rain.

Muddy Waters

Sight of the dry creek triggered visions of digging for mucky water in the gravel of the narrows, squatting in some low spot between boulders ladling up the dirty leftovers of a once clear flowing stream.

I hadn’t actually expected to see lower Mono Creek flowing or even muddy. I knew it’d be dry. Recent rain, a measly and sporadic few showers, had barely moistened the droughty hills. I had packed enough fluids to sustain me for two days at a minimum level and hoped to find water near camp.

Rainwater was puddled in depressions atop boulders along the trail as I hiked up canyon. Even though the creek was drier than the previous year when I was there last, enough rain had fallen to actually raise the creek through the narrows, but it turned it into a silt-laden stream of chocolate milk. While it didn’t invite a swim nor look appealing to drink, some muddy water was better than no water at all and it actually didn’t taste bad despite its hideous appearance.

Warm and muddy in Mono Narrows.

The Old Oaks Dies

I stopped short and stood gazing down the twilit creek in astonishment, mumbling to myself, cursing and questioning what had happened. The gnarly old oak had died.

The oak defines the campsite, hanging awkwardly over a bench of silt deposited from prior floods. It looks as if its acorn one day long ago washed ashore during an epic flood and rooted in near the high waterline.

The tree gives the camp a sense of place, that it isn’t just another few yards of unremarkable scrubby forestland like so many others. The tree imbues a particular ambiance to the nook that makes it feel like a destination, somewhere worth arriving at, somewhere worth spending time.

Mono Narrows Camp under the dead oak. Each day the water cleared up a little bit and the water fell cutting lines in the sand along its bank.

The oak tree sprouts out of the soil with tentacle-like meandering limbs reaching over the flat. In wild day dreams sitting around camp, the old tree my only companion apart from a bear, I imagine that the deep black hole in its trunk is the sucking maw of some fantastical monster with flexing, reaching lips like that of a horse. Some bizarre beast rooted into the creek bank, its tentacle limbs reaching into the stream snatching prey and stuffing its gaping mouth hole like a crab scavenging a reef, its pincers shoving forage into its grinding mouthparts.

Mono Narrows Camp
A camp fire with a view.

Looking downstream.

Overhead view of camp looking upstream.

The death of the great oak is a tremendous loss. When the tree falls it will take with it much of the campsite’s character and leave a void which cannot be refilled.

It’s unlikely that the campsite will remain an inviting place to stay. It may still serve a basic utilitarian purpose for the odd backpacker passing through who merely needs a patch of dirt upon which to sleep a few hours, but the camp has lost its defining feature and is on its way out. It died along with its ugly old oak.

Another view of the camp.

A large cottonwood tree snapped like a toothpick by a massive rock slide.

 Related Post:

Mono Narrows Camp, 18 Mile Day Hike Gone Bad

Calochortus fimbriatus, the late-flowered Mariposa lily, is in bloom at the moment in the Santa Ynez Mountains. A patch of the flowers thrives in the droughty dryness and summertime heat on a south facing rocky hillside at this particular location.

This variety of Calochortus or lily is listed by the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) as being rare throughout its range. Observational information about rare, threatened or endangered native plants and animals can be submitted to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife via their Native Species Field Survey Form. The data is added to the California Natural Diversity Database, which according to CNPS is “the largest, most comprehensive database of its type in the world. It presently contains more than 65,000 site-specific records on California’s rarest plants, animals and natural communities.”

The large emerald pool below Fish Falls might be the best summertime swimming hole on the frontside of the Santa Ynez Mountains in Santa Barbara County. It’s deep enough to dive into from the top of the waterfall, if you’re good, and wide enough for several people to comfortably swim around.

Even in the current severe drought in the middle of summer the perennial pool remains clear cool and clean, and home to a number of decent sized rainbow trout or steelhead.

Prior to man-made obstructions in the lower watershed which bar access to the upper reaches of the creek, I believe this waterfall stood as the natural end point for native trout swimming in from the Pacific Ocean into the mountains to spawn. It must of been like a sandstone barrel ‘o fish back then.

Squaring off with the sun in the foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains in 96 degree heat.

I like to see it for myself. When looking at a map of the forest I want to know what each particular attraction noted thereon looks like in person.

I also like to get out and see the lesser visited locations, those places without trails, the cartographically unlabeled, the ignored, places with little if any notable features, and other backcountry nooks only the few of the few may rarely venture to lay eyes upon, because, to the general population, there isn’t anything notable there, and even among avid hikers, there’s not enough there to warrant the strenuous and uncomfortable hike required to reach such remote off-trail places.

When Stillman mentioned an interest in lower Lion Canyon I needed neither further explanation nor incentive. (DavidStillman.blogspot.com) I like to clock my time crawling around in backcountry bushes. I need little excuse.

North slope of Sierra Madre Mountains below Montgomery Potrero.

It’s mid-summer. A severe drought, worst dry spell in over 120 years, intensifies the often brutal and inhospitable, already desert-like Cuyama foothills of the Sierra Madre Mountains. Last year 2.32 inches of rain fell here, this year a measly 1.71 inches.

An occasional, fleeting puff of breeze floats by, taunting us with refreshment before vanishing, but mostly we trudge through a suffocating stillness. Distance distorted by heat shimmer. The south facing slopes mostly devoid of vegetation. Little shade other than the crosshatched strands of shadow cast from the nearly bare branches of chaparral. Powdery, desiccated soil erupts in puffs of fine particulate like tiny gunshots exploding from under our heels with each step. Sweaty skin a magnet for dust, my face is coated in the grit, my nostrils collecting it, my moist eyeballs rolling in it, grinding and irritated.

I press on ignoring it all, lost in thought, traversing the trailless terrain, up over ridges, down into dry ravines and back up. Stillman always a faster hiker, I follow his footsteps meandering through the scrub over the bajadas, disappearing across the exposures of caliche and reappearing in the alluvium, his footprints the only trace of other humans, I seemingly hike alone.

My motivation and interest to set out on foot and see my backyard at large is driven by passion, but sometimes it may seem fueled more by pathology. My body often suffers for my mind’s compulsion to force it to wander and roam the local weed patches, sometimes in grueling conditions.

Looking over the Sierra Madre foothills toward Cuyama Valley with the Caliente Range in the distance. The mouth of Lion Canyon runs out of the lower right hand corner of the frame toward Lower Lion Spring. Note the golden faced south facing slopes bare of vegetation.

As the day progressed, the sun rising higher in the sky, the sparsely vegetated earth absorbing and radiating ever greater amounts of heat, and as we covered further distance and burned more energy roaming off-trail, the temperature became a greater factor in the day’s equation.

It is not easy to cool a body in conditions like these once it’s overheated. These conditions can be deadly.

Speck in the scrub, Stillman ranging off-trail on the way to Lion Canyon. The rock outcrop seen in the distance frame left is the same one shown in the photo below.

Overlooking lower Lion Canyon creek, back from whence we came atop the creamy white-faced slope in the distance, which Stillman is shown crossing the top of in the previous photo.

We entered into a grassy bowl rimmed by sandstone on our way back to the truck. While Stillman poked his way through the brush to investigate a cluster of oak trees growing from the base of an outcrop, I proceeded up the slope across the grassy bowl. I suddenly felt as if I had wandered into the focus point of a parabola. It was intensely hot. It had to be well over 100 degrees.

I looked about searching for a flat patch of ground in full shade, but saw little. I needed to get into the shadows and lie down to let my heart beat slow and my body temperature fall or at least stop rising. I wasn’t in trouble, but I needed to escape the punishing rays of the sun and get off my feet.

A small alcove in the bedrock  across the bowl cast a sliver of shadow over a rocky and uncomfortably sloped floor. It wouldn’t do. Too much energy required to reach it, too much body heat generated, and too little shade on a piece of stony ground hard to relax on for its angle and roughness.

I turned and settled for a sloping patch of ground under a scrub oak. It offered little respite, but was my best option. I was unsure where Stillman went until I heard a few branches breaking down in the oak-shaded wash that drains the bowl during those infrequent and scant winter rain showers.

We found a trail along the creek just above Lower Lion Spring which served its purpose for a brief spell before we parted ways with it.”Wanna go check the spring?” Stillman asked. “I do, but I don’t,” I answered in the withering heat. “Yeah, me too.”

We reached the top of the grassy bowl and, a few yards beyond, seeing a shadow cast by a vertical rock face, we plopped down for a short rest. We were not sure how far we were from the truck or how easy or how hard it was going to be to get to it.

The brush for the last bit of distance had been thin enough to easily wind our way through, but I feared that as we crested the ridge in front of us in order to drop back into the canyon where we parked, that we would find a wall of dense chaparral covering the westward facing slope.

But the slope was nearly bare enabling us to quickly tromp down the loose hillside and into the dry creek, where after we reached the truck easily within a few minutes to complete a meandering loop surveying a section of lower Lion Canyon.

Bryan route finding off-trail in Sespe Wilderness.

“I came to know that country, not in the way a traveler knows the landmarks he sees in the distance, but more truly and intimately, in every season, from a thousand points of view.”

—N. Scott Momaday, The Way To Rainy Mountain (1976)

“If I think about one lifetime, maybe we have eighty years if we’re lucky. That’s not many seasons to be out. If we only come out during one season we’ve missed out on three quarters of a lifetime.”

—Ray Mears

I have heard talk of a “hiking season” in the southern Los Padres National Forest, as if walking is akin to hunting and only legally permitted for a short time during a select period of each year.

The reasoning, I presume, is that summertime temperatures in the backcountry tend to be hot, in the nineties and upwards of one hundred. The land and creeks and rivers are dry or stagnant. The forest is swarming with pesky nostril and eyeball loving flies and campfires are prohibited. These conditions differ greatly from spring when the streams tend to flow, the temperatures are mild, the flies have yet to emerge and a rippin’ good fire can be freely kindled.

Self imposed limitations, however, necessarily result in limited experiences, and in turn a narrow understanding of the land, its plants and animals. It may also, perhaps, result in a more limited appreciation for the forest than might otherwise be afforded the person who visits the woods during all seasons and conditions.

Cedar Creek Trail, Sespe Wilderness

A mountain field carpeted in poppies and lupine for a few weeks during the mild temperatures of April is a remarkable sight, but it is all the more striking and incredible when one knows what the field looks like in August during 100 degree heat. (Seasonal Change In Wildflower Fields of Figueroa Mountain)

The dynamic and lively sound of a rushing creek filling a canyon is likely not appreciated as much by those who have never heard the same canyon dead silent during late summer when the creek has gone dry.

I wish to know the forest and everything there within during all seasons, when it’s hot and when it’s cold, when it’s dry and when it’s wet or frozen, when skies are blue and when they are cloudy, when it is not raining and again when it is pouring, when the days are long and when they are short, when the shadows are long in early morning and late afternoon and when they are short at midday.

For during each span of time a world of difference can be found resulting in a greatly varied collection of experiences which all hold in themselves their own unmatched value, and when the various pieces are combined the puzzle is put together and the picture complete.

The Cuyama Badlands. One of the wildest and least trod stretches of land in all the southern Los Padres National Forest.

A Chumash pictograph with inset showing a recreation of the design.

A seasonal creek flows by this Indian rock art site in Santa Barbara County and there is a spring not far from the paintings. When flowing the creek cascades several feet over an exposed outcrop of bedrock and into a small pool near the painted alcove. On the face of the outcrop where the waterfall flows there is a cavity in the rock that catches and holds water for far longer than the pool below the falls.

I checked this natural tank in mid-July out of an interest in seeing, during the current severe drought, how long it will hold water through the summer. It was still holding a decent amount despite no rain in over three months, the last precipitation amounting in total to about one inch which fell on the first and second of April. As of August 8, the tank still held water, remarkably clean looking water, and was a magnet for honey bees seeking moisture.

The small protected tank.

I sat beside the small puddle watching polliwogs wiggle around. A week earlier I had scooped up and saved twenty or so of those same tadpoles from a tiny volume of water, nearly dried up, which was held in a cavity on the same rock, just above the puddle where they now swam.

I sat wondering if the longstanding puddle ever served as a precious source of stored water for the Chumash. There is the spring lower down the creek, but in such a dry landscape, during a record drought, any bit of water catches my attention and seems remarkable.

I had been sitting there for ten minutes or so when I suddenly noticed a chipmunk clinging precariously to the rock just above the waterline. It was wet and shaking and had his face pressed against the rock. It looked like it was going to fall into the water at any moment.

My camera flash caused it to do so and I watched it for a couple of seconds frantically trying to swim, fatigued, its puny body vertical in the water, barely able to keep its nose above the surface. It was unable to claw its way back up onto the rock despite its desperate bid for life and after bobbing there for a moment its head dipped below the waterline. I could see it wasn’t going to make it.

I jumped off the rock and snatched a stick from the ground and thrust it into the water. Should have seen how fast and how solidly the little thing grabbed the wood. I brought the stick out of the water and slowly set it beside me. The chipmunk just sat there clinging to it.

I reached into my pack to grab a few raw almonds, thinking to leave them there for it to nibble as I left, but realized I had taken out my trail snacks and left them in the car. It was getting close to sunset, and as the chipmunk sat there shivering, I wondered if it would live through the night or succumb to hypothermia in its wet and weakened condition.

In making an effort to carefully carry the chipmunk on the stick up to a patch of sunshine, he jumped off and scampered through the brush. He found his way up to the exposed bedrock shelves, which were still soaking up the day’s last remaining rays of direct sunlight.

As soon as he left the shadows and hit the sunny rock he froze and collapsed like a lizard on a hot stone on a cold day. I laid my palm flat on the stone beside me which had already fallen into the shadows and it was exceptionally warm to the touch. The heat radiating from the bedrock must have felt awesomely good to the poor little cold bugger, which had just spent who knows how many hours or maybe days trying to avoid drowning.

Clinging on for dear life.

The moment of rescue.

Looking through Barger Arch toward Santa Barbara.

A coast live oak tree obscured for most of my life this frontside feature of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Arroyo Burro Trail, which cuts the mountainside nearby, was one of the first trails I explored as a boy. Riding my bike to Stevens Park and hiking up San Roque Canyon. My house sat beneath Barger Peak, just a few miles as the condor flies from the arch.

In later years we’d hike up Northridge Road, a steep length of skin-stripping asphalt below the trail and arch, and bomb it on skateboards wearing down the chosen Powell IIIs until they lost their bulky cubic form, turned into long thin cylinders and eventually got core-rot, could no longer bear the torque and ripped apart. We walked up La Vista Road innumerable times, also beneath the arch, and flew down it on skateboards testing our humble high-speed skills against gravity and pushing luck.

We wandered on foot the empty ridgeline above Northridge and connected it to Arroyo Burro Trail and down into upper San Roque Canyon. Now there are a couple of estates perched on that ridge overlooking Santa Barbara making such walks legally impossible.

We hiked, bushwhacked and crawled our way over and through the various folds of Barger Canyon. Thoughtlessly rode motorcycles across private land therein and were run into the hillside by an irate Robert A.

A frontal view of the arch showing the burnt branches of the oak tree.

Yet in all that time, through the years, in all those hours of unsupervised and unstructured recreation, crisscrossing the foothills of this particular section of the Santa Ynez Mountains, I never knew the arch in Barger Canyon existed.

Perhaps, though, it did not exist as it does today. Maybe it was smaller or even nonexistent. Standing beneath it now one can clearly see how a massive chunk of sandstone fell at some point from the outcrop thus creating the arch, if not entirely, then as it currently stands.

Sitting under the arch.

Then the Jesusita Fire stripped bare the mountain slope in 2009 defoliating the oak tree and exposing the arch as I had never seen it. A new feature was suddenly and dramatically revealed.

And along with it so too came the revelation that there was, amazingly, even this close to the city in a place in full view from areas all over town, and somewhere I grew up roaming, still some frontiers to explore, still some of the unknown to discover, still surprises and new experiences to be had, even in the nearest portions of Los Padres National Forest.

View through the arch.

Overlooking a dry Laguna Blanca, living up to its Spanish name due to the drought, with Barger Canyon arch noted by red dot. (Laguna Blanca Lake)

Related Posts:

Twin Arches, Gaviota Crags (from afar)

Twin Arches, Gaviota Crags (up close)

Finding Frontier In The Forest Conquered

I stood daydreaming with my back to the river when a loud slap broke from behind me, the sound of something smacking the surface of the water. It was pushing toward 100 degrees and I had just climbed out of the stagnant pool.

I turned quickly, falling into a crouch on my toes with fingertips spread on the stone for balance, a conscious reaction but seemingly driven automatically by instinct.

I do not like being the odd item out in the woods, a focal point, a target, attracting unnecessary attention. I like to be quiet, to blend in, become part of my surroundings rather than stand out from them.

The surprising noise, while not directly threatening, triggered a sense of apprehension. Thoughts sped across my mind like stock quotes on a ticker tape on fast forward. For a fleeting moment I thought somebody was playing a mischievous game, throwing something from the nearby cliff into the water to startle me.

I once was attacked by three heavily tattooed thugs from Lompoc not too far from where I was, one throwing a rock that slammed into my shin and drew blood. They surrounded me, getting off on cowardly intimidation and threatening further violence.

Following the slap on the water, the thought of some punk maliciously toying with me from the high ground was unsettling. I was out in the open. Imagine quickly scanning the high hillsides of a wide forest while standing on low ground and thinking somebody is out there hidden from sight spying on you. Not a good feeling.

Carp stranded in a summertime pool in the Santa Ynez River. (Photo taken several years ago at a different location than described in this story.)

A moment later, ripples radiating out from a point in the middle of the eerie looking deep green pool, I wrote it off as a large carp. The water is full of them, and I had just been gazing down upon several lazily swimming  around just the below the surface of the water.

I knew that sound, however, and it was not a carp or any other fish, but I couldn’t believe what my mind was telling me after it had time to settle and add up the equation. So I rejected it. Yeah, right. No way.

I clambered down the sandstone outcrop I had been standing atop, stepped back into the cool, refreshing water and lunged out into its depths swimming back to the far shore, along a rocky cliff and up onto the gravel shoreline. I was comfortably back in my element, alone in the woods, the previous thought of another person of some unwanted sort dismissed.

I walked back to the line of riverside brush and young trees where I had stashed my backpack and sat in the shade. It was hot, but I’ve come to appreciate hiking in 90 degree temperatures.

I noticed beside me a telltale clue that further confirmed my previous conclusion about the source of the noise in the water, but which I had rejected. I knew immediately upon seeing the branch what it was that made that slapping sound, but yet again my mind refused to accept what the clues confirmed. It just couldn’t be.

The branch had been recently gnawed in half and carried away for it was nowhere in sight. I scanned the immediate area around me and suddenly realized I was surrounded by numerous nubs of freshly gnawed branches sticking up from the riverbed and other old ones, too.

I wondered how I had missed all this obvious sign when I first hid my backpack and stripped off my clothes for a swim. It bothered me that I’d been so negligent, so lacking in situational awareness, oblivious to my surroundings. The roughly cut branches were everywhere. I must have been too hot, fatigued and ready for a swim.

On closer inspection I could see the wide bladed teeth marks that had smoothly slid through the wood in singular passes and with ease. Obviously whatever the animal was that made these marks had remarkably sharp teeth and powerful jaws.

“The branch had been recently gnawed in half and carried away.”

I knew what it was that made the marks, that cut the branches, that removed them to another location. Yet I still would not accept what my mind was telling me. I had been hiking through or around this general area since ever I could remember. One of the first hikes I remember was to this very location when my dad and uncle, the Brothers Elliott, dragged me down the trail here one day as a young boy.

I recall watching my dad dive off a notably high cliff-side perch into the deep river with near perfect form. That same perch was now right before me some yards away. They had pointed out fossil seashells along the way, which to me as a young boy were a great fascination and to this day those images still remain on my mental hard drive. The water was deep and rushing loudly that day.

Years later, as a teenager after I got my driver license, I hiked back to this area of the river frequently, sometimes with friends, but many times alone. It was a favorite backcountry hot and sunny spot in late spring and early summer when the coast is often buried in a cool, foggy marine layer. I’d spent many afternoons swimming and diving off the rocky cliffs and swinging from rope swings into the deep water. I’d caught and eaten trout and crawdads and saw big bass and carp.

I saw many things, but in all those early experiences I’d never seen any beaver nor sign of them. And in all the years since, while I knew there were beaver on the lower sections of the river and also in the upper Sisquoc River of Santa Barbara County, and I knew of historic accounts of beaver, and had also seen a Chumash pictograph that purportedly represented a beaver, I had never heard tell of beaver in this particular area in my lifetime.

But that’s what had slapped the water behind me when I was on the rock, not a carp or somebody throwing something. That’s what had gnawed through and carried away all those branches.

The characteristic gold, green and blue of summertime in the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Yet it was not until a few days later, after I had emailed a friend who is in a position to know, even if he had never seen them personally, that I finally allowed myself to accept what my mind had been telling me all along. After a couple of email exchanges I was thrilled to know that, yes, he had heard of beaver here and so, indeed, that is what I had heard and seen sign of that day.

I returned soon afterward and while I did not see any beaver, as I arrived at the very spot where I had hidden my backpack the week before and sat to rest in the shade, an animal went charging loudly through the brush down the riverbed. I could see a trail pressed through the reeds and branches leading from the water. It had to be a beaver.

I doubled back downstream and tried to walk back up the riverbed to sneak up and get a look at it, but the brush was too thick. Rather than continue the pursuit I decided to return another day at a better hour and hopefully catch sight of the animal in the water. The hunt to photograph the furry critter continues.

And so this late in my life I am still discovering new surprises in areas of the Los Padres National Forest that I thought I knew, and that I have spent much time recreating in and exploring since the earliest days of my youth, and which lie less then 100 miles from the nation’s most populace county.

It is wilder out there than I had thought.

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Finding Frontier In the Forest Conquered

Barger Canyon Arch

A preserved desert bighorn sheep in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

“. . .the most modern hunters, the men who sally forth with rapid cameras instead of repeating express rifles, who press a high speed shutter instead of a hair trigger.”

—New York Tribune (1904)

After a bowl of oatmeal and a pint of coffee I had set out from camp hiking up a remote defile between ragged mountains with two strangers. A narrow, tertiary canyon above a river, it cut deep into the mountain, zigzagging up to the foot of a prominent peak. The mouth of the drainage, where it dumped into a wide-bottomed rubbly canyon, was a door into another realm. A tight entrance bracketed by rocky cliffs leading into a shadowy moist riparian strip.

The surrounding terrain, by contrast, was barren, steep sloped, mostly broken rock and exposed loose soil with little vegetation. It was oddly bare in its nakedness relative mountains nearby covered in dense chaparral. That’s one reason why the quarry we were after lives there. The open landscape allows the sheep to better see predators and the steep slopes aid their escape.

No trail lead through the canyon. It was a wild land of bears, lions and bighorn sheep, where condors soared the thermals faraway overhead, mere dots of black ink against a blue canvas. We walked up the shady creek hopping from one side to the other stepping over the few inches of water trickling down the stony groove.

The zigzag riparian strip of Sheephorn Canyon.

We were looking for an exit point out of the creek and up onto the mountainside. Somewhere we could manage to sit for two hours peering out across the vast space before us and maybe see something move out there. The land was rugged with few places to sit that had any sort of long view. In many sections the drop into the creek was sheer or too steep and rocky to scramble up and over. Getting out of the creek took effort and caution.

We were working for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) searching for a remnant herd of desert bighorn sheep. We had been brought together as volunteers through an invitation extended by a prominent frequenter of the local backcountry, a conservationist who puts in many hours of volunteer work bettering the national forest in various ways. He was leading this outing and was sitting somewhere on another ridge also searching for the bighorn as we three settled in for our morning round of surveillance.

Our assigned duty was to sit for two hours glassing the mountain slopes for sheep, note how many we saw, if any, and their presumed ages as identified by the size of their horns or lack thereof. Our observational notes and photos would later be forwarded to CDFW officials for analysis.

Class I 2-3 years old; Class II 3-5 years old; Class III 5-7 years old; Class IV 7+ years old (CDFW graphic)

I had never seen a live bighorn sheep, just the stuffed specimens in the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. I had only learned of their presence at this particular location relatively recently.

Not long before first learning bighorn lived in the local forest I had taken my young daughter to the museum and stood before the stuffed sheep. I had looked at it many times through the years on numerous visits, but it was a different experience this round.

An illustration from an article entitled, “Shooting Mountain Sheep In Lower California,” published by the Los Angeles Herald in 1897.

It had always been just another exhibit to glance at like so many others, never captured my attention much. This latest time, however, seeing the exhibit through a child’s eyes, I no longer only understood in a remote abstract sense how these large animals had disappeared from the mountains, but felt for the first time a sense of loss and lament unlike during other visits.

I pondered what had been seized and snuffed out by previous generations. There was the ill-considered actions of otherwise decent people. But there was also the plundering, the rapacity, and the ruthless indifference by others. Fleeting actions by a few that forever altered the course of history for all others and life on the planet. I thought of what we of later times had lost. I felt a deep sense of regret that my own children, through no fault of their own and without their having any say in the matter whatsoever, would never see the bighorn when hiking in the wilds of their own extended backyards.

It was if I had brought my daughter to this illuminated glass case to view a treasure that had been stolen from her. It wasn’t a celebration of the wealth of natural history. It was a memorial. It wasn’t a museum. It was a mausoleum. The plaque on the exhibit was an obituary. It was a hall of holocaust where people spoke in whispers and filed through to catch a glimpse of an extinct specimen of humanity’s relentless massacre. A dark record of civilization’s collateral damage. The stuffed sheep stood behind the glass as a silent testament. The heavy door, the weight, having to heave it open to leave the stale confines of the dark-colored room, it seemed fitting.

When I later learned that the bighorn were not in fact regionally extinct I was stunned and thrilled. When I was subsequently recruited to venture into the forest and find them I could hardly wait to get out there. I need little reason and an even smaller excuse to get out into the backcountry bushes.

The thought of hunting down wild bighorn sheep from a remote base camp provided a surplus of stoke to fuel the long arduous hike alone through the heat of the day, to reach the camp, and meet up with the select group of other volunteers. And when finally out on the mountain, the tedium of sitting for hours glassing the distant slopes was erased by the sense of excitement motivating me to do all I could to spot, for the first time in my life, these magnificent curly horned sheep in their natural habitat, and not too far from my home.

A photo of a hunting camp on Mexico’s San Pedro Martir Mountain. The image accompanied a story from which the following quote was excerpted, relating as it does one reason for the decline and disappearance of bighorn sheep in areas along the Pacific Coast. Twenty-five dollars in 1913 equates to about $600 today when adjusted for inflation. Other historic newspaper stories recount the exploits of Colonel Roosevelt, later elected 26th president of the United States, hunting bighorns in these same mountains.

“Another man had a standing offer from a San Francisco firm of $25 for every head of a male bighorn, and he shipped a good many. The traffic of course was stopped when Mexican law declared a closed season for mountain sheep. It was high time, too, for they were wantonly destroyed, sometimes not even for their heads and skins, but merely for the pleasure of slaughter.”

—Lompoc Journal, Santa Barbara County (1913)

I had been sitting in silence for nearly two hours, though it seemed to pass rapidly, and I had not seen any sheep. My vigilant effort felt futile, like the old needle in a haystack exercise. Then I caught sight of several sheep walking over the crest of a ridge high above me. I thought of the odds of seeing so few sheep in so large a wilderness, and to have them appear as close as they did, and how I was fortunate enough to have been assigned to stake out this particular location, while the other few groups of volunteers had been placed elsewhere. Everything had come together nearly perfectly.

I had separated myself from the other two men by ten yards or so and they had not yet seen the sheep. I started calling to them to get their attention by blowing breath across my teeth in such a way that was just short of a whistle. I didn’t want the sheep to hear or to frighten them so I avoided speaking, but mountain sheep are keen and naturally leery, having evolved to evade silent and stealthy predators like mountain lions. They quickly spotted me with their acute eyesight.

I kept blowing, making the soft rustling sound, unable to get the two other guy’s attention, the sheep peering down directly at me from their high mountain perch the whole time. Later one of the guys mentioned that he heard me for some time before realizing it was me, and that I sounded something like a bird.

We watched through binoculars and cameras. Ten or so sheep, young and mature alike, traipsed over the steep rocky slope cropping forage over a period of perhaps twenty or thirty minutes. They walked across the side of the ridge and then back from whence the came, ever vigilant, before disappearing from sight.

One of the other guys jotted down notes as the other peered through his binoculars calling out the approximate age of the animals. I had my eye to my camera lens rapidly firing off photos. I had brought, aside from my SLR camera, a Russian-made spotting scope but it was too powerful to be of any use and did not have a wide enough field of view. I could not keep it pinned on the sheep as a group as they ambled about and I found it impossible to see much through the shakiness. I decided that I would be of best use by taking photos I could later send to CDFW for staff biologists to analyze.

There’s sheep on the slope, but impossible to see in this photo showing the landscape and habitat.

A closer view showing at least seven well-camouflaged bighorn sheep foraging.

In late afternoon I followed one of the guys I worked with in the morning and we hiked off-trail up a steep, rocky mountainside above the small canyon we had previously staked out. He was a man whose name I’ve seen signed in at a remote mountain peak in the same region, a seldom visited site with no official trail and which few people have set foot on. I had been told his name is found on a number of other such out of the way, hard to reach mountain peaks and I had heard tales of this man from other local hikers. A picture of him had emerged in my mind as a hardened, stoic, grim character of middle age.

When I met him I was surprised to see that he was an easy going, grandfatherly type quick to smile and easy to chat with. He was fit and able, and scrambled up the loose incline with remarkable dexterity for his age, fully clothed in long sleeves, pants and gloves, and with only his face peeking out from under the bill of his hat, a flap of cloth circling his neck. He seemed partial to covering every patch of skin possible. A choice, no doubt, based on the wisdom gained through hard earned backcountry experience, his clothing a subtle clue that his definition of “hiking” differed greatly from the average visitor to the national forests.

I hoped to remain as agile as he was when I’m his age, I thought as we hiked up to a small bare nub of broken rock protruding from the shoulder of the mountain. There we perched for two hours like sentinels overlooking the deep cleft in the earth below us, and peering out over the valley-like canyon where our camp was located. I drew the circular brim of my hat down around the sides of my face to darken my peripheral view and kept my eye to the lens scanning the distant slopes for long periods of silent time. We exchanged few words, but the long silences were not uncomfortable.

A member of the group out scouting for sheep high above the creek, center frame circled in red. It was challenging, in the tight canyon, without hiking clear up the mountain out of it, to find a spot up out of the creek that offered a view wide and long enough to actually be able to glass a decent sized expanse of terrain.

We sat for two hours scanning the mountains and lo and behold near the end of this period of time I spied, on a distant slope, barely visible with the naked eye and hard to see even with my zoom lens, a group of bighorn sheep. Several guys in our group in the canyon below us had clued me in with their sudden chatter and pointing, but it took some time to finally spot the sheep. They seemed to be stuck to the wall of the distant mountain, their legs like pegs drilled into the earth, sharp-edged cloven hooves holding them in place.

I saw the sheep, took my eye from the camera, and then looked back through the lens and couldn’t see them. They were there once more before again disappearing in plain sight. Their tanned-hued hides blended with the surrounding terrain making them nearly invisible from a distance and I wondered how long it took for this perfect color match between earth and animal to evolve.

Once more I was feeling fortunate, ever more so, in having had the chance luck to spy yet again a handful of bighorn sheep on my first ever outing in search of them. Mission accomplished.

Two sheep walked up and perched briefly on this boulder appearing to pose for the camera.

This subspecies (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) is native to the area, but went regionally extinct about 100 years ago due to human actions, overhunting and disease introduced by cattle. Their current presence in their historic range is the result of the CDFW reintroducing them several decades ago. Though many died and the initial effort seemed to fail, the sheep were tenacious and rebounded and increased in number.

The story of these bighorn sheep is one of tragedy and triumph, disappearance and something of recovery, of the destructive force of some humans and those that work to restore and rebuild in the aftermath. In some manner the sheep’s plight is reminiscent of condors which also disappeared completely for a time in this same area due to humanity and were later reintroduced and once more repopulated.

I wonder if the second chance desert bighorn sheep are here to stay or will merely be another short chapter in the long story of interaction between humans and wildlife. The answer mostly depends on the actions, for better or worse, and the interest and care or apathy and indifference of humanity.

I believe this would be categorized as a class III desert bighorn sheep.

A hericium or “Lion’s Mane” mushroom growing on an oak tree, circled in red.

With the first rain of the season some weeks ago the countdown had begun until the opening harvest of mushroom season. One week passed. It may have still been a mite early at that point for the particular type of mushrooms I was after, knowing it was far too early for chanterelles, if enough rain had even fallen to make them fruit. I only had a fraction of a day that weekend and so I opted to go spearfishing rather than mushroom hunting.

Another week passed and by this time I was figurin’ it was too late, but I couldn’t blow it off entirely, had to take a looksee at one of my go-to sites. Even if I found the mushrooms rancid or partially dried, it was still important to me to witness the ways of nature and how these things work, how the equation adds up under the variables of an exceptional drought. Conditions, weather, had been so dry for so long, the soil hydrophobic in all but the most protected and moist nooks of the forest, that I figured this site would be producing if anywhere was after such minimal rainfall.

Making my way down the steep slope beneath the chaparral and into the creek I noted right off how dry it was already. It was as if no rain had fallen. It smelled parched. The creek was flowing, not unexpectedly, but everything else was crispy and dusty. The leaf mulch crackled under foot rather than absorbing footsteps in muffled compression.

I was surprised to see that the oyster mushroom colony on a standing dead tree rising from the creek bed had not even sprouted. The hericium I was after had also not sprouted. I wasn’t too late. Nothing had even happened. Not enough rain.

I wandered up the creek, my dog bounding behind me. I walked the canyon aimlessly, observant, searching the forest for whatever might catch my attention: step, hop, bound, step, pause, peer. With head tilted upward, scanning the slope rising beneath the oak canopy, a white spot caught my eye. Bingo! A hericium was growing from a knot hole in a big oak.

I hadn’t seen this mushroom in previous years though it grew just a short distance from one I had harvested numerous times, the one that had not yet sprouted, likely because it grows in the rain shadow under a log and requires heavy rainfall. The one I had just found was growing in an hole facing skyward that collects rain.

Teetering

I scrambled up the slope to the tree and quickly found that the mushroom was too high to reach and that I had no way to climb up and grab it. Using my trekking pole I was barely able to reach the mushroom, standing precariously on tip toes on a rock leaning over a short drop.

I gave it a gentle prod, but they root firmly into the wood and it was clear I wouldn’t be able to liberate it without tearing it to pieces. I drew back my pole, the end of the handle wet with hericium juice. I gave the wet spot a sniff. The fragrance was remarkably fruity and sweet smelling, so much so that it made my salivary glands tighten and my mouth water. That’s probably not something one typically would think of happening when smelling fungus.

I forced a chunk of the mushroom off with my pole and it plopped into the leaf mulch below. I was just a bit too late, the fruit beyond its prime and beginning to rot. While that was a disappointment, I was nonetheless stoked to have found another hericium.

Even on days that don’t go according to plan valuable experience may be gained, experience that accumulates into wisdom. Following the first rain of next season it will be a site I’ll return to, with a rope ladder, to harvest one of the most delectable mushrooms in the forest, far superior to the highly overrated, lesser mushroom, the chanterrelle.

A smidgeon of Piedra Blanca.

“Civilization has a relatively precarious hold on us and there is an undoubted attraction in a life of absolute freedom once it has been tasted. The ‘call o’ the wild’ is in the blood of many of us and finds its safety valve in adventure.”

—Percy Fawcett, legendary British explorer of the Amazon who vanished without a trace in the “green hell” of the jungle in 1925 never to be heard from or seen again.

After confirming a plan with Stillman to hike up to Pine Mountain Lodge Camp and descend Piedra Blanca Creek, I spent the next week dreading it. How easy it would be to not wake up when it’s dark, to not haul my butt up three thousand feet of mountain in six miles only to turn around and hike down the mountain, without a trail, over unknown terrain.

But the self-imposed forced march is always inevitable. There is something deeply ingrained in me that, sooner or later, always wins out and compels the body to follow the order of the mind. One week I’ll be stumbling back to the trailhead thoroughly exhausted with aching muscles, repeatedly wondering why I do this to myself, while also thinking that at least now I’ve had my fill for awhile. Yet, by the next week my mental half is already Jonesing to get out and punish my physical half some more.

As ridiculous as it is to compare anything I’ve done or ever will do to the adventures, in the true sense of the word, of Percy Fawcett, I suspect I am routinely driven into the woods on long and sometimes grueling hikes by a strain of pathology similar to what propelled him into the jungle time and again.

DavidStillman.blogspot.com

Pine Mountain Lodge Camp along the headwaters of Piedra Blanca Creek.

Piedra Blanca Creek emerges from a crease in the mountaintop, just above Pine Mountain Lodge Camp (PML), a thin brook winding through the rocky high conifer forest alongside the backpacking camps. Neither of us had laid eyes upon the upper length of this creek aside from its headwaters around the campsites.

A short distance below PML prime was a stretch of the unknown. There was even the potential for a chance at encountering some degree of relative adventure. What was there? Waterfalls or caves and incredible sandstone outcrops? Endearing creekside flats perfect for camping but that are never visited? Remnants of historic Americana? Traces of prehistoric Native Americana? It was the lure of the unknown and an unanswered question of how it might proceed. It was tempting. And irresistible.

Fall color in the Sespe Wilderness.

We knew there was no official trail. I was operating on the premise that there wasn’t likely much to see in the upper reaches of Piedra Blanca Creek; little that might set it apart from the other creeks in the neighborhood; nothing that would attract the average hiker.

Despite not thinking I was going to find the extraordinary, I nonetheless felt compelled to put in the strenuous work required to survey the land on foot myself, never satisfied sitting at home scanning through other people’s photos and brief captions via the Internet. Even if I had heard that there was nothing remarkable to see, I’d still have gone. I can’t help it. And much that might be said to be ordinary or unremarkable by most people usually hold a greater degree of value to me.

Hoping boulders down the creek, I turned for a view of my backtrail just as a beam of sunlight shot through a gap in the clouds illuminating a massive old-growth cedar and bringing out its characteristic brilliant red hue.

The gnarled fingers of a giant cedar growing midstream.

This was my first hike of autumn and what a glorious day for it, just following the first rainfall of the season. So long had it been dry. The sky was a brilliant blue, but daubed here and there with just the right touch of white clouds, sometimes puffy, sometimes torn and wispy, to add character and depth to the crystalline air, which was freshly washed and filled with an invigorating mélange of earthy and herbal fragrances, newly moistened soil and damp chaparral.

We walked up on a large black bear, which we may have come face to face with had our timing been less than a minute different. We had been downwind from it and sufficiently quiet enough that it might have told its friends the same tale as I have here, that it unknowingly walked right up on two humans.

I had heard the crack of some bending branches or bushes, but had dismissed it as a deer. When we passed around a boulder blocking our view we saw it traipsing away only to pause once up the slope and out of the creek and give us a good stare down. I didn’t much like the way it looked at us.

We came across a remarkable amphitheater-shaped outcrop or grotto over which the creek flows. Beneath the overhang it was felted over in dense dark green moss and embellished with delicate fern fronds poking from the cracks in the sandstone.

The woods through which the creek flows exude a primeval ambiance. A keen eye, however, may spy telltale signs of previous human passing. But just a couple, and only minute and subtle traces. It’s wild up there. Remote. Shadowy and mysterious with a tinge of creepiness. Big timber. Big boulders. Big beasts. It is legitimate big mountain terrain and wildness quite unlike what might commonly be thought of as typical forest found so close to Ojai and Ventura.

The grotto.

And then, leaving the open tall timber, and falling lower in elevation, we entered into the range of chaparral and the creek suddenly became choked with dense brush and brambles. I went from standing erect and easily hoping boulders while scanning the surrounding conifer-clad slopes, to crouching, scrambling and crawling under a frustratingly thick tangle of overgrowth spread across the creek like a sieve straining the runoff of flotsam during winter storms.

Getting stabbed, poked, and sliced. Incessantly impeded and pestered. And unable to see much more than what was passing within a short distance before me. When possible I’d stand craning my neck straining to see where in the canyon we might be, and then sulk in contempt at how much farther we had to fight our way through the nightmarish tentacles of brush.

Approaching a dry waterfall just prior to entering the unpleasantly brushy section of creek.

We finally broke through onto the official trail once again. That is always a refreshing feeling, to set foot onto a wide-open, well-packed trail that requires so much less physical effort and seemingly zero mental attention, after barging through woody and wiry mountain weeds constantly searching for the path of least resistance.

While I had satisfied my curiosity in experiencing firsthand what that stretch of the wilderness was made up of, the craving for yet more of the same, always coursing through my interior, would soon yet again make itself known. It’s insatiable.

Related Posts:

Pine Mountain From Piedra Blanca

Piedra Blanca

Although the forest ranger mentioned in the newspaper article below is Joseph Montgomery, I wonder if it may actually have been a brief about Josiah T. Montgomery, for whom Montgomery Potrero atop the Sierra Madre Mountains is named. I do not know if Josiah was a forest ranger, but he was a pioneer of the Sisquoc River region and his was the last official homestead claim made in that particular area (Blakley & Barnette 1985).

The article was originally published in the Los Angeles Herald in 1902. About that time the California condor population is estimated to have numbered about 600. By 1987 the condor population had been decimated by intentional and unintentional human actions. In that year the last California condor still flying free in the wild was captured in a desperate attempt to save the species from possible extinction.

A condor soaring over Sespe Wilderness, as seen on a hike to Whiteacre Peak. (Return to Whiteacre Peak or Day of the Condor)

Fight With a Condor: Experience of a Forest Ranger in Santa Barbara County

SANTA MARIA, March 12 —As Joseph Montgomery, one of the forest rangers, was on his way to town last week from the government forest reserve he had quite an experience with a California condor. Coming down a wild canyon he noticed a commotion in some brush near the trail, and on investigation found that two mountain foxes had attacked an immense condor, which was apparently sick and disabled. As the fighters worked out of the brush Montgomery tried to lasso the bird, but with no success, as he would fight the rope off with his wings. It attacked Montgomery by striking at him with his beak and talons, and for a time was getting the best of him until the ranger picked up a club and soon dispatched the bird, but not until his clothes were in a sadly demoralized condition, and he still can show several ugly scratches. The wings, which he brought home, measured nine feet across. As this species is vary rare, he tried to capture it alive.

A winter scene in the Santa Ynez Mountains, Los Padres National Forest.

“No, I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”

“I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn for a man who isn’t sometimes afraid. Fear’s the spice that makes it interesting to go ahead.”

—Daniel Boone (1734-1820)

cowboy up
[kou-boi uhp]

verb

1. ( US, informal) to adopt a tough approach or course of action
2. to tuff up; to get back on your horse; to never back down or give up; to face the hand you’re dealt without complaint

I’m going to opine here and perhaps ruffle a few feathers if not anger some people, but I’m not one to remain silent out of concern about such trivial and fickle matters as human emotions. I’m sick of hearing about so-called “lost” hikers calling in Search and Rescue (SAR) to save them from having to face the inconvenience and discomfort of the consequences of their own poor decisions.

In the neighborhood where I grew up, and within the school from which I come, a man was measured by his willingness to accept without complaint the consequences of his actions. That whatever situation a fella got himself into he was first and foremost responsible for getting himself out of before calling on others to risk their health and lives to help him. He looked not to others to relieve him of unwanted, though entirely bearable circumstances. And I do not mean a fleeting or cursory attempt, but a damn good, all in, everything tried sustained effort.

I do not intend to say that a person should never call on SAR or rely on their selfless and noble service, but that I believe such services should be reserved for rescuing people who have sustained serious injuries or are facing imminent great bodily harm or death. I routinely read about so-called “lost” hikers who when the sun goes down have rescue personnel deployed, at great expense, to save them from a few hours of uncomfortable cold and darkness, circumstances brought on by their own thoughtless actions or misguided behavior, situations entirely survivable without injury let alone death. SAR does not exist, in my opinion, to save people from fear or a few shivers and goosebumps or a sleepless night.

I have noted on this blog before, and I am sincere in saying it, that “I’d rather spend a cold miserable night lost in the woods and have another try at finding my way out next morning, rather than call for help. I’d die sooner from embarrassment than exposure.”

When discussing this matter with my wife recently, after reading a post one night from a lady requesting help on the Santa Barbara Swap Facebook page to locate her boyfriend who had misplaced himself in the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, my wife said she wouldn’t hesitate much in calling SAR if I failed to show up after dark. (We do, however, have an understanding that I should be granted a solid chunk of time well after the sun goes down before she even considers calling in the troops.)

I replied in jest as if acting like a rescuer, “We located the lost hiker, but it was the strangest thing. Upon seeing us he fled further into the bush and we were unable to catch up to him. After several hours of fruitless attempts at relocating him we called off the effort.”

I would dread seeing SAR arriving to “rescue” me if I was not incapacitated or not facing serious harm. We later read that rescuers were purportedly dispatched to find the lady’s confused boyfriend and his friend and found them in the vicinity of Seven Falls. Numerous news reports over the years recount similar events. Were they rescued from serious harm or from mere fear and discomfort?

A single Fritillaria ojaiensis growing along Fremont Trail in the Santa Ynez Mountains. This photo is from early spring 2014.

This variety of lily is endemic to California. It’s listed by the California Native Plant Society (CNPS) as being rare throughout its range, considered to be an endangered species. I completed a California Native Species Field Survey Form for the Department of Fish and Wildlife. The data will purportedly be added to the state’s Natural Diversity Database, which according to CNPS is “the largest, most comprehensive database of its type in the world. It presently contains more than 65,000 site-specific records on California’s rarest plants, animals and natural communities.”

A Fritillaria ojaiensis leaf sprouting from a bank along Oso Creek in the Los Padres National Forest. There is a fairly large grouping of them at this site, more than 100 individual plants. Photo from February 2015.

With more sun exposure the leaves take on a bronze hue.

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.

Miner’s lettuce (Claytonia perfoliatum) growing in profusion along a shady bank of Alder Creek in the Santa Ynez Mountains of Santa Barbara County.

Skills Are Weightless

“You have to travel light. . . And you have to be self-reliant. . . Bushcraft is a knowledge of nature that enables you to travel safely and relying upon nature to some extent for your sustenance, self support. It’s the knowledge our ancestors had. It’s the knowledge of First Nations. . . At its core is a love and understanding of nature.

Bushcraft transforms your view of the forest, that is for sure. In time you become much more perceptive. You look for tiny things in nature. It’s the small things that you notice that tell a big story. You gain this experience. . . With experience your subconscious can pick up all of those details and interpret them and use them to read the landscape.

The really sad thing is that when this knowledge is lost an interface with the land is lost. That’s the one thing that First Nations have that we should aspire to is this close tie to the land.”

-Ray Mears, “We Belong To It”

Miner’s lettuce was the first wild edible I learned to identify as a young boy, which is funny because the last thing I wanted to eat as a kid was something green and leafy that tasted bitterly of chlorophyll. Nowadays, however, I recognize what once seemed like trivial knowledge as great value.

The seasonal burst of annual herbs in the mountains of Santa Barbara County offers foragers an excellent opportunity to harvest wild edibles. Perhaps wildcraft is most valuable to overnight hikers far out on a distant trail in the remote stretches of roadless wilderness, where all supplies and most necessities to sustain and nourish the body, what so very little one can physically carry, must be laboriously lugged over rugged terrain in a backpack.

Wildcraft skills, like bushcraft, enable a person to limit the amount of bulk and weight they must carry on their back while in the forest. Knowledge and skills weigh nothing and take up zero space in a backpack.

What a person carries in their head they need not carry on their back.

Miner’s lettuce in bloom. The Chumash Indians harvested the tiny seeds for food.

A Typical Trip

Imagine a common backpacking experience. Let’s say we’re ten or twenty or thirty miles into the wilderness on foot, and for days we’ve been grinding away on and filling our bellies with nothing but dry and rehydrated foods.

Prepackaged backpacking meals, dense and grainy energy bars, nuts, jerky, pasta or maybe some warm and oily salami and cheese. It’s all decent trail food. But it sure isn’t fresh, succulent nor refreshing.

Nor does it invite one to look deeper and more keenly into the forest and ponder the natural value surrounding them, thus learning and acquiring a more intimate knowledge, understanding and, therefore, appreciation and respect for the wild world.

Johnny Jump-ups (Viola pedunculata) blooming beneath oak canopy in the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Epicurean Class

One afternoon on our multiple day hike we spend time collecting a bundle of fresh wild greens from the forest surrounding camp. Grabbing a stick, we dig up and clean a handful of Calochortus flower bulbs, toss them in olive oil and fry them up over the campfire or set them atop a rock beside the flame to roast, which we later toss into the salad mix for added flavor and nutrients. We pluck fresh wild peas from the vine. We collect a handful of edible wildflower blooms like Johnny Jump-ups to add a colorful eye-catching accent to the lettuce, nutty-flavored roasted bulbs and crunchy sweet peas.

We lightly toss the freshly harvested fare with a smidgen of honey mustard balsamic vinaigrette we whipped up fresh at home before we hit the trail. Using our trusty bush knife we slice off a handful of cheese shavings from a small chunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano we’ve totted along, and we sprinkle a dash of black pepper to top it all off.

The result?

Well, it’s “good stuff, Maynard.” And good for you.

A Calochortus bloom seen along the Santa Ynez River.

Roasted Calochortus bulbs rank among my top five favorite wild plant edibles for their exceptional flavor.

Value-Added

There is also value beyond good flavor and fresh healthy sustenance. One great aspect of foraging is that it provides a wonderful reason to get out into the woods off-trail and roam and meander about in no particular direction, when one might not otherwise venture into the forest for lack of a reason to do so.

Many times a hike is almost entirely about the destination: a peak summit, a waterfall, a swimming hole, a campsite or sometimes it’s just for the exercise and fresh open air.

Foraging cuts against that all too common grain and encourages wandering into the less visited nooks and crannies. And in that ramble one never knows what they might find, either tangible or intangible, or how they may be enlightened and enriched.

Foraging is an activity that draws one closer to nature both in being observant and aware of minute seasonal details in the forest that otherwise, and often, go unnoticed, as well as in its requisite knowledge of native plants.

And when one begins to use nature, respectfully of course, it can lead to a depth of understanding and appreciation that, I think, is impossible to acquire by those people who treat the woods like a museum, something to be looked at but not touched, or those people who stomp down the trail only casting fleeting glances at their surroundings with little aim other than reaching their destination.

Foraging and wildcraft offer up, figuratively, new trails of adventure to explore. One may have hiked through a certain section of forest for years and never paid much if any attention to such fleeting seasonal details. In doing so they have missed the forest’s small embellishments that combine to create a much richer and interesting natural tapestry.

Perhaps nature is like a stereogram poster. It looks like one big blur at first glance, but if one gazes long enough an intricate and marvelous picture materializes that once was hidden from plain sight. All one must do is look for it.

Miner’s Lettuce (Claytonia Pefoliatum) and Johnny Jump-ups (Viola pedunculata), two native California edibles which can be found growing together seen here along the Fremont Trail in the Santa Ynez Mountains.

Don’t Just Survive, Thrive

Drawing on a little knowledge of nature, and with a bit a foresight and preparation, a backpacker far from the city can wildcraft a fresh, succulent and nutritious delicacy worthy of an classy urbane restaurant.

And while a salad may not alone serve sufficiently as an entire meal, I imagine the grim and rugged crowd scoffing at the thought of a wimpy salad after hiking all day in scorching sun, it surely provides an exceptional side dish to accompany whatever else is prepared in camp.

Although, when done well, that salad may just steal the show.

Native wild peas in the pod.

These wild peas are tender yet crisp, and sweet tasting. Their flavor may be as good as some of those one might buy at a grocery store, they’re just smaller in size. Toss ’em in a salad plain or collect a pot full to boil over the campfire and smother in butter or extra virgin olive oil.

Santa Barbara County vintage making use of Chumash pictograph motifs.

When one takes an interest in actively seeking out and visiting Chumash rock art paintings they soon learn that there is an emotional and contentious political subculture swirling around these archaeological sites. Certain etiquette dictates, or at least some people would like to think that it should govern, how the sites are expected to be talked about or shared.

The rise of social media outlets have further complicated and exacerbated this matter. When a person infringes upon or violates these unwritten rules they can expect to receive criticism ranging from respectful, tempered and reasonable disagreement, to comments reflecting all reason having been drown in simmering emotion, to unhinged and vicious hostility.

The following quotations are real comments I have received in response to having posted a limited number of photographs of Chumash rock art sites over the course of several years. The comments are followed by my response.

“Get this ******* **** off the Internet!”

It is an emotional issue, for some. This outburst was delivered in response to a post showing a handful of bedrock mortars.

“Rock art isn’t meant for consumerism and materialism.”

Nobody really knows, unequivocally, what rock art was meant for because the people that created it no longer exist and they left no written record detailing their motivations. All that is said to be known is rooted upon a questionable foundation of differing degrees of conjecture based on empirical information obtained by scholars while visiting the sites in question, and educated presumption based on the testimony of a scant few secondary sources, as derived from the ethnography of a single white man.

A screenshot of an advertisement that popped up on my computer.

What is known about Chumash rock art represents a slim sliver of the entire body of facts surrounding the work, the vast overwhelming majority of this information having been forever lost when the people who created the art and their immediate descendants died or were killed or murdered.

What rock art is meant or not meant for will never be decisively known. Such a statement as quoted above is, therefore, an opinion more than anything else. It is a normative statement, and whether it holds any more validity than the beliefs of anybody else is a matter of opinion itself.

When I attended the Santa Barbara Harbor Festival last October there was a “Chumash Education Booth” which was selling t-shirts adorned with rock art motifs. They obviously had no concerns about exploiting the matter for profit for the purpose of “consumerism and materialism.” I did not see anybody from any band of Chumash protesting.

More importantly, the quoted opinion above runs contrary to the manner in which the most visible and socially active contemporary Chumash people in Santa Barbara County currently make use of rock art.

Far from shunning “consumerism and materialism,” these people have embraced it with vigor to reap hundreds of millions of dollars in annual material gains selling gambling and liquor, among other things.

Visit the Chumash Casino on the Santa Ynez Reservation and one will see that the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash readily make use of rock art motifs as a means of marketing their gambling house. One can see depictions of rock art on token coins, poker chips, roulette wheels, casino carpeting and the casino logo itself.

Furthermore, rock art motifs have been licensed for commercial use by a Chumash elder and are sold for profit:

A screenshot of Larry Carnes’ “Chumash Stone,” a phrase, as denoted above, that has purportedly been copyrighted.

The opinion that “rock art isn’t meant for consumerism and materialism” is utterly out of line with the practices of the Chumash themselves, which seek to profit from these images in various ways some of which are dubious and morally suspect.

I have been told than many Chumash believe rock art sites are sacred. I don’t know that I needed to be informed of that, it does not come as a revelation to me. But again, the actions of their leaders, and by extension the common folk themselves, reflects a very different feeling. And as the cliche goes, actions speak louder than words.

Is something sacred to be sold for profit? To be used as a marketing tactic to sell gambling to the tune of billion dollar profits?

One may object to note that the Chumash should be free to use the rock art left by their ancestors in any manner they wish, which is certainly a reasonable point. However, the assertion here is not who gets to use it for what purpose, but that it is not meant for certain uses by anybody.

The person that wrote that quote does not have a drop of Chumash blood in his veins.

“You treat it like a museum attraction that everyone has a right to.”

The corollary being exclusivity, that only some people have this right. It appears this person does not know what a right is, but is instead speaking of privilege.

This I am accused of for merely posting photographs of rock art. It is a statement that reeks of elitism and reveals a mentality of exclusive entitlement, that only a select chosen few should be allowed to lay eyes upon a photograph of rock art.

If a person is not among the coterie, or is not known and approved of by the ruling class elite, but rather a member of the untitled public lacking credentials, a mere commoner, they should be prevented from even so much as seeing a photograph of the rock art found within the National Forest, which is essentially owned by We the People.

It is a sentiment that I would posit runs contrary to the very founding principle of the National Forest system of conservation, as founded by President Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot during the Progressive Era of American history.

At that time a few powerful men of vast financial means and influence sought to use the American forests for their own purposes, while dismissing the right of the people to have any claim to them.

Roosevelt and Pinchot waged a political war against powerful congressmen, senators and their allies in business to secure for posterity national forests and the resources therein for the many people, over the select few special interests.

Pinchot and his colleagues and peers often did this at their own personal expense without recompense from the government. This fact being a reflection of their earnest, selfless commitment to preserving the forest for all people.

Furthermore, it is a sentiment that runs contrary to the actions of the United States Forest Service, which has installed numerous register boxes at rock art sites throughout the Los Padres National Forest, wherein visitors can sign their names, leave their address and comment on their experiences when viewing the rock art in person.

In addition, the USFS created campgrounds at some of these rock art sites, which have been listed on publicly available maps created by the United States Geological Survey, both federal agencies, by definition, being of, by and for all American people.

Moreover, the man that wrote this comment above in response to me posting a few photos of Chumash rock art has published online, by way of a world renowned magazine with a world wide audience, numerous photos of pictographs. He also regularly publishes to the world via Instagram, as noted below under his quote about supposedly “not flaunting where I’ve been,” photos of rock art sites he visits. In other words, I have done nothing different than what he does himself apart from having a far smaller audience.

A screenshot of a freely accessed scholarly journal article by Dr. Thomas Blackburn, recipient of the Fredrickson Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for California Archaeology. Many other such articles are readily available to the general public.

“Archaeological information is limited to fellow archaeologists. . .”

This assertion is demonstrably false.

Archaeological information can be readily accessed by the public through various physical locations, such as libraries or book stores, and much of it including peer reviewed scholarly journals can be freely read by the public online or accessed through subscription sites whose only limiting factor are paywalls.

Furthermore, any American citizen can obtain archaeological information by filing a Freedom of Information Act request (FOIA). Authorities have some discretion in choosing what they release with respect to concerns about protecting sensitive sites, but this does not equate to a blanket ban on the release of such information, which they are otherwise obligated by law to provide anybody that asks.

“. . .or conscientious people that can keep a secret. . .”

Were it a secret this person would not know the location of any archaeological sites. It is apparently okay for them to be told and for them in turn to tell others, but you should be prevented from being one of those told or doing the same yourself.

“This info should only be accessible to people who have paid their dues, . . .”

Another self-anointed arbiter and gatekeeper of the public’s resources for whom if others do not act in specific accordance with their own personal opinion, then they should be barred from access and denied opportunity.

That is not a reasonable basis upon which to deny anybody anything.

It is a meaningless statement reflecting the capriciousness of individual opinion. What exactly is due? It is certainly not a sound basis upon which to found public policy governing public resources.

“shouldn’t be online.”

That battle was lost years ago on account of the federal government and leading scholars and authors in the field of Chumash archaeology, all of which have published to the world far more detailed, revealing and sensitive information than the limited number of photos I have put out, which comprise a puny percentage of the content on my blog.

This person is concerned about the figurative mist leaking from the wee hole that is my blog, when the leading figures in this field responsible for protecting these resources and studying them have blown a gaping chasm in the dam the person wishes would hold back the reservoir of knowledge they do not want revealed.

“I don’t think you do the wild secrets of the backcountry, their long standing remoteness and sparse visitation rates, or the communities who love and visit them any good by doing this. . . This is backcountry pornography whether you will ever admit to it or not. And YOU are whoring it out.”

This may be the most reasonable criticism I have received to date. I have to confess that I cannot think of any good my posts have done for these sites themselves as places other than perhaps increasing knowledge and awareness, which in turn helps build support for their protection, because you cannot possibly hope to protect something that people do not know exists, do not know about and do not understand.

That argument, however, can be flipped on its head and it can be said that such exposure, on balance, creates far more damage than good, through increased visitation by way of making more people aware of something they otherwise might not know about.

But again we hear of supposed “secrets” needing to be kept, supposed secrets that exist on public land in the nation’s most populace state, but which the public should never enjoy nor see, and shame on me for revealing them, even though I provide no directions but only a few carefully selected photos which are not dissimilar in presentation on my blog relative those photos published to world be leading scholars.

These secrets will be erased by nature alone in time rendering this entire debate meaningless and irrelevant.

“My lips are in general sealed”

Yet this is the same person that unexpectedly called me one afternoon and proceeded to inform me that he knew of many rock art sites, which he promised to lead me to or provide directions to once he returned from a trip to Belize.

This from a person I had never spoken to in my life. An utter stranger that rambled on for long minutes, as I listened in silence, dumbfounded as to why he was telling me all this information I had not even asked for or suggested I was interested in receiving from him.

This is the same person that commented on one of my blog posts that there was some really nice rock art nearby the location I mentioned in the post and that he hoped I saw it. This was a post that had nothing whatsoever to do with archaeology nor did it mention rock art. He made these public comments on my blog anonymously, which suggests to me he did not want his name to be tied to such a revelation, which I presume was because he really did not think what he was doing was the proper course of action for somebody in his professional position as a leading scholar of rock art in California.

Apparently, there is a lot covered under the rubric of “general” in this statement about supposedly having sealed lips. And if this was the case with me, that this stranger called me to say they would give me directions to archaeological sites, it seems reasonable to assume it happened to other people, as well.

And in point of fact, I know it has indeed happened and that this person has revealed  information to another person whom he did not know personally, somebody that he knew had a history of publishing photos on the Internet of pictograph sites. And because this person with supposedly sealed lips freely gave out specific directions more photos were posted online of an exceptional, unique rock art site that may well have never been previously shown publicly on the Internet.

Perhaps earlier scholars and government agencies made a mistake in making information about pictograph sites publicly available. Whatever the case, the leaks, if that is what they are, continue today straight from the mouth of a somewhat prominent California archaeologist who could hardly contain his eagerness to unload this information to me, a perfect stranger who never asked for it.

“I’m not flaunting where I’ve been and don’t feel the need to”

I could provide a photograph of this person posing beside, very close to, a large pictograph in the San Rafael Wilderness, but out of respect for his privacy I will refrain from doing so. This is not personal, but business. I seek not to embarrass anybody but to expose their sophistry. The photo is, however, found on the Internet, published to the world, but apparently not flauntingly.

I could provide a link to this person’s Instagram page whereupon he has posted photos of numerous pictographs, including one he published just four days ago as of the time of this writing. The photo is captioned with text describing how he is looking forward to visiting the rock art site in the photo, which is shared to the world without restriction.

More to the point, I do not post content to my blog to flaunt where I have been. My motives are far removed from any desire to flaunt or brag about anything. Such an allegation misses the point entirely.

“Why is there the NEED to share something like this in the way you did?”

If we are going to emphatically speak of needs, then let us note the fact that there is no need to do anything on the Internet and in fact no need for the Internet itself. Civilization operated just fine prior to the advent of the world word web. So we can cast this question out with much of the other empty, thoughtless criticism as it lacks any reasonable basis whatsoever.

The way I shared was only different than the books, the magazine articles, the peer reviewed scholarly journals, the international licensing agency peddling photos of the site, in that I did not name the particular creek upon which the painted cave is located, while all the aforementioned sources did specifically name the site’s general location thereby revealing it to the world.

That is the difference. And it is a rather notably big difference.

In that it can be confirmed that I exercised more discretion than the purported professionals, a fact which appears to be in-line with the previously expressed sentiment by this person, that what is acceptable behavior for the clique is not acceptable for those people outside of or those people unaccepted by the elite chosen few, the self-anointed gatekeepers.

“I honestly feel that blogs like this are selfish”

I am being accused of selfishness for sharing.

This sign was erected years ago by the United States Forest Service near the site of a relatively well-known Chumash pictograph site in the remote Santa Barbara backcountry.

Generations not yet living cannot possibly possess a moral claim over current living generations on the ownership of present day public resources.

“Can it be conceived that there are men so absurd as to love posterity better than the present generation; to prefer the man that is not, to him who is; to torment the living under pretense of promoting the happiness of those who are not born, and who may never be born?”

-Jeremy Bentham, British philosopher (1843)

“‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass — a idiot.'”

―Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837)

Humboldt lily growing in Los Padres National Forest.

“Sometimes I feel so uninspired
Sometimes I feel like giving up
Sometimes I feel so very tired
Sometimes I feel like I’ve had enough”

—Steve Winwood, Traffic – “(Sometimes I Feel So) Uninspired“

I often go for aimless hikes. I wander. I need not a notable destination, my only goal to leave the city and immerse myself in nature.

Many times, if not most, I don’t even know where I’m driving to go hike when I leave the homestead until I end up there. This has been, more than usual, my modus operandi of late.

There has been a sharp decline in my activity on this blog for some months now. I suddenly lost interest, inspiration waned and I had had enough, but there is more to it than that alone.

The blog started as a creative work that complimented my existing proclivity toward outdoor recreation in the wild and my love of writing and learning. I could venture out, take a few snapshots and then write about my experiences. The blog added another element of fun to what I already had been doing my entire life.

But my digital offspring mutated like Gregor in The Metamorphosis into this hideous beast that became a burden to keep. The blog turned into something of a cyber despot dictating what I should and should not do.

No longer did I feel I could merely go out just to get out. While I never felt as though I was in competition with other bloggers, I did increasingly feel that in each outing into the woods I had to achieve some notable ends, had to bag the big story and return with a humdinger of a feature. This led to a necessity for more planning than I have ever had any interest in spending time doing. No longer could I just wander without intention or goal. I had to generate content.

“My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.'”

—Forest Gump

The longer I set aside concerns about chasing waterfalls and caves and long trails and catching interesting material upon which to build a meaningful blog post, however, the more I hiked in relatively average areas with seemingly nothing remarkable about them.

Yet, at the same time, I was increasingly surprised to find during nearly every aimless wander through the supposed ordinary, how I stumbled upon something that made it all well worth my time and energy. It was not ordinary at all. The line from Forest Gump would always replay through my head. I just never knew what treasure I would find next.

A few days ago I was hiking with my dog up a heavily visited canyon, a place I habitually ignore because of its popularity, despite its natural splendor. I had managed to carry my dog over a dry waterfall before coming to a couple more, which I could not get him over.

Frustrated, I turned back early.

Though I enjoyed the hike, it had seemed that in being cut short it had no point. I had not reached a destination. It was the lingering taint of the dictatorial blog burdening my mind.

Then on my way down the creek I took a wrong turn, just a few feet the wrong way into the bushes, really. Turning back I found the path I had intended to follow a few steps later and a lily came into view, which I had not seen on my way up the creek. I stopped to take a gander and a tiger swallowtail butterfly fluttered down onto the bloom.

I had been waiting years to capture a snapshot of a swallowtail on a lily, two of the most striking small varieties of life in the forest. And here was my opportunity. Had I been able to hoist my dog over the waterfalls a short time earlier I would not have stumbled upon this chance.

“I don’t believe in coincidences, only chains of event which grow longer and ever more fragile until either bad luck or plain old human mean-heartedness breaks them.”

—Sandy Dearborn in Stephen King’s, From a Buick 8

Of course, such an event can always be looked at as though every little choice made throughout my entire life had brought me to this specific place at this specific time just as this butterfly floated out of the sky to sip the flower’s nectar, after having completed its own long unknown chain of events in its own life.

Anyhow, whatever the case may be, I got the photo. And it made the hike worth every bit of my time and energy. I never set out searching for this chance. I just went wandering with no particular aim and it happened, because in Los Padres National Forest you just never know what you’re gonna get.

A condor over Sespe Wilderness in December, 2013. (Return to Whiteacre Peak Or Day of the Condor)

Earlier this month I stood on a ridge along Arroyo Burro Trail gazing from afar into the rocky mouth of San Roque Canyon and remembering times past. A couple of decades ago was the last time I hiked up the canyon. I had no idea back then as a kid that condors once lived there.

Two years ago I had learned from Sandy Wilbur, who led the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s California condor research and recovery program from 1969 to 1981, that long ago they nested in the caves of San Roque Canyon.

“Frank Ruiz took two eggs, apparently both out of San Roque,” Mr. Wilbur told me referring to events around the year 1899, when Mr. Ruiz and Fredrick Forbush raided nests in the canyon. (Historic newspaper story: “Desperate Fight With Condors: Narrow Escape of Santa Barbara Man” (1899)

The Santa Ynez Mountains were apparently once prime nesting habitat. “Willis Griffith claims to have taken 10 eggs out of the various Santa Ynez Canyons,” Mr. Wilbur told me. “I can positively account for six, and know of two more that are probably his, so he may really have taken the full ten,” he said.

Looking into San Roque Canyon I thought of condors flying there, something entirely unknown in my lifetime. How it was 100 years ago. I tried to imagine such a sight, what it would mean if they once again soared over the iconic crags of the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara.

And then a few days after my hike to the top of Arroyo Burro Trail I learned about news of a rare event (hat tip NB). Two weeks prior to my hike a female condor had flown right over the trail and had been circling San Roque Canyon.

More notable yet, she spent the night in the Santa Barbara foothills not far from the city. It may be an overstatement to say that such an event is unheard of, but it most certainly does not happen often. When was the last time?

June bloom. Calochortus fimbriatus, a rare flower, growing along the Arroyo Burro Trail, its barbellate petals combing droplets of moisture from the morning marine layer.

The flightpath of the condor shown in purple. She appears to have taken some interest in the historic nesting grounds of the San Roque Canyon area, located to the lower left of the green tree icon.

The condor’s flight was recounted and illustrated by “The Condor Cave” Facebook page, which posted the image shown here using Google Earth accompanied by the following brief:

“On May 25th, a two-year-old wild-fledged California condor soared into Santa Barbara County and spent the evening in the Santa Barbara foothills!

Female #717 flew west from the Pine Mountain Club area, through Bitter Creek NWR, before flying south between Los Olivos and Solvang, and into the Mission Canyon area. According to the GSM data, she roosted in a draw below La Cumbre Peak.

On the morning of May 26th, she perched on a cluster of rocks near the Jesusita Trail before flying north past Cachuma Mountain and over Peak Mountain (5,843 ft), the highest point in the Sierra Madre range.

This adventurous condor hails from the Pole Canyon nest territory and is the offspring of sire #237 and dam #255.

While it is not uncommon for condors to venture into the Santa Barbara back country as it is an important part of the species’ nesting and foraging range, it is rare to see them in the Santa Barbara foothills.”

As if taking a gander of a swath of the Los Padres National Forest that may soon be named in honor of the giant vultures, she flew along a length of the Santa Ynez Mountains above the Gaviota Coast known tentatively as the “Condor Ridge Scenic Area.”

The condor made this unlikely flight, of all days, on the day before the “Central Coast Heritage Protection Act” was reintroduced in Congress on May 26. The legislation would, in part, officially establish Condor Ridge.