Clusters of wild blue elderberries.

“Delectable dishes made from elderberry are a leftover from old time housekeeping, when table luxuries were not so varied and abundant as they are now.”

New-York Tribune, September 11, 1921

Wild elderberry trees are abloom and loaded with ripe fruit around these parts of California right now, the heavy clusters of blue berries dangling from small trees everywhere in branch bending profusion.

The elderberry or elder tree has been valued in one form or another as an edible and for medicinal and health purposes of all sorts for thousands of years. The berries are nutritious and exceptionally high in antioxidants. Modern research suggests that elderberries may be an effective treatment for the flu and that they offer a wide array of other potential health benefits. It’s a plant with numerous utilitarian purposes, too, and there exists an extensive record in world literature and the annals of history regarding its many uses.

The Chumash Indians used the elderberry plant medicinally and as a source of wood for crafts and toolmaking. It was used to make fire sticks for creating fire by friction and to make a type of four foot self bow for hunting. Elder wood self bows were valued over sinew-backed bows for hunting sea otters on the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, because they held up better when drenched in sea water. The bows were effective in taking small game, but were sometimes used on larger animals such as deer. Elder wood was also used to make flutes and other musical instruments. (Timbrook)

Two pounds of freshly harvested blue elderberries destemmed, washed and ready for use.

Newspaper articles about elderberries from the early twentieth century mention them as if they’re some nearly forgotten wild curio that belong to a different era, something grandmas used to forage for to bake pies and make jelly with once upon a time in the olden days, when people made homemade stuff from scratch.

When collected in a container the ripe fruit has a subtle perfumy fragrance somewhat similar to a rose. Blue elderberry juice is a deep purply red and has an opaque, rich hue like the blackish inkiness of concord grape juice or red wine. Fresh elderberries taste bitter, but they’re edible and have good flavor. They can be used to prepare a number of different tasty foods from glazes for roasted meats like venison to ice cream and wine.

Elderberry pancake syrup.

A smudge of elderberry jelly.

Elderberry wine making seen here in two photos that accompanied a story published in the New-York Tribune in 1907.

Pouring elderberry juice into the barrel.

“. . .we located a ford and secured two men and a team of horses to tow us through the current, which was very swift.”

The following passage, excerpted from the journal of a businessman named J. B. Powles, was included in a longer story published in April of 1907 by The Ranch, a newspaper based in Seattle, Washington. The passage relates, in part, the adventure of Powles as he drove an early make automobile, “a twenty-horsepower 1907 model Franklin machine,” through the California countryside during winter.

The route he took through Santa Barbara County over rough and rocky dirt roads was originally made for horses. This period of history was a transitional time between horse drawn carriages and gasoline powered vehicles. Much of Powles’ experience revolves around dealing with the hazards and poor conditions of the rural and primitive roads, which had originally been built for stagecoaches and buckboards.

In the full article Powles mentions numerous times the road being washed out or undermined by the river and repeatedly writes of the muddy conditions and the need to use tire chains. In one instance he admits turning back to rest for the night “owing to condition of roads and darkness.”

Like other narratives published in newspapers of the time, in which the novel thrill alone of driving the newly created automobile is the point of the story, Powles’ trip log reads like a report on road conditions and how his “machine” handled them.

Owing to the long stretches of desolate countryside and wilderness between towns, the absence of any communication out on the road but for word of mouth, the challenging conditions of remote roads and questionable reliability of early automobiles, it seems it really was a “remarkable” experience to go out for a cross country drive in southern California in the early twentieth century. Traveling by auto was an exciting but iffy prospect.

J. B. Powles

February 18—Left Paso Robles and took the road to Pismo Beach so as to divide the day’s ride. The roads were only fairly good and as we were not certain of our course we followed the telegraph poles. Left Pismo Beach shortly after noon and joined the main road to Arroyo Grande. Stopped at Santa Maria for instructions as to how to get to Los Olivos and then missed the road and took the one to Los Alamos. This was a very dangerous road because of bridges being out and the roadway undermined by the overflow of the river. We resumed the right course and proceeded to Los Olivos. After passing this place we lost our way to Alamo Pintado, but were redirected. There were lots of washouts along the way. At both Alamo Pintado and Paso Robles we found that no other vehicles had been through for seven weeks on account of the bad roads.

February 19—Had to avoid the regular pass to Santa Barbara—Gaviota Pass—because of bad wash outs. We took the San Marcos Pass, which is dangerous under any conditions, and is prohibited to automobiles. After leaving Alamo Pintado we encountered the river and found that the bridge was washed out. After some trouble we located a ford and secured two men and a team of horses to tow us through the current, which was very swift. From here on the road was very tortuous and dangerous. It was steep and rocky and we used the low gear almost constantly. At the highest elevation the pass was 3,300 feet above sea level. We crossed 38 arroyos. We reached Santa Barbara just after dark, with little carbide and very little gasoline left.

February 19—At Santa Barbara, we learned that the roads were entirely out and impassable and we consequently decided to ship our automobile to Los Angeles and took the steamer State of California to port of Los Angeles.

A 1907 Franklin Model D roadster.

Related Post:

Gaviota Pass (1906)

Santa Ynez Valley viticulture as seen on drive to trailhead.

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

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

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

Manzana Creek

Sun scorched trail

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

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

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

Mariposa lilies

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I succumb. My eyelids fall shut.

And I doze.

Little Ms. E and I ventured out for a short hike Wednesday morning to a pictograph site. This is the fifth Indian rock art site I’ve taken her to and it required the longest and most strenuous hike for her yet. I ended up carrying her on my shoulders, but we made it. It will be some time before she’s ready to visit the more remote backcountry sites, but as she gets older we’ve been extending the range of our outings a little at a time.

The pictograph adorns the wall of a shallow, northwest facing alcove overlooking a small seasonal creek. There are no bedrock mortars. The outcrop sits along the top of a rolling hill of grass and chaparral near the mouth of a canyon and it offers expansive views of the surrounding countryside.

Marijuana growing in the Los Padres National Forest. (Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department)

Marijuana Increasingly Grown In National Forests

According to the Santa Barbara Sheriff’s Department, “large-scale marijuana cultivation is a serious and increasingly widespread problem on public lands in California, including the Los Padres National Forest.” In 2010, out of California’s 18 national forests, the Los Padres ranked fifth for the number of marijuana plants eradicated by law enforcement officers.(1)

I have come across numerous marijuana grow operations over the years. Too many to recall. Both inactive no longer used sites and actively growing plants. I’ve seen them in one form or another in Bear Canyon, Potrero John Creek and Godwin Canyon in Ventura County. In Santa Barbara County, I’ve come across several grow sites in the Montecito foothills, Cieneguitas Canyon, Goleta foothills below West Camino Cielo and in Lewis Canyon, to name just a few.

Choose any major canyon or flowing creek and there is a decent chance that it’s in current use or has been used previously to grow marijuana. Spend enough time off-trail in this part of the Golden State and a hiker is likely to stumble across the work of guerrilla growers at some point.

In times past, out of youthful naiveté, I was never concerned about the danger of a potential run-in with a grower. Over the last couple of years, however, my view of this issue has changed. Now I feel the creep of concern wash over me when out alone off-trail in the woods and I see the tell-tale signs of growers.

A Threat To Hikers

Whereas I once assumed that weed growing around these parts was the work of harmless potheads looking to grow their own smoke and make a few dollars, it is now clear that in many instances they are operated by Mexican drug cartels, and other ruthless characters who will not hesitate to turn my day into a living nightmare. News reports chronicle the finding of high power rifles and law enforcement officers being fired on when raiding grow sites.

I never carried a firearm a single time in my younger years, but I’ve now been forced to wrestle back and forth against a growing compulsion to carry a gun whenever I go for an off-trail hike. I would rather not. I have no interest in getting into a firefight and I have enough to carry without the added burden of lugging around a loaded pistol.

But the law does not provide protection, it punishes the perpetrator after the fact. Dialing 911, if by chance there is cell service, is a futile waste of time when I’m far away up some remote roadless canyon. Calling for help that takes hours to arrive is pointless when all I have are seconds to defend myself.

I am fed up dealing with the consequences of growers in the forests and open spaces I frequent. I don’t appreciate having to concern myself with the possibility of being shot at or maimed or killed by booby traps when I’m recreating.

The tell-tale sign of a weed growing operation, black plastic irrigation tubing running through a canyon.

Consequences of Chemical Fertilizer in Riparian and Marine Environments

I’m disgusted and angered by the tons of trash and toxic chemicals left behind by growers. I recently found a couple of hundred pounds of chemical fertilizer left beside a tributary of Sespe Creek, which during winter rains will leach into the drainage and wash down stream threatening critical habitat for the endangered southern steelhead. The nitrates from the fertilizer can spur harmful algal blooms in creeks and rivers, which can lead to hypoxia or depleted levels of oxygen that can suffocate fish.

But it does not stop there. Eventually the fertilizer may reach the ocean where it works in a similar manner but with an added twist. The fertilizer fed algal blooms can release vast quantities of the neurotoxin domoic acid into the water, which is absorbed and concentrated in shellfish like clams and mussels.

Aside from the possibility of poisoning humans, these are favorite foods of southern sea otters, which are officially listed under the Endangered Species Act as “threatened.” The otters eat the poison laden shellfish and become sick or die. In addition, blue-green algae cause microcystin intoxication in sea otters, a deadly liver infection.

Los Padres National Forest creeks are prime pot growing territory.

Does it stop there? Theoretically, no. Sea otters are a keystone species that play a vital role in the marine environment. They feed upon, and thus help check the population of, sea urchins which are voracious eaters of kelp. If sea otters disappear so does the kelp, as the urchin population explodes and devours entire kelp forests leaving behind barren reef.

Kelp forests hold one of the greatest concentrations of biodiversity in all the world’s oceans and support about one quarter of native marine life in local waters. The submarine forests provide essential habitat for over 800 organisms from the tiniest sea creatures to large game fish and mammals. As the otters go, so does the kelp and all other life that depends on it.

While it may be a stretch to link such wide ranging destruction to marijuana growers, it is possible with enough chemicals washing into local watersheds. More to the point, though, the environment is already under enough stress from various causes, including massive fertilizer runoff from the state’s intensive agriculture. Additional sources of loosed chemicals only serve to exacerbate existing problems.

A potrero in  the upper Santa Ynez River watershed of the Los Padres National Forest.

Consequences of Pesticides on Wildlife

Lush well-watered pot plants growing in the hot and dry Mediterranean climate of Southern California are extremely attractive to hungry and thirsty rodents. To combat this problem growers haul in and carelessly disperse large quantities of rodenticide.

The result is the indiscriminate, incidental death of countless other animals from owls and hawks to bobcats and mountain lions, who die of secondary poisoning from feeding upon rats and mice that have eaten the rodent bait.

The poisoning of carnivores like coyotes, bobcats and mountain lions from anticoagulant rat bait is well documented. According to the National Park Service, 80 percent of bobcats in the Ventura County area that were tested had some form of rat poison in their systems and their population has plummeted.(2) While this is largely attributed to common residential and commercial use of poisons, it illustrates the catastrophic impact resulting from such deadly chemicals.

It is also possible for still more species to die of tertiary poisoning. For example, a condor feeding upon a bobcat that died from eating poisoned rats. It is not out of the ordinary for an area around a grow zone to reek of death.

In 2010, over three million marijuana plants were eradicated from Los Padres National Forest alone. Consider how many pounds of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides were used to grow them and the impact it had on wildlife. And that is merely from grow zones that were discovered by police and it also does not include all other forestland outside officially designated national forests.

An article in the Ventura County Star newspaper detailing the tertiary poisoning of two mountain lions from rat poison.

The Santa Ynez Mountains are a grower’s dream. Plants rooted on the sun-saturated south facing mountainside enjoy long hours of direct sunlight, intensified by the mirror-like reflection off the Pacific Ocean, and if growing on a slope get hit with direct sunlight from root to tip.

My Opinion

I take a libertarian position on the matter of marijuana possession and use. I find it utterly preposterous that the government has outlawed a plant. The issue for me is not marijuana, but how and where it’s grown. I draw the line when it comes to the careless, inconsiderate and destructive practices of guerrilla growers polluting my backyard and threatening my life and well being, just so they can make a buck or fill their stash box.

The Gaviota Coast and Santa Ynez Mountains.

“The Gaviota Coast is the largest stretch of undeveloped coastline remaining in Southern California, and is representative of the only coastal Mediterranean ecosystem in North America.”

—Gaviota Coast Conservancy

Surf in the morning. Spearfish into midday. Hike the afternoon away. Ah yes, the beauty and bounty of the Gaviota Coast.

The Gaviota Coast is an especial place. It is remarkable for its rich marine and terrestrial biodiversity, desolate beaches, surf, rocky mountains and the rarity of a prodigious stretch of undeveloped California coastline.

Aside from my affinity for such exceptional characteristics it is a place of particular sentimental value to me. I lived for awhile in a canyon along the Gaviota Coast as a kid and spent much time exploring the beaches and mountains unsupervised by adults.

During this time I developed a close connection to the area that would grow, as I later spent time working at several different residences and ranch properties along this stretch of rural coastline, as well as at exclusive homes in Hollister Ranch. Even in my menial duties on remote $15 million estates the bucolic beauty of my surroundings never escaped me nor lost its luster.

The mounded peak overhead in the distance is the objective, overlook point.

The westward pointing finger of the southern Los Padres National Forest.

One of the many beauties of the Gaviota Coast are the Santa Ynez Mountains. The crest of this coastal range forms a westward pointing finger of the Los Padres National Forest (LPNF) reaching Gaviota State Park, which makes it possible to access the forest on foot by way of trail from the sandy wet seashore at the park. Such beach to backcountry trail access into the LPNF is possible nowhere else in Santa Barbara County.

The Beach to Backcountry Trail in Gaviota State Park leads passed the Wind Caves and a short side branch of the trail leads to a prominence overlooking Gaviota Pass.

Gaviota Peak on the left and the overlook mountain on far right.

A view from the trail.

A view of Gaviota Peak from Gaviota Pass overlook.

Highway 101, Gaviota State Park beneath the railroad trestle and the Pacific Ocean.

Related Posts:

Two Arches, Gaviota Coast

Gaviota Pass and U.S. Route 101 (1930s)

Motoring on the Gaviota Coast (1906)

Sonoran Desert

“The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, or experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes ‘sightseeing.’”

—Daniel J. Boorstin, The Image: A Guide to Pseudo Events in America (1961)

Through the eye withering, searing summer heat of the Sonoran Desert we roll southward. The sun shines through the window burning my bare arm, the futile blow of air conditioning inches away unable to compete against its solar radiance from ninety-three million miles away, the glass hot to the touch. I slouch toward the center of the truck trying to avoid its unbearable glare.

It’s a wasteland out there—dirt, rocks, cacti, mesquite and little else. The barren, shimmering land stretches out limitlessly before us with no other signs of life but for the few vehicles we pass. And the odd man on a bicycle, or even afoot, pressing northward through the hellish inhuman conditions lugging a gallon jug of water. It’s mind-blowing to behold, unfathomable to an absurd degree.

The hottest ambient temperature I have experienced was in the Sonoran Desert at 120 degrees. It seems impossible that anybody could travel in these sweltering conditions by such rudimentary means. I wonder if I could even survive, should we break down, laying still in the dappled shade of the sparse dessert brush.

What must be compelling these disheveled men to risk traveling through this harshest of environments with so little? Their dark, wrinkly skin visibly glistens with sweat as we pass by, like strips of beef sizzling on a grill, carne asada on an asphalt griddle.

Adobe ruins left by somebody that gave up their relentless struggle against the Mexican desert.

The hours tick by with the constant spinning of our four balding tires. Deeper and deeper we plunge into the heart of the Mexican mainland. We drive for eighteen to twenty hours at a time, with short intermittent stops for gas and tacos and empanadas from random roadside food stands at all hours of day and night, where they chop taco meat on battered old greasy logs, flies buzzing.

Some how I manage to avoid becoming violently sick for several days, but later, in the high mountain town of Taxco, it hits with a crippling, bowel blasting vengeance. Desperately running to the bathroom, I don’t know whether to first squat or bend over, as it shoots with equal force from both ends.

We spend scant hours sleeping over in a few decent hotels, but also a couple of seedy rooms where I try to touch as little as possible and grimace when stepping bare foot into the showers. One room is too disgusting to bear, the unwashed sheets polka dotted in semen stains and who knows what else. If the walls could talk I would not want to hear their stories. After wrangling with the man that took our money and gave us the key we secure a cleaner room down the road. With only a few hours of sleep we waken dazed and heavy headed and roll out.

Freshly tilled Mexican countryside.

Approaching the outskirts of Tequila, I’m surprised that it’s so small. For whatever mistaken reason, I had anticipated the seat of production for this world famous liquor to be as large as the reputation of the drink it delivers to the farthest corners of the earth, to be humming with the bustling blur of a sprawling metropolis, but it’s just another small town in the Mexican countryside like so many others.

Pulling up to one of the first street vendors we come to, we eagerly slide stiff legged from our vehicle and mosey over to inspect the offerings. Various sizes of bottled tequila of differing hues sit atop a wooden table. After sipping samples and conversing with a woman, who stokes our interest by informing us that this tequila was smuggled out of the Patron factory, we negotiate a price and take with us a couple of bottles. And on we roll.

Much later, somewhere too far down the road to return, we crack the cap on a bottle and sample a swig. It’s fake. Tastes like something used to strip paint, certainly not what we had sampled. Maybe it’s a poorly made sugarcane moonshine or cheap mescal and maybe we’re lucky we didn’t go blind drinking it. What ever it is, we dump it. While I take it in stride with some degree of humor, it’s a blow to Clinton’s pride. I’m a rookie. He’s a veteran. He lives in Mexico.

Clint is an adventurer and has spent a fair part of his life traveling through South America and the Mexican interior always seeking out the less visited nooks and crannies. His trips are real, raw and original, not the hackneyed tour schedules of travel companies full of tourist traps listed on Wikipedia. He speaks fluent Spanish and is street wise in Latin American ways. But this time some petty swindler got the best of him and it’s clear, though he says little, that he’s stewing over it.

Blue agave plants, from which tequila is distilled, growing near Tequila, Mexico.

The building looks like the ruins of better times past. It appears to be under construction, likely never ending, because so long as a building in Mexico is not finished its owner owes no taxes on it. It sits beside a two-lane asphalt road in El Arenal, Jalisco, down the road from Tequila and on the way to Guadalajara. It’s fronted by a stone wall and open muddy soil on this gloomy, rainy afternoon. A gaping cargo entry door sits open and it’s dark within.

There are no signs of people or reason to think anybody frequents the place other than a few fading tire tracks in the mud. Most people would drive right by oblivious to its existence or maybe afford it a passing glance at most if it happened to catch their attention, but it’s the sort of place with an irresistible appeal to Clint and so he pulls in and parks.

We wander about, me doing so more to stretch my cramped legs than out of any real interest. It’s an unremarkable place. I’m along for the ride, Clint is leading the way. We peek inside, but it’s dim and unlit and nothing we see compels any further investigation.

As we turn away from the building a truck pulls in behind our rig and out steps a middle-aged man dressed in ranch attire common to Mexican men who work with their hands, denim jeans, a hand crafted leather belt and a light-colored long-sleeve shirt. His thick grizzly hair is neatly trimmed, his face smooth as well-worn saddle leather. He’s fit for his age, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and walks erect with an air of confidence and strength. He commands respect by sight alone.

My previously casual feeling evaporates before this man’s deliberate march. I’m a gringo thoroughly out of my element deep in a foreign country snooping around private property. A country where one must not only worry about being robbed by bandits and thugs, but shaken down by the police, too, which has happened to me more than a few times over the years.

Freshly roasted blue agave hearts laying outside the oven, door removed, in the Cave de Oro tequila distillery. © Bill Bumgarner

Hildado is the man’s name and this is his distillery where he crafts limited production tequila, Cava de Oro. You won’t hear it hyped in flashy American commercials, won’t see its snazzy giant banner ads at major American sporting events and won’t see it on American shelves. It’s available in small quantities only in Mexico.

Hildado invites us inside and as we follow him in we see his assistant, a wiry bespectacled younger man that’s the polar opposite of his boss in appearance, sitting in the darkened room before the glow of his laptop screen.

The computer is an oddly out of place modern device in what looks like an old derelict building housing little else but wood barrels and a couple of small, utilitarian machines. While the making of fine tequila requires skill and specialty knowledge, the tools to do it are but few and simple.

Shredding the roasted agave hearts. © Bill Bumgarner

Hildado gives us a tour of his distillery and explains the tequila making process. It’s a humble operation by the standards of other large companies like Patron or Jose Cuervo, but in his own small space with limited equipment he crafts liquor of exceptional quality. While tourists flock in droves to the factories of those other world famous brands, Hildado’s boutique distillery, the equivalent of a little heard of microbrewery compared to Budweiser, is just the sort of place for a traveler like Clint.

Hildado shows us the oven where the agave hearts are roasted, where they’re shredded, where they’re juiced and the tank where he lets the agave juice settle before transferring it to oak casks to age. One end of the building holds the preparatory equipment and the other side is stacked with barrels of aging liquor, all bearing the signed labels of Mexico’s official tequila regulatory inspectors ensuring that it’s genuine. Phony tequila is a big problem, as we learned first hand, and the Mexican government takes it seriously.

Hildado grabs a five gallon bottle half full of fresh water, a two liter bottle of Squirt soda and a bottle of his tequila and invites outside for drinks. For the next two hours we sit sipping his tequila with him and his assistant. Clint offers suggestions and advice on how to market Cava de Oro in the U.S., and though we just met Hildado by random chance, it’s as if he is an old friend who just gave us a personal tour and taught us how to make tequila.

And that, friend, is the benefit of exploring the path less traveled and peeking into the darkened corners of the world often overlooked, ignored or purposely avoided by others.

Be a traveler, not a tourist.

Post peak bloom, starting to wilt. It’s a fleeting display lasting only hours.

I went out to the University of California, Santa Barbara to see the corpse flower in bloom, a titan arum named “Chanel.” In the wild it’s a rare species which is endemic to western Sumatra, Indonesia, and it’s said to produce the largest inflorescence in the world.

Chanel, which reached a height of 4’10″, was grown from a seed harvested from the corpse flower named “Tiny” which bloomed at UCSB in 2002. When I saw Tiny in bloom at that time there was only a few other people there to take a gander.

That was before the advent of Facebook. This time a special Facebook page was set up to chronicle the bloom cycle of Chanel and it quickly racked up over one thousand “likes” and countless other followers. A webcam provided online viewers still photos taken every five minutes making it easy to know when exactly the plant was going to bloom and several thousand people turned out to take a looksee.

This time when I arrived there were about 70 to 80 people in line, while in 2002 there was no line. After being there forty-five minutes, as I walked out after seeing the famous plant, the line remained just as long. While only anecdotal, it’s interesting to see the apparent power of social media to get out the word about such an event and the crowd it’s able to rally.

The plant’s Latin name may be translated as meaning “giant misshapen penis.” Amorphos, meaning without form or misshapen; phallus meaning penis; titanum meaning giant. Watch a time lapse video of the plant blooming and it’s readily apparent why whomever named it chose that name.

I can’t help but wonder, however, why they chose to emphasize its phallic characteristics in a name rather than anything else about the plant like its putrid stench when in bloom, which is such a notable and essential feature of its existence.

Its rancid smell, which is emitted when the bloom opens and the spadix or large upright shaft heats up, helps attract insects to pollinate it. It lasts only a day or so. The temperature of Chanel near its peak bloom was measured at 95 degrees.

Amorphophallus titanum in habitat in 1925. (Tropenmuseum of the Royal Tropical Institute)

Here I am in Indonesia just prior to tasting my first and last durian fruit. (Photo from 2001, and for anybody that may not recognize it, that’s not my head, it’s Chevy Chase.)

On a different somewhat related note, being intrigued by exotic plants as I am, in southeast Asia there is a fruit called durian. In 2001 I had the (dis)pleasure of sampling a nibble and nearly vomited. The fruit has a thick spiked skin, but its flesh is soft with a custard-like consistency similar to cherimoya.

Durian tastes okay, and I might have been able to get passed its mushy, slimy consistency were it not for the fruit’s gut turning disgusting stench. It reeks like a mixture of rotting excrement and diesel. It smells so bad that some hotels in Indonesia place signs prominently in their lobbies, as I saw, warning guests not to bring durian fruit into the building.

Despite this less than desirable characteristic the fruit is highly regarded among many locals and several men nearby who saw me gag on it were obviously amused. I had no problem giving it to them after I tried it, as they happily accepted it.

Related Posts:

Small Corpse Flower at El Capitan Beach

Stapelia Gigantea Bloom (carrion flower)

Miniature Stapelia Bloom

1890—California condor population estimated at 600.

1982—Only 22 California condors alive in the world.

1985—A single breeding pair survive for the entire species.

1987—The last wild condor is captured from Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in Ventura County.

1992/2011—Following restoration efforts and captive breeding 92 condors are released into the wild.

2013—There are now about 404 California condors in the world with 235 flying free in the wild, 69 of them in southern California. (Friends of Condors)

Related Posts:

Condor in a Cage: Time Line of Tradegy | Condor Point |Condor Feather | Whiteacre Peak, Fossilized Bones, Cougar Prints and Condors | Desperate Fight with Condors: Narrow Escape of Santa Barbara Man (1899)

Shown below are a few pictographs at a Chumash rock art site located in Ventura County. The pictographs decorate the underside of a slight overhang found at the base of a hillside outcrop. The rock formation is set at the foot of a mountainside and provides a sweeping, 180 degree bird’s-eye view over miles of conifer forest. The remarkable view is backed by high ridgeline silhouettes in the hazy blue distance and gives the place an exceptionally remote and desolate feeling.

In the following photos I outlined in red a few of the individual pictographs to better illustrate the designs in comparison to their natural faded state.

This individual pictograph shown above and outlined below is about 18 to 24 inches tall. I didn’t measure it, but it’s relatively large.This fine-lined illustration above is painted just beside one of the feet on the previously shown outlined pictograph. Note the zig-zag line for comparison.

The pictograph below is one of the many faded designs found on the panel shown above.

Chumash bedrock mortars in Barger Canyon below Arroyo Burro Trail.

Arroyo Burro Trail purportedly follows an historic Chumash Indian route over the Santa Ynez Mountains linking the Santa Barbara coastal plain to the Santa Ynez Valley. In the foothills below the trail can be found a number of bedrock mortars, including in Barger Canyon and several in and around San Roque Canyon. It is, along with Jesusita Trail, one of the first hiking trails I explored as a kid.

Clouds over Santa Ynez Mountains.

“If one has driven a car over many years, as I have, nearly all reactions have become automatic. One does not think about what to do. Nearly all the driving technique is deeply buried in a machine-like unconscious.”

—John Steinbeck Travels with Charlie In Search of America (1980)

Steinbeck describes in a simple, specific example a general universal experience. With enough practice many activities become second nature. It’s what author Laurence Gonzales has described as “automated (unthinking) action.”

In his book, Deep Survival, Gonzales discusses how the human mind develops “mental models” of the world based on personal experience, and how these models can unconsciously shape if not control one’s actions.

Mental models enable us to navigate through the complexity of daily life in an efficient manner, because we can act and complete tasks without having to waste time thinking about all the sophisticated intricacies involved in making them happen. In an article for National Geographic Adventure Gonzales echoes Steinbeck:

“Most people, for example, have a complex model for driving that allows them to do so while talking on the phone and drinking coffee. Once models are established, they require no thought. …This system uses our previous experience to prescribe our behavior in new situations.”

A view southeastward down the crest of the Santa Ynez Mountains overlooking east fork San Antonio Creek canyon through which Arroyo Burro Trail passes, a heavy marine layer covering Santa Barbara and Pacific Ocean below.

Whether driving a car or walking, as with with much else in life, the mind builds complex road maps allowing us to act automatically based on acquired knowledge from previous experiences. In an earlier post (Sage Hill to Santa Cruz Guard Station) I reflect on hiking in that context in response to the Steinbeck quote:

Along certain stretches of the thin winding dirt ribbon leading me to my destination, I seem to slip into a liminal realm between conscious states. I follow mindlessly the path before me. Walking on autopilot, a machine, I plod along the trail by rote as my mind flies through an abstract wilderness of thought and memory.

I didn’t know it at the time, but I’m describing what it’s like to act within the framework of a mental model. But while this quirk of the mind enables effortless ease of action it can also insidiously blind a person to danger and potential threats. While hiking the Arroyo Burro Trail recently I nearly stepped on a rattlesnake because I was mindlessly following the footpath on autopilot.

Trail leading down into the canyon.

The section of singletrack trail I was hiking near the top of Arroyo Burro Trail is slightly overgrown with grass and scrub, and although the tread itself is a well-beaten wide furrow, it’s hard to see in some places as it disappears underneath the overhanging plants.

Yet even though the path isn’t too visible in certain spots, I was charging along looking around more at my surroundings than where exactly I was stepping. It was the march of an experienced hiker, of somebody, anybody, that’s walked away innumerable hours on mountain trails over the course of several decades.

I couldn’t always see where I was stepping, yet I wasn’t always looking and I hardly if at all slowed my pace. I was guided by a well-established mental model enabling automated unthinking action and taking for granted that my feet would fall on a trail I was hardly looking at.

Upper San Antonio Creek canyon.

Trail towards the creek.

As I walked passed a clump of brush some creature bolted through the fallen leaves and tangle of dead branches causing gravel to slide down slope toward the creek. Whatever it was sounded big, but I quickly conclude it was probably a rabbit or some other small furry animal. I slowed my pace, but kept walking, looking for the animal as it loudly scurried away. The noise ceased then erupted again causing me to stop short and peer into the brush.

I didn’t see anything and without thinking, or looking where I was stepping, I resumed my march. I took a couple of light, short steps still looking toward the creek before glancing back around, and leaning into my walk with earnest strides, only to see myself plant a foot about twelve inches from the head of a pit viper lying across the trail.

For the rest of the afternoon I hiked far more slowly and nervously, afraid of stepping in every little spot obscured by shadows and brush, wondering if even on clear sections of trail there was a rattler hidden in the trailside weeds waiting to strike.

At one point I stepped on a dead branch half buried in dried leaves, which shifted in the mulch enough life a snake to make me physically jump. I felt a deeply ingrained fear shoot through my body for a split second and it actually felt like a snake squirming through my innards, somewhat similar to an electric shock where one can feel it enter a finger, for example, and exit some other part of the body. I had to take a deep breath to rid the terrible constricted feeling from my chest.

Rattlesnake on the trail.

I had been paying attention to everything else but where I was stepping. Right in the midst of feeling totally in control in an activity I’ve done all my life, so much so that I don’t even have to focus on it, and I was jarred back to attention and ripped from a thoughtless complacency that nearly earned me a frightening trip to the hospital. The feeling of control was an illusion.

Most accidents are the result of human error. Many times it’s easy in hindsight to see where things went wrong and for what reasons. In Deep Survival, Gonzales writes about how mental models can sometimes lead to injury and death among even highly trained and experienced experts by triggering or enabling reflexive or automatic actions that, while having served well in past experience, override reason and common sense in current circumstances and lead to accidents.

As a result some things, some stimuli in the environment, factors in the grand equation of the moment that should demand attention, are overlooked or ignored and tragedy strikes. And it happens precisely when a person feels most confident and in control of a relatively simple or ordinary situation.

It’s beneficial to routinely slow down, pay deliberate attention and carefully observe one’s surroundings and allow time for second thoughts, because as Gonzales writes, “first thoughts are no thoughts at all. They’re automated actions.” It seems like obvious self-evident advice, but the human mind makes it remarkably easy to ignore. Don’t settle for seeing, but actively scrutinize the ordinary and know that experience and knowledge can provide a dangerous illusion of control and safety. Such deliberation may well save your life.

Murky and mossy, slow-flowing summertime creek.

With the southern Los Padres National Forest currently undergoing its characteristic seasonal broil, and being too brutally hot and dry for hiking many miles, there are a few cooler, less visited nooks I like to retreat to.

While most of the rest of the forest at this time of year can seem eerily quiet and largely devoid of life other than plants, bothersome flies and ticks, this place here is teeming with creatures large and small.

Western pond turtle

Wild rose

Crawdad

Dead mountain lion in the mouth of a shallow cave beside the creek.

A decent sized native southern steelhead, an endangered species, swimming several feet below the surface, as seen from atop a boulder overlooking the creek.

We’ve befriended a scrub jay.

An illustration originally published in the San Francisco Call newspaper in 1911.

“CALIFORNIA CONDOR
A RARE BIRD WHOSE EGGS ARE VALUED AT $18,000 A DOZEN

It is not generally known that among the fads of the day the collecting of birds’ eggs is one that interests the cultured and wealthy, and one that may be very expensive to indulge in, while it affords a mild recreation to thousands of individuals of moderate means.”

—Fort Worth Gazette, December 28, 1895

American newspapers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries chronicled the exploits of men raiding condor nests in the mountain ranges of California to take eggs as trophy souvenirs and to sell. Eighteen thousand dollars in 1895, adjusted for inflation, equates to over $2 million dollars today.

Many of these newspapers remarked on the dire plight of condors and their declining population and some predicted their inevitable extinction. Yet, ironically, in the same stories, they spun romantic yarns about the heroic adventures of nest raiders.

“Why are the eggs of the California condor so valuable?” an egg raider is quoted as asking in an article titled, “Hunt for a Condor’s Egg,” which was published in the New York Sun in 1900. “Because the birds are almost extinct now,” he answered, “and will be wholly extinct in less than ten years.” The story states that the eggs were worth “$1000 or more each to collectors” and it relates his planned excursion into the Sierra Nevada Mountains in search of condor nests to plunder.

Perhaps most puzzling of all is the fact that some of the most noted egg raiders were ornithologists and oologists. In other words, they were scholars and scientists one might think would have been more concerned with the preservation of the species rather than trophy hunting and profiteering, actions which obviously would only serve to help drive the California condor closer to extinction.

In a spiraling chain of deadly events that propelled its own momentum, as the California condor became rarer, the value of its eggs increased further incentivizing the taking of yet more eggs. With such remarkable profit as a lure, and virtually no laws or social mores protecting condors of the time, it’s a wonder how the giant vultures survived as well as they did through these precarious times.

Illustrations originally published in National Tribune in 1895 accompanying a story about the taking of a condor egg.

A photo of men climbing in the San Bernardino Mountains “to capture a young condor.” It was originally published in the Arizona Silver Belt in 1908 accompanying the following blurb:

“Among birds threatened with extinction is the condor of California, a very rare species long hunted on account of its plumage and becoming rarer every year. Before long the condor will be harder to find than the epyornis of Madagascar and the dodo. Its eggs are very rare and are valued at from $250 to $300, not to speak of the risks run in securing them. William L. Finley, president of the Oregon Audubon society, has had many thrilling experiences in the San Bernardino mountains studying the condor at close range and photographing the birds. In this picture the scientist and his assistant are shown climbing to a dizzying height to capture a young condor.”

San Roque Canyon, Santa Ynez Mountains.

In a previous entry on this blog, Desperate Fight with Condors: Narrow Escape of Santa Barbara Man (1899), a newspaper story about the taking of a condor egg from a cave in the Santa Ynez Mountains of Santa Barbara was shared. It features two men, Frank Ruiz and Fred Forbush.

The excerpt below represents a select portion of the official record of this incident, as taken from the book authored by Sanford R. Wilbur, “Nine Feet from Tip to Tip.” The excerpt is shared here with express permission from Mr. Wilbur, who led the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s California condor research and recovery program from 1969 to 1981.

Visit his Website, Condor Tales, for further information. An entire chapter in “Nine Feet from Tip to Tip” is dedicated to egg collecting including in the canyons of the Santa Ynez Mountains. Frank Ruiz, Mr. Wilbur told me, took two eggs “apparently both out of San Roque.”

As an aside, the mention below of the work performed by Frank Ruiz and Fred Forbush for the Pacific Improvement Company, in order to supply the Hope Ranch community with water, ties-in with a previous post on this blog regarding water from a well bored into San Roque Canyon used to maintain Laguna Blanca Lake in Hope Ranch.

San Roque Canyon as seen from Laguna Blanca in Hope Ranch.

RECORD NUMBER: 32
DATE: 17 April 1899
LOCATION: San Roque Canyon, Santa Barbara County, California
COLLECTOR: Frank F. Ruiz and Fred Forbush
CURRENT LOCATION: Museum of Comparative Zoology (Cambridge,
Massachusetts)

HISTORY: Frank Ruiz and Fred Forbush, employees of the Pacific Improvement
Company, were surveying in San Roque Canyon near Montecito, California,
preparatory to developing a water supply for Hope Ranch. Two condors flying in the canyon 17 April 1899 attracted their attention, and they followed the birds to the nest
site. W. Lee Chambers (Santa Monica, California) apparently purchased the egg from
Ruiz, then sold it to John E. Thayer (Lancaster, Massachusetts). The Thayer collection
eventually was secured by the Museum of Comparative Zoology (Cambridge,
Massachusetts), where the egg is currently.

COMMENTS: The Chambers data slip accompanying this egg gives the collection date
as 13 June 1899. However, a published account that describes the taking of the egg and
gives the date as 17 April 1899, was prepared by the author 2 May 1899 (Redington
1899).

The Chambers data slip located San Roque Canyon in the San Rafael Mountains.
Actually, it is on the south slope of the Santa Ynez Mountains, which are separated
from the San Rafaels by the canyon of the Santa Ynez River.

“On April 17, 1899, an egg of the California Condor was taken in San Roque canon,
near Santa Barbara, by F. Ruiz, a surveyor in the employ of the Pacific Improvement
Co., who, with a party, was doing some work in the canon. His attention was first
attracted by seeing a pair of the birds flying about, and it occurred to him that there
might possibly be a nest in the vicinity…. He and a companion named Forbush
proceeded up the canon, and finally noticed a cave on a high cliff some 150 feet above
the creek, which they managed to reach with some difficulty. From the top Ruiz was
enabled to look over the edge a short distance into the cave, where he saw the egg on
the floor of the cave, with one of the birds crouched on the floor beside the nest, which
consisted of a few twigs of brush and some sand that had evidently blown into the cave
from the edge of the cliff… Then Ruiz clambered down into the cave without the aid of a
rope… The egg was perfectly fresh and measured 4 3-10 x 2 6-10 inches and was a
trifle deeper in color than those I have seen illustrated.”
. . .
“Nest was located upon a high rock in a cliff and was made of twigs, brush, and other
coarse material.” Added statement by Chambers: “The above statement about the nest
is probably literally true as the nest was on a brushy side of the mountain and certain
sticks and grasses had doubtlessly fallen there as has been the case in other instances.
The above date given for the taking of the egg is the latest of any eggs I have record of
yet as the dates heretofore have run from Feb. 17 to May 25 (32 eggs).”

Related Posts:

Condor in a Cage: Time Line of Tradegy | Condor Point |Condor Feather | Whiteacre Peak, Fossilized Bones, Cougar Prints and Condors | California Condor Photos

P-Bar Flat Campground along the upper Santa Ynez River began as a private hunting camp around 1916.

It was originally known as “Piss Pot Flat,” a name taken from a chamber pot that hung on a post and was used as target practice.

“In the interest of dignity, the current label evolved,” Bob Burtness writes in the ’81 edition of his book, “A Camper’s Guide to the Tri-county Area: Santa Barbara – Ventura – San Luis Obispo.”

San Emigdio Mountains

“The environment we’re used to is designed to sustain us. We live like fish in an aquarium. Food comes mysteriously down, oxygen bubbles up. We are the domestic pets of a human zoo we call civilization.”

–Laurence Gonzales, Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why

I walk alone into the wild to escape civilization’s bubble of artificial reality. The material comforts, the convenience and technological ease, the abundance everywhere at all hours, and the seemingly inexhaustible supply of easily obtained necessities and luxuries, it insulates me against and removes me from nature.

That is, of course, the principle intention of it all, to separate humans from the harsh elements and the hardship of the existential struggle nature would otherwise represent. But in that separation, as desirable as it is for sake of an easier and more comfortable life, something is lost.

Separate an animal from nature long enough and they lose their true identity. They look the same on the outside, but something inside changes. Some may not survive being released back into the wild. Some may develop psychological problems and behavioral disorders. If the process is carried on long enough some may become domesticated as the wolf became the dog.

I, an animal of another sort, live in a city like a creature in a zoo removed from its natural environment. Each outing into the forest is not just a physical trip afoot down a trail, but a mental journey as well. I search for what’s missing from life when separated from its natural origins.

It is an endless quest. What I’m hunting is abstract rather than material. I’ll never round a bend in the creek and find a shiny golden nugget to grasp and hold aloft in triumph. It’s something subtle and elusive, but I suspect far more valuable. It very well may be a piece of soul waiting to be rediscovered and reclaimed. Or maybe I’m just a lone weirdo wandering the woods lost in thought.

Santa Ynez Mountains

Cachuma Lake at Bradbury Dam, September 2013. The reservoir is well below the floodgates and currently less than half full.

It seldom rains in Santa Barbara. “Probably the most striking feature of Santa Barbara County,” a story published in the Los Angeles Herald in 1897 notes, “is absence of rain during most of the year.” The lack of rain has been particularly acute the last two years.

Santa Barbara county-wide precipitation last season measured in at 46 percent of normal marking the second consecutive water year of below normal rainfall. The lack of precipitation at Gibraltar Dam set a record low beating out the previous record set in the 2006-07 water year, which is measured September 1 to August 31. Current capacity at Gibraltar Reservoir is a measly seven percent.

Yet, as Santa Barbara County Water Agency manager, Matt Naftaly, noted earlier this year of the current dryness, “this is a normal fluctuation.” It may not rain often, but when it does sometimes it really does! Despite the current droughty conditions, over the last fourteen seasons the county-wide rainfall total amounts to about 95 percent of normal for the period.

The east end of Cachuma Lake is currently dry.

Santa Barbara county-wide rainfall totals showing the wild fluctuations from year to year. (County of Santa Barbara)

Gibraltar Dam rainfall history showing 2013′s record low. (County of Santa Barbara)

The pioneers of the Sisquoc River, a watershed in the Santa Barbara County backcountry, were driven out of the area in large part due to the hardship caused from the cycle of deluge and drought characteristic of the region.

“The environment was a big factor in the community’s inability to survive,” Blakley and Barnette write of early Sisquoc residents in their book, “Historical Overview of Los Padres National Forest” (1985). “Years of heavy rain and flood were followed by dry years.”

Newspaper articles from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries chronicle the dramatic ebb and flow of precipitation through the years.

San Francisco Call, January 28, 1904:Arizona Republican, March 08, 1911:About 150 years ago, a severe drought reshaped the socioeconomic landscape of Santa Barbara County ending forever the era of large cattle ranches, and helping usher in a new period of smaller landowners and development.

The Great Drouth

The returning [Civil War] soldiers found in Santa Barbara and in the other cow counties of the south a problem of rehabilitation more serious perhaps than Southern California was ever again to know. The stark, hot hand of drouth had, during their service in 1864, swept over the Southland, destroying the herds and bringing to a tragic close the pastoral life of old California.

Three successive dry seasons had left the land so parched that the grass did not come forth in the spring and around the faint green of disappearing water holes and ciénagas the starving cattle congregated literally by thousands, only to perish of starvation. Everywhere the plains were strewn with the fallen creatures and their bleaching bones. Prosperity seemed to have disappeared forever. …

Over two hundred thousand cattle had measured the wealth of Santa Barbara in 1863. Less than five thousand head were alive to munch at the grass that sprouted after the rains came in the winter of the following year.

The day of the native California land barons was brought to a close. The entire economic life of Southern California was altered. Cattle raising as the distinctive industry of the Southland was ended forever, and range lands fell so low in value that some of the southern counties assessed them at 10 cents an acre. It meant the beginning of partition of the great ranchos.

In Santa Barbara as elsewhere in the former cow counties, the land was opened for the first time for small farms and the march of industry which began after 1869, when the combined lure of cheap lands and easy travel over the new trans-continental railroad started the second tide of immigration to California.”

—Santa Barbara, Tierra Adorada: A Community History (1930)

The full capacity waterline is high and dry at Cachuma Lake.

Growing up in Santa Barbara I had the drought conscious water saving mantra, “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down,” burned into my brain as a boy. People use to, and some still do, paint their lawns green or replace them with artificial turf. The other side of the climatic coin included the torrential rains of El Nino years, the flooding, mudslides, road washouts, and big surf and deep snow.

The yo-yo back and forth between the extremes of deluge and drought can leave the Los Padres National Forest lush one season and desiccated the next. Some years it’s possible to hike deep into the hinterlands throughout summer with little concern about hydration, as streams and springs flow. Other years lack of water severely limits hiking options for all but the most hardy and determined trekkers.

Heading into the new water year, with the last two seasons of below normal precipitation and resulting current drought conditions, much may hinge on what does or does not fall from the clouds this winter.

March 2013

October 2013

Arrowhead Spring

Pictograph panel above the spring.

A reproduction of the Arrowhead Spring pictograph painted by Campbell Grant in the 1970s, which hangs in the Goleta Public Library. In his book, “The Rock Paintings of the Chumash” (1965), he mentions finding a pestle in one of the bedrock mortars adjacent the spring when he visited the site.

The environs of Figueroa Mountain feature a diverse range of landscape. Open rolling grassland, gravely slopes sparsely studded with moss and lichen covered oaks, other nooks holding denser stands of oak and conifers, flowing creeks in the shady sycamore canopied canyons, piney peaks, and spectacular wildflower blooms in spring that can be seen from miles away.

Following any one of the many short trails that wind and weave through this area of the Los Padres National Forest takes hikers, in short order, through an outdoor realm of varied habitat like few other areas of the local forest.

Following below is a photo essay from a recent hike to the top of Zaca Peak from the mouth of Birabent Canyon on Alamo Pintado Creek. (This hike traverses private property and requires a permit from Midland School.)

Morning fog along lower Figueroa Mountain Road.

Grass Mountain as seen from La Jolla Trail.

Grass Mountain and the ridge leading to Zaca Peak.

Tarantula sunning on the trail.

Tarantula burrow.

Grass Mountain with Zaca Peak barely visible behind it to the right.

The lone oak before the wall of Grass Mountain.

Up.

A thin finger of maritime fog from the Pacific still lingering far up the Santa Ynez Valley, the marine layer looming over the Santa Ynez Mountains in the distance.

Trail leading off the top of Grass Mountain looking over Santa Ynez Valley.

Looking down the face of Grass Mountain.

Grass Mountain summit.

Zaca Ridge and Peak seen from atop Grass Mountain.

Trail along top of Zaca Ridge.

Zaca Peak

The view from Zaca Peak summit looking over Grass Mountain and the Santa Ynez Valley toward the Pacific Ocean.

Looking east from Zaca Peak.

Related Posts:

Birabent Canyon and Grass Mountain
Figueroa Mountain Wildflowers
Toddling Down the Davy Brown Trail
Edgar B. Davison’s Cabin (circa 1900)
Backcountry View From Figueroa Mountain Summit