Cuyama Hills

It's spring on the Central Coast and the brief colors of this too-short season are on full display. In the foothills above New Cuyama the sun was up, the day hot, the bees and butterflies and lizards out doing their thing. As for me, I worked a rambling circuit through feral canyons and over several low ridges of weathered sandstone. I saw a pair of deer, a falcon and mated red tails, spooked a great horned owl out of a wind cave in a crumbling tower of sandstone. No particular agenda or destination in mind, no pressures, no problems. Just a nice day outside with only my camera for company. Go out and get some while there's still a bit of green on the hills.

Aliso Canyon Road.

Exploration of Lower Lion Canyon

Lower Lion Canyon from the crest separating Branch Canyon and Lion Canyon.

Another day in the Los Padres furnace, this time on the north (Cuyama) side of the Sierra Madre Ridge. For those who've correlated the presence of large rock formations and nearby water sources with the presence of rock art, the formations tumbling out of Lion Canyon might stimulate some speculatory salivation. This is how Jack Elliott and I came to find ourselves melting in the glare of a desert sun, trudging up, down, over, and under glaring white sandstone slabs in a seldom visited corner of our forest.

The yellow track describes this day's perambulations.

Somehow we were able to thread our way into Branch Canyon without encountering a "No Trespassing" sign. This involved some zig-zagging shenanigans but we just kept getting lucky. We encountered several gates which were chained but not pad-locked. Not seeing the expected signs prohibiting entry we remarked on our fortune and took this as an invitation to scooch on through with both a clear-ish conscience and no one the wiser. With lady luck on our side we drove well into Branch Canyon and began our rambling day at advantageous vantage.

An overhead view of the Lower Search Area.

With an unexpectedly good head start on the day we set out, headed further up Branch Canyon for a ways before climbing cross-country over a ridge which separates Branch from Lion Canyon. At the crest of the ridge we had a great view up and down the lower half of Lion. Well down canyon from where we stood were several collections of large white sandstone formations. Looking diagonally up canyon was another low bluff of sandstone with a nearby butte. We continued southeast across a large slope of low brush, dipping into and out of several arroyos along our way to this upper set of formations. 

The butte mentioned above.

A deep slot, cut by run-off, in the upper part of our search area.

We reached the butte with relative ease and ascended a sloping apron of rock beneath it. Nearby was a deep water worn cleft, and beyond that were long aprons of decaying white sandstone. I climbed east out of the canyon to a small rise and got my first good look at the rock jumbles spilling out of Upper Lion Canyon. From the top of Sierra Madre Ridge looking down this upper part of the canyon one gets a sense that some adventurous country lies below. Looking up from below was no less interesting. For those with an affinity for rocky canyons and slots, this looks like an exciting sort of place. Unfortunately, an exploration of this upper part of the canyon would probably be best attempted from above, descending through the canyon. Still, I'd always wanted a close look at this part of the forest. It's an impressive piece of terrain.

The formations of Upper Lion Canyon.

This is not rock art. This particular boulder was tiered with thin strata of a more iron-rich rock. As various lumps on the boulder eroded with wind and rain these strata were exposed, leaving the spectacular whorls seen above.

Returning to the canyon bottom we turned downstream. I was only late morning but the day was already viscously hot. There was little shade to be had in this upper part of our morning but as we descended toward Lower Lion Spring we encountered several large and lush cottonwoods. Lounging in the shade of these beauties we let the sweat evaporate and watched heat shimmer off the surrounding canyon. The day was stifling, quiet, devoid of movement. We moved from tree to tree until the trees ran out. Given the choice of following a cow path another .25 miles down to more cottonwoods and the spring we decided it was just too cookin' hot to move further from the exits. Sometimes you just have to think in terms of self interest. It was one of those little "I want to but I don't want to." decisions.  A factor in this choice was that neither of us had read anything which indicated anything of interest at this lower spring.

Instead, we turned uphill and west, headed for a large assortment of rock formations which had looked intriguing on the satellite. This was a somewhat remarkable pile, consisting of hollowed run-offs, shaded alcoves, steep slippery slabs, jagged towers and misshapen hoodoos, pockmarked owl cliffs and shallow caves. If it hadn't been so dang hot I would have enjoyed this acreage more. As it was we were forced to repeatedly move from shade to shade, retreating from the blinding sun like some vagrant species of vampire cavemen. We did our best to poke around but our search wasn't thorough. I found evidence of a spring which had dried out, just a hollow under some scrub oak. A blue jay and some type of magpie fluttered off as I approached, and a jack rabbit bounded away from beneath the trees. The place smelled like water and I bet if I'd dug deep enough I could have produced a trickle of moisture. Still, I'm glad that wasn't even remotely in the cards. We had cold drinks on ice waiting at the truck, so we crawled out of the shade, traversed over a low ridge and completed the loop by turning a short distance back up Branch Canyon. We arrived somewhat nuked but no worse for wear.

Jack bearing the weight of the sun.

Lions Canyon Run, 04/18/2011 (a bobcat, a buzzworm, and a busted digit)

What the hell happened to the beautiful, sunny weekend we just had?!? You know, the one that I spent on-call and at work. I got a chance to leave work in the noon hour and bolted out the door, only to be reminded that getting out from under the marine layer would involve some driving.

My first thought was that Matilija might be sunny...wrong! I just kept driving up the 33. The fog and cloud parted at the crest and I drove down into a green and bright Rose Valley. With the limited time I had due to the late hour I opted for a quick circuit of the Lions Canyon and it's east and west fork falls. I took the connector trail that starts just at the entrance to the Rose Valley campground.

West Fork Falls, Lion Creek (above)

I remembered why I liked the connector trail. I takes you up over a ridge and down into Lions Canyon. It's an interesting and varied trail and right now is the time to see it. All the little watercourses are streaming and everything is green.

The West Fork falls are kind of fun to get to. Taking the creek upstream from the WFork camp is pretty and shaded. There are a bunch of old sycamores just before this neat 12 foot falls. Of the 2, the West Fork feels a bit more remote.

I was leaving the falls when I messed up and crashed head-first down some largish rocks into the creek. Yeah, I ate shit. Bashed my knee pretty good. When I could stand and knew that the knee would hold weight, I addressed a corona of pain blossoming in my right hand. I realized that, not only was my right pinky finger not working, but it was also facing the wrong direction. Without giving myself a lot of time to think about what I was doing, I grabbed that digit and yanked hard, added a twist at the end, and felt it pop back into place. A few minutes later I headed over to the East Fork.

The East Fork is more of a collection of waterfalls, most of them less than 10 feet in height, and did I say pretty? Yes, this is a very pretty place and well worth visiting. I think I was 11 years old the first time I saw these falls. It's funny how I forgot how much I like this hike.

A couple other interesting things occurred in addition to the manual, on-site dislocated finger reduction. I pissed off my first rattler of the season. He was in the brush and grass a few inches from the trail and the warning buzz convinced me not to investigate. And to put nice little bow on the day, I spooked a healthy bobcat who had been hiding under a tree full of chirping birds. I guess I wrecked his shot at an early evening snack. All in all, it became a very eventful unplanned afternoon. The 6 mile hike took me 2:45 minutes with stops at both falls. And yes, the finger hurts like hell.

Below: a fat & happy horned toad