Las Cuevas de Sueños Perdidos

"Never again!"

This being said with extreme prejudice and four uplifted middle fingers upon our exit from this botanical nightmare. Mike had coaxed me into a drainage that has no name. If it were up to me I'd call it "Don't Go Here Creek". The fact that there was at one time both a hunting cabin and pictographs up there was the sole reason for this unpleasant journey. Sure, you're going to look at the photos here and think that it doesn't look so bad, but then you're also not being plagued by nettles, gnats, horse flies, humidity, poison oak, deadfall trees, and miles of rocky creek bed... all of it compressed into a singular parcel from Hell. Somewhere in there I kept looping the ironic part of the Gilligan's Island theme song, "...a three hour tour. A three hour tour.". I started thinking of Colonel Percy Fawcett, the great Amazon explorer who ultimately disappeared in Brazil, and of the difficulties he described. In short, this one sucked and we are never going back.

The plan was pretty simple, go upstream, climb past a large waterfall, locate the remains of a WWI era hunting cabin, and then find three caves with rock art in them. A quarter of a mile into this mess the complexion of the day changed. No longer was this a broad and open creek bed. Fun time was over. By the time we reached the waterfall I had become convinced that if there were a cabin (or its remains) upstream, then it wasn't the remains of somebody's hunting shack but was in fact the reclusive hermitage of Ted Kazinsky's great-grandfather. I couldn't imagine a time when this narrow gully of brush and trees had been conducive to hunting. I still can't.

The above photos belie the difficulty of the terrain. This photo is more illustrative of what the day was like.

The waterfall. One might imagine this would be a sight when running. Of course that would mean that just getting there would be even that much more difficult.

Looking back downstream, from above the waterfall. With the exception of the first 3rd of a mile, this was the most navigable part of the day.

We finally overcame what came, reaching the cabin site. Scattered about were pieces of rusted roofing, parts of a bed frame, a shovel head, a huge saw, tin boxes and pots and pans. Next to this rusty pile was a flat spot where the cabin had stood, and at the back of this was a low rock wall. Coming in from somewhere up the creek was a rusty water pipe that terminated in a spigot. I could not fathom how all this stuff had been brought here. The site made no sense, and it remains a somewhat baffling mystery to me. There isn't any way a horse, mule, or burro could have gotten up this creek even as far as the waterfall. A five acre flat below the waterfall would have been the only place one could hunt. The creek near the cabin was shallow and broken up by small waterfalls, not the kind of place that one would associate with good fishing (not that we even saw any fish). The site just didn't make a damn bit of sense. The more I ponder the cabin and its location, the more I wish to know the motives of the man who built it.

Roofing materials and other implements.

An old saw.

A pot and fry pan.

A canteen with bullet holes in it.

Next we tried finding these caves that supposedly had rock art. While trying to locate them we came across the remains of yet another Narco pot grow site. This one was northwest of the cabin in thick undergrowth and under a canopy of leaves. We discovered 9-10 cheap sleeping bags, a pellet gun, tools, lots of plastic sheeting, buckets, and of course there were the ubiquitous irrigation hoses. This operation looks to have been abandoned 2-3 years ago. I've arrived at the conclusion that if there's water in the forest, and there isn't a well used trail next to it, there's bound to be evidence of a grow site. I don't know how many of these I've run across but I'm currently trying to think back and mark them on my Google Earth page, just to have a frame of reference for how many are out there.

And now we get to the real motivation for being here, rock art. This site was studied in 1973, and later by an archaeologist named Hyder (1984, 1987). He described three large wind caves in the vicinity of the cabin site. Two of these caves had three or four elements each. The third cave was described as holding as many as forty rock art elements (a lot). These pictograph sites were somewhat unusual in the sense that only about a quarter of them were actually painted, the rest of the art having been drawn in charcoal. So what we were looking for was a vibrant and busy cave with many charcoal drawings and some painted elements. Well, things have changed.

There were a dozen caves in the neighborhood which matched the overall description of what we were searching for. I singled out the three most likely of these and gave each a good looking over. This is a case where the mind doesn't see what it actually sees, only notes the absence of what it expected to see. I looked at each of these caves and called out to Mike, who was searching elsewhere, that these were empty. I did say that one of the caves I'd scoped might possibly have had a charcoal scratch but there sure weren't multiple elements of art there. 

We continued our search. The day got hot. We'd seen one dry hole after another. We'd busted through overgrown brush, thinking these caves might be hidden behind a screen of the stuff. We even left the search area and travelled further upstream a bit on the chance that the pictographs weren't as close to the cabin as implied. We did this for 2-3 hours before I sat down in the shade to rezero my thinking on the day. Mike and I were pretty used up by this point so we just sat there for a bit. Finally I said "What if it's just gone?". Mike just looked at me for a moment. "Seriously," I continued, "this stuff hasn't been seen since the '80s. What if it's just all gone? Most of it was charcoal anyway. I mean, if the charcoal wasn't bound with seed oil it wouldn't last. And the caves around here are eroded wind caves. What if it's all just blown away?"

Mike chewed on that for a bit. I think he said that we should still have been able to see some of the painted elements. I didn't disagree. We sat there some more, swatting flies and chewing. Finally I said, "You know, I hate to say this, but I think maybe I should go back and look at that cave that might possibly have had a charcoal scratch in it. I just can't help thinking that something's not right." Of course this meant another uphill slog in direct sunlight. We headed back uphill and I reached the first of the caves before Mike. After my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light I crawled right up to the walls of this cave. Suddenly I saw the sketchyest sketch of what was probably a star, and nearby was a stick figure man. Eventually we discovered some other elements, but for all intents and purposes this site has effectively blown away with the wind. It was the same story with the other two caves, fragments of fragments. With two sets of eyes we could not find a single flake of the painted pictographs which were supposed to be present. I apologized to Mike for all the troubles my missing these drawings had caused. He was gracious about it, acknowledging that what we'd found wasn't what we thought we were looking for. 

Well, having flipped the bird and said "Never again!" I can rewind the day and say without reservation that this is no place I want to see again. I'm just glad we were able to resolve the rock art question if only for the reason that it won't plague me in the future. I can go to sleep with that particular skeleton safely kicked to the closet. 

Concentric water rings on a creek stone.

A Look Inside A Mexican Grow Operation

               

I spend a lot of time off trail. So do Mexican pot farmers (Narcos). Over the years I have run into numerous (>30) sites where these people have left behind their hoses and bits and pieces of things which indicated prior grow operations. They seem to be everywhere in the Southern Los Padres. At times I think these people know more about our forest than I do.

It alway starts with finding a hose.

As I understand it, the way these operations work is that the cartels select people (almost always Mexicans, as opposed to El Salvadorans or Hondurans, etc...) to perform this task. The reason for choosing a Mexican is that the cartels can keep an eye on these individual's family and therefore use them, coercively, as collateral for the servitude. The cartel will make an offer which really isn't an offer, providing a trip across the border, cash for supplies, maps, the seeds to start the operation, and a promise of payment to the family who stays behind. There is also a discussion of what will happen to that family should these services not be rendered satisfactorily. Invariably, these growers are desperately poor and have no other options. The cartels know this and prey upon those whom they can develop leverage over. This creates the conditions for a suitably motivated grower.

As I found out one cool pre-dawn on the Sespe, some of them speak english. This was the day I ascended Devils Heart Peak. I was still very early into that heinous day, taking a break after having rapidly descended Tar Creek to the Sespe. I was sitting on the creek having some breakfast when I saw some movement across the water. I stayed very still, thinking that I was about to see some wildlife. Instead what I got was a little hombre in camo pants with a cheap backpack hopscotching across the creek toward me. He was within only 10 feet of me when he about jumped out of his socks, seeing me. He spent a good two seconds doing what I had done with him, checking me for a weapon. He remained very anxious but asked if I had been there all night. No, I said, just for the past 20 minutes. He still seemed like a cornered animal but encouraged me to have a good day and quickly split up Tar Creek. For a while I wondered where the hell he'd come from, but now I think I know the answer to that question.

The grow site in these photos show the remains of the most elaborate of these operations I've ever run across. It always starts with finding the hose. In this case nearly a quarter mile of black vinyl water line snaked from an upstream pool (now bone dry). The downstream end of the hose terminated in a plastic lined, man-made catch basin (below).  Water was then gravity fed from this basin a short distance away to supply approximately two acres of cleverly camouflaged grow area. I say this with a bit of admiration because what this grower had done was manicure over 100 young manzanita plants, by trimming all but a single stalk, so that they grew straight up at a height of 6-8 feet, providing a light canopy which allowed just a bit of shadow for the marijuana plants while disguising the site from the air. 

Man-made, plastic lined catch basin. Cut branches laid over the hole disguised this from the air.

These trimmed manzanita cleverly allowed in enough light for the marijuana plants while allowing for some camouflage from the air. 

I found the actual campsite tucked under a scrub oak offering very crude living conditions for the grower. These remains included MiracleGrow, a sprayer, miscellaneous trash, a sleeping bag, a couple school backpacks, part of a propane burner and some cookware. No effort had been made to make the place anything more than barely livable. About 300yds away from the primary plantation I discovered more than 200 plastic cups filled with local soil. These cups were neatly arranged in a patch of sunlight and were clearly intended as planters for seedlings (below).

This valve was the terminus of the irrigation hose. The marijuana plants were watered by hand.

This cheapo sleeping bag had been blown or dragged away from the actual campsite and into the pot farm.

This is what remains of the grower's camp.

Solo cups used to start seedlings. He used local soil, and the 5 gallon bucket was probably used to haul water to the site, which was well away from the actual grow site.

Inevitably some of you will want to ask wether I carry a weapon when I go off-trail. The answer is, "Rarely." Carrying a weapon is a highly individual thing. I'm enough of a snob to think that most people have absolutely no business owning a hand gun, all while adamantly asserting my own right to the same. I have a range of hand guns and at times I have indeed carried, but only while solo hiking in deep dark places like the Dick Smith Wilderness, places where the wildlife is big and unpredictable and a lot of things can go sideways in a hurry. In that sense, I view a hand gun as a tool and something I have no intention of using... but I'm glad it's there for the "Just in case." factor. They say you never need a gun until you need one. As this subject pertains to stumbling into narcos, my feeling is that when two people with guns meet under these conditions it dramatically increases the odds that a confrontation will result, and those results could be deadly. For either side. Remember, these guys don't want to be seen and/or discovered, which creates dueling circumstances and choices for both involved. I lean to the side that says I should play it cool and act like exactly what I am, just a guy out for a walk who happened to run into this other guy. All that being said, these instances are each unique and unpredictable in their own way. I am convinced that the average drive-in campground is a far more dangerous place than the situation I described earlier. I am always prepared for that particular scenario.