toejam
Member
- Joined
- Oct 2, 2014
- Messages
- 83
The weather forecast, a rare thing in southern California, ended our trip plans to drive, camp & work the trail on a 6000' ridge above Santa Barbara. I'd been itching for this trip and had to fight to get Friday off work, my wife made plans to party like a rock star while I was gone, so I had to go somewhere. I decided on a remote loop in the lower elevations behind the ridge I'd been planning to visit. It didn't look to me like the weather was going to be that bad, and I started down the trail under a bluebird sky, enjoying the early spring.
This is a loop in the San Rafael Wilderness (not this San Rafael Swell I keep hearing about), which is close to where I live and my go-to wild land for weekend getaways. This trail starts on Manzana Creek and is well-used for about 8 miles both upstream and downstream. But past the 8-mile boy scout zone in both directions is where the good stuff is. This loop starts downstream, meets the Sisquoc River and follows it up into the mountains, then crosses a gentle ridge to find Manzana Creek again upstream from where I started.
I hiked 17 miles the first day and had great weather. I stayed at an old camp in the heart of the wilderness. The next day I followed 12 miles of rough and faint trail to an old ranger cabin that is maintained by volunteers. I had it to myself and spent the night inside out of the rain. Then 15 miles back to the car the next day with several hours of rain.
I do lots of volunteer trail maintenance trips here so I have to take pictures of all the deadfall and share them with the other volunteers. Here is a link to my photo album.
https://picasaweb.google.com/toejam...authkey=Gv1sRgCJKVk_nF2pu42QE&feat=directlink
This is a loop in the San Rafael Wilderness (not this San Rafael Swell I keep hearing about), which is close to where I live and my go-to wild land for weekend getaways. This trail starts on Manzana Creek and is well-used for about 8 miles both upstream and downstream. But past the 8-mile boy scout zone in both directions is where the good stuff is. This loop starts downstream, meets the Sisquoc River and follows it up into the mountains, then crosses a gentle ridge to find Manzana Creek again upstream from where I started.
I hiked 17 miles the first day and had great weather. I stayed at an old camp in the heart of the wilderness. The next day I followed 12 miles of rough and faint trail to an old ranger cabin that is maintained by volunteers. I had it to myself and spent the night inside out of the rain. Then 15 miles back to the car the next day with several hours of rain.
I do lots of volunteer trail maintenance trips here so I have to take pictures of all the deadfall and share them with the other volunteers. Here is a link to my photo album.
https://picasaweb.google.com/toejam...authkey=Gv1sRgCJKVk_nF2pu42QE&feat=directlink
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