When late June’s summer inferno approaches, the wise hiker flees to higher altitudes, and lofty Reyes Peak is less than 70 driving miles from my Westside neighborhood (see 4.1.1.).
Out on Highway 33 past Ojai — the famed Maricopa Highway — you pass through scenic Sespe Gorge and then along a narrow two-lane road lined with miles of very colorful white Matilija poppies intermixed with bright yellow bushes, making for wonderful contrast in a mostly brown and arid landscape.
There are many “Pine Mountains” in California, but this east-west running massif on the way to the Cuyama Valley boasts several varieties of fragrant pines, including massive ponderosa and sugar pines. The Pine Mountain Road that you turn right on was originally a Shell Oil Co. service road, but when the trial wells on the summit proved unprofitable, the stretch fell into the hands of the U.S. Forest Service.
After a few miles on the recently resurfaced Pine Mountain Road, you encounter 6,650-foot Pine Mountain Campground. Skip this one and drive on to make a choice among the six lovely car-camping sites at the Reyes Peak Campground — about two miles from actual Reyes Peak. There is no water available. These car-camping spots have spectacular views back toward the Cuyama Valley and badlands, and also coastward with occasional glimpses of the northern Channel Islands. I have even seen Santa Catalina from Reyes Peak Campground on a clear day.
Once you have reserved your car-camping spot on the Parks Management website and settled in with your gear (campfires allowed in the fire circles as of June 21), several easy day-hiking options appear.
There are short and marked trails down to Raspberry Spring (and a small camp there), to Boulder Spring, and the especially enchanting Chorro Grande Springs on the ocean-facing side. For a longer day hike, try the well-marked Reyes Peak Trail that runs almost 6 miles down to Haddock Camp on Piedra Blanca Creek.
In the 1980s, I led a large and foolhardy band of eighth- and ninth-grade students from Reyes Peak down to Haddock (night one), to Pine Mountain Lodge (night two), Piedra Blanca (three), and on the fourth day to Middle Lion Campground on the Sespe, where parents met us for a barbecue feast with iced colas (yes, beef and sugar!).
I doubt that many middle schools would dare such an aggressive and outlandish trek today.
On May 8, the U.S. Forest Service presented its Reyes Peak Forest Health and Fuels Reduction Project proposal for public discussion (see 4.1.1.). The commendable goal is to reduce the “ladder fuels” in the chaparral and reduce the conifers’ canopy cover in hopes of avoiding horrendous wildfires like Zaca and Thomas of recent memory.
However, nowhere in the May 8 proposal is there an acknowledgement that many of these unbelievably beautiful ponderosa and sugar pines qualify as “old growth” remnant forests.
Miraculously, much of Pine Mountain’s crest — which includes Reyes Peak — has not burned in hundreds of years, and certainly not in recorded fire history. It’s a remnant conifer stand, or sky island, reflecting how the area was in wetter times.
While accepting that the zone is dominated by fire ecology, opinions certainly differ about the best ways to control future wildfires. Some believe in this radical thinning project in which it would be necessary to thin the ancient conifers “of up to 24 inches diameter at breast height” in order to alleviate density-induced stress on the larger trees (proposal p. 11; see 4.1.1.)
They promise not to cut trees with diameters bigger than 24 inches, but occasionally admit they may have to do so.
I’m of the group vehemently opposing this thinning of old-growth conifers on these 423 acres, although some chaparral removal might be useful against fires.
I don’t agree with the concept of fuel reduction and “defensible forest thinning,” because these very efforts heavily damage a precious old-growth area and, in the case of a large fire like Thomas or Zaca, such thinning and firebreaks and chaparral reduction are useless anyway.
The chaparral and the dead timber littering the area provide soil enrichment, nutrients for various small animals that provide food as well for the condors flying overhead. The ecology is very complex, and human hubris always intervenes at a cost to the environment as well as the humans.
As I climbed up to the apex of Reyes Peak on June 18, the fragrant scents overpowered my mind and feelings. There were crimson snow flowers as well as slopes adorned with the royal purple of lupines still hanging on. Wild Peter and I observed several types of conifers, but the mighty sugar pines with their long dangling pine cones dominated along with the ponderosas. There had been a recent severe windstorm, and dozens of very large boughs littered the area.
At the summit, we enjoyed 360-degree views all around, pored over the comments in a round sign-in box, and clambered among the sacred boulders.
“Old growth” doesn’t mean specific trees or specific diameters, but rather an area luckily untouched by recent fires or major disturbances, sometimes termed a “climax community.” Los Padres National Forest staff are decidedly wrong in placing the Reyes Peak project into a type of region with fires every 35 years or fewer — this is demonstrably untrue. There is also zero evidence backing the staff's claim that the most recent fire there was between 81 and 109 years ago — this is a false claim, and not based on an on-the-ground study. When staff decided there are too many trees in parts of the Reyes Peak project area, they were using simulated historical vegetation conditions but provided no references or links for these “simulations.”
As I wrote to the Forest Service in my response to its request for public comment (see 4.1.1.), “We should keep these precious ‘sky islands’ of primeval forest as unaffected as possible: no thinning or cutting. With the best intentions, the USFS will achieve the opposite of their goal to preserve these very old conifer stands. As Wordsworth wrote, ‘we murder to dissect.'”
4-1-1
» Driving to Reyes Peak: Take Highway 101 south to Ventura, then take Highway 33 past Ojai, past Wheeler Gorge and Rose Valley, to the Pine Mountain Road. It covers 67 miles and requires about two hours.
» Click here to read the 27-page Reyes Peak old-growth forest thinning proposal. Please consider making your own public comment (by Aug. 14) by clicking here.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity and has written extensively about the local backcountry. His latest book, Autobiography in the Anthropocene, is available at Lulu.com. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
