[Editor's Note: At the time of this posting, the national forest area and the Tumamait Trail are closed by the U.S. Forest Service. The closures extend at least until Sept. 14.]

During mid-August’s heat and smoky eddies from California wildfires, it seemed like a good time to escape town for yet another lofty mountain in search of a rejuvenating respite from the three-headed chaos surrounding us: the wildfires’ smoke, absurdly high temperatures and, of course, COVID-19.

Recently, I’ve covered Reyes Peak and Oak Camp (on Pine Mountain), and considered Gaviota Peak and Figueroa Mountain (neither high enough) before remembering 8,900-foot Mount Iwihinmu (aka Mount Pinos). Located inland from Frazier Park, Iwihinmu, Sawmill Peak and Mount Abel are the highest elevations between Santa Barbara and the southern high Sierra Nevada.

Iwihinmu towers at the core of Chumash cosmology as one of their sacred mountains redolent of the Earth’s powers in the form of Hutash. The sensual and spiritual experiences that one accumulates while ambling along this quiet mountain trail cannot be measured or evaluated by the brain’s left hemisphere with its scientific bias. Tall and fragrant conifers lend stately shade on another hot and slightly smoky day in late August, and you stare into infinity toward Reyes Peak.

As neurologist Iain McGilchrist has shown, the brain’s left hemisphere “OCD” relaxes remarkably when roaming out in nature (or playing music or drawing; see 4.1.1 Books). While the right hemisphere luxuriates in metaphorical thinking and a gestalt appreciation of context, the semi-autonomous left hemisphere focuses carefully on the pine-needle-laden path and guides your feet perfectly. You deploy the twin hiking poles while simultaneously drinking in the green ambrosia, dappled sun, hovering flies, oaks and conifers — well-knowing this trail is sacred and long-used.

Maria Solares, who died in 1922 and was a key Chumash informant for anthropologist J.P. Harrington, told him about the sacred nature of Mount Iwihinmu (it isn’t too far from the Tejon Pass along Interstate 5):

Once when Maria went to the Tejon, some of the (Chumash) people there were going to
gather piñon nuts, and invited her to go along. They camped at the spring near
Iwihinmu — it was the only spring anywhere around. The ridge of Iwihinmu was
right up by where they camped and it was loaded with piñon, but it was a sacred
spring and no one ever touched the piñon nuts there at all. (See Blackburn, 4.1.1)

A flowing spring at Sheep Camp in the Chumash wilderness. (Dan McCaslin / Noozhawk photo)

The 122-mile drive from Santa Barbara’s Westside to McGill Campground felt endless on Aug. 17. We plunged through thick smoke and pollution around Castaic and as we hauled up Interstate 5 past Gorman.

At one point, we read 107 degrees Fahrenheit on the truck’s dashboard. The Internet informed me that the Lake Fire had been contained, and I hoped for clean air while we car-camped at the U.S. Forest Service's McGill Campground at 7,400-foot elevation (see 4.1.1). With 78 picturesque family/small group campsites high up on Iwihinmu’s pine-laden slopes, McGill Camp is just four miles from the trailhead to bbegin hiking to Iwihinmu’s summit of (Mount Pinos).

My not-so-clever plan required a quick overnight at McGill in order to avoid a six-hour drive plus the hike in one day, then early rising and packing up the shared truck by 6:30 a.m. Aug. 18, vacating McGill Camp, and slowly driving the 10 minutes up to the trailhead for our nearly 10-mile Iwihinmu and Sheep Camp Spring day hike (note the large sign at the parking lot: “Mt. Pinos Nordic Base”).

Passing several stargazers who had overnighted on the edges of the huge parking area, we headed over to the trail sign indicating two miles to Iwihinmu’s broad, rounded peak.

After hiking two miles up to the flat top of Iwihinmu itself, my two friends and I officially entered the “Chumash Wilderness” as we hiked down the (signed) Tumamait Trail and across Sawmill Peak.

Vincent Tumamait was an honored Chumash elder and tribal leader, and this hallowed path properly bears his name on modern maps. This peak, formerly a condor observatory, marks the beginning of the enchanting and numinous Tumamait Trail (21W03) into the Chumash Wilderness. The glorious 38,000-acre preserve spans the spectacular ridge between Iwihinmu and Mount Abel and then stretches north to San Emigdiano Canyon. The conifer-laden federal wilderness was only created by Congress in 1992 and still feels amazingly remote. (McGill was not nearly full, and I did not reserve a spot over the Internet.)

Mount Iwihinmu and the Channel Islands on Mother Hutash by M.L. Soini.

Then we dropped down the other side and hiked through deep forest across Sawmill Peak, and two additional miles to a clearly marked trail junction signed as the North Fork Trail. The sign shows it is another two miles to Mount Abel, but if you turn left and follow the arrow indicating Sheep Camp Campground (0.5 miles), you learn it’s merely a pleasant quarter-mile downhill stroll (22W02). We knew that at least one of the springs on Reyes Peak has run dry this summer, but Iwihinmu has only this one spring, Sheep Spring.

Don’t be fooled by the dry upper spring (black pipe), but go past the first of the two Sheep campsites to the more enticing, lower site with the freely flowing Sheep Spring. We debated whether to call it a “strong trickle” or “weak flow” — but agreed it was ice-cold from Gaia’s very bowels! (We all carried plenty of water and chose not to quaff water from Sheep Spring.). In one photograph, you see my two fellow pilgrims adoring the small pool at the base of Sheep Spring. I washed my face and hands with the holy water, and thanked the spirits for safe journeying. At about 8,300 feet, Sheep Camp, with its copious spring, is the highest overnight trail camp in Los Padres National Forest.

Since it’s the only reliable water source on the massif embodied by Iwihinmu-Sawmill-Abel, I calculate that Sheep Spring is likely where Solares went as a 19th century girl to “the Tejon” area with “the only spring anywhere around.”

The Chumash had a number of sacred “high areas” much like the ancient Greeks’ celebrated specific mountain spots as areas of power (e.g. Delphi, Mount Olympus). Figueroa Mountain, the Hurricane Deck, Frazier Mountain (tosololow) and Iwihinmu all symbolize the Upper Realm in their various tripartite cosmologies.

We had plenty of water, and after guzzling deeply along with a nutritious lunch, we walked briskly back toward Iwihinmu in rapidly rising heat. En route, Mr. C led us on a side trail to a stone edifice, not a stupa, but a Buddhist chorten. After the very tough slog back up to Iwihinmu’s summit where the Tumamait Trail ends, we noticed fields of brightly-colored flowers, and we completed the 10-mile round-trip.

Most right-hemisphere Stone Age societies felt specific areas on the planet’s “body” exuded some mystical power — Ayodhya in India, Mount Zion (Moriah), Stonehenge, Maccu Pichu, the list runs on, and specifically includes the holy mountain of Iwihinmu. Go there, overnight at McGill Camp (get reservations for weekend sites), hike around with your family alert to the invisible energies and revitalization available on this luminous landscape. Honor the spirits, leave no trace, build no fires, and pack out your trash and any human waste.

I wrote “not-so-clever” above because August and September aren’t the very best months for this demanding trek; early October and late spring would have eased the conditions. Ten miles all above 8,300 feet, temperatures rising to upper 80s, and almost seven hours out on the sacred coniferous slopes. Yet, yet … so invigorating, with splendid views all around along with clean air (we got above the smoke layer) and an exotic Buddhist stone chorten complete with white-clad pilgrim, enjoying the mountain, just like us.

4.1.1

» Driving directions: Take Highway 101 south to Ventura and Highway 126 through Fillmore to Interstate 5 north at Castaic past Gorman to the Frazier Park Exit (just before Lebec). Follow Frazier Mountain Park Road for another 18 miles west to McGill Campground.

»  Books: Solares quote in Thomas Blackburn, ed., “December’s Child — A Book of Chumash Oral Narratives” (UC Press, 1975), p. 300; Soini’s Iwihinmu drawing from D. McCaslin, “Autobiography in the Anthropocene” (2019), back cover; Iain McGilchrist, “The Master and His Emissary” (Yale U. Press, 2019 expanded ed.).

— 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.

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