The 190,000-acre San Rafael Wilderness lies north of Santa Barbara’s sultry coast. Farther inland we reach the Sierra Madre Transverse Range, and beyond that the forbidding Cuyama Valley.
The farther my friends and I progressed along lonely Highway 33 past Ojai and Pine Mountain, the closer we came to the Cuyama side of the San Rafael, itself a natural wonderland replete with alluring desert species — California quail, arroyo toads, condors, California black bears — and only three or four significant watercourses.
In early May, I drove out to “the Cuyama” to overnight in my truck and park near Cox Flat at the end of Santa Barbara Canyon Road (see 4.1.1. map). This is my seventh year volunteering for Partners in Preservation to assess the safety of specific cultural resources in our enticing backcountry, including distant rock art.
I was assisting on this early May PIP venture that required backpacking down onto the Sisquoc River. (Driving to Cox Flat is always tricky, including crossing the dry Cuyama River channel along Foothill Road, so do check the 4.1.1. driving directions carefully and have a road map.)
Above the remote and fabled Sisquoc River, foothills finally rise up to 5,800-foot McPherson Peak. Along the closed Sierra Madre Ridge Road, hikers, backpackers and cyclists will begin to admire the formidable ridge itself, replete with occasional springs, wide potreros and a vast area also known for indigenous cultural resources.
These might include cupules and scattered bedrock mortars along with the intriguing rock formations. Farther into the closed-to-vehicles section, we approached Montgomery Protrero, the fabulous Pine Corral (lead photo) and a U.S. Forest Service official campsite called Painted Rock.
I drove out to the top of Judell Canyon as part of the support team for PIP backpackers who dropped down five miles into the Sisquoc River at Heath Camp. I’ve backpacked there myself several times, and it isn’t much of a stretch to add two days and backpack right on over to Manzana Narrows and then to Nira (for a second car pickup; about 30 miles).
Once you’re at the Judell Trailhead and then Heath Camp, it’s possible to ascend either to Big Pine Mountain (at 6,750 feet the highest in Santa Barbara County) via Bear Camp, or head “down” the Sisquoc seven miles to the South Fork line cabin (which is seven miles from the Narrows).
The spectacular terrain here glows with late spring wildflowers as well as pasture-land waving green with spring grasses. I can feel the insects coming on, yet they haven’t quite exploded into the scary hordes that drive humans away.
Fantastic green slopes edged with dark and spiky old chapparal appear, sometimes spooky and I feel a resilient power (mana) in this landscape: once sacred to the Chumash and Yokuts, and still sacrosanct to their living descendants today.
The four-person PIP backpacking team will cruise up and down the Sisquoc corridor verifying the status of various cultural resource sites (no directions from me here!). This is not archaeology, but simply site checking.
If you choose to bike or hike up the closed Sierra Madre Ridge Road, you will encounter some trails leading down into the aforementioned deep Sisquoc River channel. One is the formidable Jackson Trail, which I strongly suggest avoiding, and a second is the rugged Sweetwater Trail, which in seven tough miles will drop you near the memorable South Fork Cabin and campsite.
Neither trail is utilized much, but I’ve gotten semi-lost on the Jackson while backpacking with my 11-year-old son, and the Forest Service apparently likes the dilapidated old sign. Along the road, purple lupine, tiny carpet daisies and orange fiddlenecks surround us.
Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor writes about pre-Axial Age religions where:
“It may even be that a particular geographical terrain is essential to our religious life. Certain places are sacred. Or the layout of the land speaks to us of the original disposition of things in sacred time. We relate to the ancestors and to this higher time through the landscape.” — “The Axial Age and Its Consequences,” p. 33.
I press much deeper into the mystical landscape theme than Taylor does — no need for his scholarly “may even be” qualifier.
“Particular geographical terrain” exists in “sacred time” all over the planet. Personal experience — nay, immersion — in sacred space-time has become spiritually essential today given the war in Ukraine, climate crises, culture wars at home, and the expected overturning of Roe v. Wade. Unless I refuel spiritually in the available Neo-Animism at these places, why, I am lost.
Indigenous tribes came here for ritual ceremonies at specific times of the year: the cultural resources scattered about attest to this usage.
One has to think of sacred topography and rock-encased gods recumbent in the landscape when viewing the astounding Pine Corral with those scattered whale-rocks. I’ve been dayhiking, backpacking and cycling through the sacred topography here since the late 1970s, and it never pales or fails to inspire.
I know of three approaches to enter this extraordinary area, and there are others.
Backpack from the Cox Flat Gate at the end of Santa Barbara Canyon Road (Cuyama) up the closed road to Judell Trailhead (6 miles) and Oak Spring, then continue 5 miles down to Heath Camp and available water in the Sisquoc River (flowing in May).
Or mountain bike down to Painted Rock Campground after driving to McPherson Peak from Bates Canyon and overnight at the broken table there (bring your own water; the springs were dry in May). Then push/ride the bike back to your parked car the next day.
Ray Ford and friends recently covered this section in their “long traverse.”
Third, make a very long backpack starting at Nira Camp to Manzana Narrows (7), then to South Fork Cabin via White Ledge Camp (7), and then up the Sisquoc to Heath Camp and eventually Bear Camp (several days).
I have accessed this sacred realm with reclining gods all these ways, with the long backpack my favorite mode of locomotion since it offers the most time spent immersed in spiritual bliss amid the ancestors.
4.1.1.
» Driving directions: Drive Highway 101 south to Ventura and take Highway 33 to Ojai and on to Pine Mountain and then down into the Cuyama. Four-wheel drive is recommended. Take Foothill left after passing the Ozena Ranger Station. Drive carefully and cross the dry Cuyama River to Santa Barbara Canyon Road. Drive to the end, which is the Cox Flat Gate. Park there. Do not take this route in the rainy season!
» Map: Brian Conant, “San Rafael Wilderness Trailguide and Map” (2015).
» Book: “The Axial Age and Its Consequences,” edited by Robert Bellah and Hans Joas (Harvard University Press, 2012).
— 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 Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
