I knew many Santa Barbarans and out-of-towners would enjoy our glowing front country trails on a balmy Labor Day Monday, so we sought a road less traveled for our morning hike.

My four bandmates and I chose to explore along the enticing Baron Ranch Trail just up the coast a bit past the Refugio State Beach exit.

It’s the only trail I know where the public can hike from the coast to the Gaviota crest. 

While aware that the upper portions (the Loop Trail) had been scorched and impacted by the October 2021 Alisal Fire, we had some hopes for the lower sections, and enjoyed a scenic jaunt (see Ray Ford’s 2021 article here).

Historic Baron Ranch once focused on avocados, but in 1991, Santa Barbara County purchased this land from Rudolph Schulte to serve as a buffer between the neighboring Tajiguas Landfill and adjacent properties.

The trail meanders through the Arroyo Quemado Creek drainage area. We were delighted to observe the creek flowing strongly even in September.

We found ample parking at the trailhead below the large sign (top photo), and noted that today the ranch has recreational value for hikers and also serves as a mitigation site for impacts from the nearby Tajiguas Landfill that is operated by the Resource Recovery & Waste Management of the county Public Works Department.

Serious plant restoration activities are obviously occurring, and we observed piles of damaged and non-native plants piled up and about to be hauled off.

It is important to note some restrictions on day-hikers using the Baron Ranch Trail: NO dogs, and hikers need to stay on the trail (a dirt road at first). Be aware that there is California black bear activity in this area, too, although we did not observe any on Labor Day.

This hike starts out on an old ranch road paralleling Highway 101, and in the first photograph readers can also make out a bare-chested runner hauling down that road in the distance. He was a fit, young Australian guy, whom we encountered later during our 4.2-mile round-trip hike.

Strolling and chatting about our band’s plans (Alberta 5) for about a half-mile, with prominent “Do Not Enter” signs on the left, we came to a recent and beautifully constructed footbridge over Arroyo Quemado Creek.

Thereafter, the trail becomes much friendlier and is surrounded by recent growth (after the 2021 fire). Trail signs appear frequently and have been well-placed; and do read them carefully since the simple message is not always the same when you peer more closely.  

Spanish conqueror and missionary Father Lasuen referred to this location as early as 1794, but he recorded it as La Quemada (the burned place) because of some conflicts between indigenous villages. I do not know the Chumash (Samala) name for this creek area.

Even 18th-century German author Johann Wolfgang von Goethe writes rhapsodically about the invigorating effect simple walking in nature offers to determined hikers.

In Thomas Mann’s novel about one of the great Goethe’s young lovers, “Lotte in Weimar” (1939), he accurately paraphrases Goethe’s words: 

“A man belongs out of doors, with the bare ground under his feet so that strength and       power can run into him from the soil, like sap, and he can raise his eyes to the birds skied overhead.“

Weather luckily worked for us as we bathed in cool ocean mists and a shifting marine layer that offered an ideal temperature when we began hiking at 8:30 a.m. (very late for me), and these temperate conditions lasted the entire morning.

We spotted a bird not “skied” but “high-lighted” by the narrowing brown road. We knew it was a greater roadrunner (geococcyx californianus).

These ingenious fowl native to California eat venomous lizards and other poisonous prey, including scorpions, and they also kill and eat rattlesnakes (often in tandem).

We moved along, and I wielded my two hiking poles to good effect as the trail became wilder and we entered areas unaffected by the 2021 fire. After two easy miles, we came to an obvious fork in the trail near a well-watered resting spot on the flowing creek.

Here the Loop Trail splits, as you can easily tell from the prominent iron sign there proffering the choice of an eastern and a western loop.

We sat next to the splendid stream at the start of the signed “LOOP TRAIL WEST” direction, and hikers (and readers here) can see the direction given by the prominent arrow.

We noted scores of tiny frogs and very carefully avoided them, imagining these to be the rare and protected red-legged frogs (I am not an amphibian specialist).

Two of my colleagues are total dog guys, but at this beautiful spot they immediately noted that dogs would almost certainly disturb these rare amphibians. An endangered species, the red-legged frogs are also celebrated as the frog featured in Mark Twain’s hilarious story “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.”

If we had chosen the WEST direction on the Loop Trail, we would have reached the crest in 3.9 miles as you see on the metal sign. This six-mile hike to the top of the Camino Cielo coastal mountains would have extended our trek to 12 miles (round trip), more than I wanted on a Labor Day jaunt.

At our resting spot, we encountered the burly Australian runner again, and he confirmed what wild Pete had already learned from previous hikes here: The so-called EAST LOOP has eroded away and for long stretches there is simply no trail at all.

He had bolted down the wet creekbed itself in order to find his way back, but I emphasize he looked young and strong and even he recommended against it. Therefore, do not take the now non-existing EAST LOOP trail! 

If you choose to summit Camino Cielo for the 12-miler, you will return on the same WEST LOOP trail you clambered up.

We began our return walk refreshed and ready to wander, and at times the creek wandered close to our trail.

One of us spotted an enormous spider web in the green foliage beside the trail, and using his iPhone, Mr C identified it as a banded orb weaving spider, another California native and a type of garden spider.

Two miles in and a rest, then two miles back to the truck, and I recalled the German poet again: Whenever you can, shake the dust from your feet, get out in the open, under the sky, ride, walk — I did that, it was the making of me [Goethe].

The author of “Faust” made a daily ritual of his walks, and in the center of Weimar visitors can admire the famous statue of him strolling with his dear friend, dramatist Friedrich Schiller (Goethe-Schiller-Denkmal).

Continued hiking will invigorate your spirit and cleanse the urban heart; if you aspire to writing or singing, follow the advice of Goethe and Schiller, undoubtedly the foremost two figures in German literary history and prolific creators.

4.1.1.

Tom Modugno on the history of Baron Ranch: https://goletahistory.com/the-baron-ranch-at-arroyo-quemada/; Thomas Mann, “Lotte in Weimar” (1939, H.T. Lowe-Porter tr.), p. 285 for both quotations.