For me, like many of us, the extended period of magnificent and much-needed rainfall has had one baleful side effect: the loss of local hiking trails.
In earlier decades, in the rashness of youth, I’d jam right up Rattlesnake Canyon Trail or Jesusita to Inspiration Point — however muddy the path.
Wiser now, I’ve realized that human boots as well as mountain biker tread and horses’ hooves tear these trails up after moderate and strong rainfall.
What’s a hiking fanatic to do, eh?
Math instructor Peter and I decided to hike the 3.4-mile, mostly disused bike path from Refugio State Beach east to El Capitan State Beach under intermittent rain and gloomy skies on Dec. 10, and I have to admit this was a lovely choice.
Guru Franko and I used to call this expansive trek our Refugio Rain Walk. We never encountered any bikes while striding along the crumbling and decayed asphalt.
Basically, the archaic bike path weaves its way between Highway 101 and the Union Pacific railroad tracks on the mountain side and the bluff top, with significant drops down to the beach.
In the first photograph, the vertical drop on Peter’s right is at least 35 feet, and in other sections the cliff rises much higher above the beach.
Yes, ‘twas a rainy and gray morning along the South Coast between our famous state beaches, with the seascapes muted by the fog and precipitation.
Wild Pete and I hovered above the sandy strand on the crumbling bike path, while the light rain receded into heavy drizzle, and finally drifted away like the snow in the snowman bauble softly settles down.
Moving silently and hearing only muted bird cries and rustling in the chaparral, we slouched along beside a sullen southern sea.
As a longtime spiritual seeker, I had hoped to find an omen or a sign in order to refresh the spirit and recalibrate the Internet-strained mind.
We dropped down to a wide and enchanting beach, the mouth of Arroyo Quemada, then ascended the bike path again and deliberately entered forbidden lands, as the sign attests. You barely discern rowdy Pete clambering through where others long ago tore down a chain-link fence.
Once we slogged into nearly vacant El Capitan State Beach, the weather turned balmy and we remained surprised at the lack of visitors and campers — Dec. 10 was a Saturday, too.
Hiking all the way through El Cap, we arrived at the giant sward overlooking the ocean, where there were five widely separated wooden tables (all free).
I poured hot tea from my thermos as we both appreciated the special gear we wore against the changing elements: heavy boots, long pants, rain parkas of breathable material, twin hiking poles, wide-brim hats, a fanny pack with essentials (medical kit, gloves, power bar).
Ancient shamans in this area managed to straddle different worlds and travel between them.
Wending one’s way between spectacular coastal promontories felt like moving between distinct worlds, too, marked by radical changes in rainfall, sunlight, humidity, visibility, and replete with unique rocky seascapes.
Yet, where are all the other homo sapiens out walking on a stormy Saturday? Perhaps the complete solitude was a sign or augury in itself?
How fitting, then, for us to sniff out a remarkable aesthetic object — an omen? — carved into a tree trunk at an empty El Capitan campsite. The design, or arborglyph, could be a portent for Peter or for me.
Twelve weeks at an ashram in India as well as my own Christian upbringing inspired a deep bow before this auspicious image of a xus (black bear), one of the First People. Bear shamans are among the most powerful of Indigenous Chumash healers and sorcerers.
The return hike dragged on, and we were happy the rain kept holding off, and the exertion made me sweat freely.
Views of the receding rocky headlands enthralled us and charged the imagination, but fog did block some of the normally incredible seascapes.
We identified varieties of the tobacco plant on the way, including the so-called “tree tobacco” climber (nicotiana glauca) with its yellow tubular flowers mounting some chain link next to the bike path.
I just learned this invasive tobacco relative originates from South America, and the mission padres introduced it around 250 years ago. Germans call the smokable tobacco they get from this plant blaugrüner Tabak (“blue-green tobacco”), and in Latin America they say tabaco moro.
Some horticulturalists detest the glauca as an intrusive invader, and it may be that it has driven out the now-rare native nicotiana clevelandii.
Both tobacco variants have been used for medicinal purposes for centuries, and the Cahuilla People used the leaves as a poultice to treat swellings, cuts, sores and boils.
Note: Ingestion of the leaves of any of these nicotiana plants is toxic (contains the alkaloid anabasine).
I believe shamans and healers and everyday Chumash from Syuxtun and Dos Pueblos towns happily would have wandered along these same bluffs that wild Pete and I trod, collecting tobacco leaves for later use.
“Tobacco was the only recreational drug used by the Chumash,” anthropologist Jan Timbrook noted, and it was generally less by smoking it than by sucking on the balls of pespibata they had prepared and carried around in a tube for instant use. (Sometimes it was stored behind the owner’s ear.)
It’s of some interest that the pre-Contact Indigenous Chumash may have somehow known that smoking the weed wasn’t too healthful, thus they mostly chewed on these nicotine-laden pespibata cakes.
Like many legal marijuana users today, the ancestors switched to “edibles” (the cakes) and left the smoking alone for ritual and ceremonial purposes.
Timbrook also describes in detail the precise method used to make these 5-inch diameter balls, and their resulting potent impact. Pespibata was also a highly desired trading item, perhaps not unlike marijuana produced today.
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» Jan Timbrook, “Chumash Ethnobotany” (2007), pp. 126-132, esp. 126; click here for my column of late December 2021 with sunny photos; Julie Tumamait-Stenslie shares a four-minute Indigenous story about Bear and his song.
