Pine Mountain’s south side with Reyes Peak. 
A sign for the Chorro Grande Trail at Highway 33. 
A roadside shrine along Highway 33 to a motorcyclist named Bubba, who died there on May 25. 
The Chorro Grande Trail. 
On the trail to Oak Camp. 
A sacred site along the trail. 
The Cuyama River and Badlands from Reyes Peak.
Always looking for a hiking challenge, allowing the alt-Middle American semi-macho male room to roam aggressively, the grueling six-mile Chorro Grande Trail ascent fits the bill for an eager septuagenarian.
Craig Carey recommends this trek in his very useful “Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara and Ventura,” but recommends starting at the top and descending to Highway 33 (see Carey, 4.1.1.). His book really forms the bible for backcountry treks, but he adds that this Chorro Grande Trail (23W05) day hike “can also be done in reverse (south to north) for a challenging climb of 3,000 feet vertical gain” (p. 302).
Ever perverse, and manic to get out of my beloved Santa Barbara Westside, I conned a hardy hiking cabal of Mr. C and wild Peter to join me in the foolish ascent on a cold Nov. 22 morning. After pre-parking a second vehicle right at Reyes Peak Campground (7,000 feet) and driving back 13 miles to the signed Chorro Grande Trail, we first made our ritual obeisances to a deeply significant memorial opposite the trail sign.
A motorcyclist named “Bubba” was killed here May 25, and this magic shrine sprang up right at the unhappy spot. None of us ever knew this individual, “Bubba” on the homemade white cross next to the tire, but we respectfully honor his spirit here, and also his many friends who continue to tend this roadside shrine. I’ve also observed many of these wayside shrines in Bavaria and the Austrian Süd Tirol (e.g. Schöpflöffel shrines).
Inspired by the cold (about 40 degrees Fahrenheit at 8 a.m.), the vivid cobalt blue sky, the complete absence of other humans, and our camaraderie, my friends and I speak little and quietly go over our essential gear at the parked truck on eternal Highway 33. There are zero automobiles on this road. I have a largish fanny pack with a sandwich, power bars, a medical kit and three liters of water (more than I need), and I have room to stuff in a shell and other warm gear as both the day and the trek heat up.
The first 1.7-mile portion is easy and threads its way through unique formations of “Sespe sandstone,” offering spectacular high desert vistas. The cool makes this portion an ideal warm-up, and you take a break at arid Oak Camp. Hiking here earlier in the summer’s July heat, wild Peter and I had discovered a running stream, but in mid-November, the flow is a bare trickle (I would filter it only in a pinch).
I contemplated the next 3.2 miles — you can see right up the steep southern slope of Pine Mountain (lead photo) — and, despite persistent bravado, my aging and aching knees weren’t quite certain this trek was particularly intelligent. Yet the juvenescent alter-ego yodeled “Rush on!” Like Walt Whitman’s ode to Abraham Lincoln, with our trek seen as a ship, From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
The reality of 3,000 vertical feet slows the pace, but the spectacular landscapes and hearkening blue canopy inspire some silent sort of exultation. Steady draughts of water, munching on protein bars, casting wide-angle glances over the manazanita, mountain mahoganies and ceanothus, we spread out and each seeker settles into the regular pace, breathing hard all the time, drinking in brown and green visions.
Just above Oak Camp, we were passed by two very fit, middle-aged female hikers, and I admired their energy and enthusiasm. They told us they were on a round-trip, thus a 12-mile venture that stirred admiration for their daring. They’d have the same long downhill on the return (too harsh for my knees).
On this trek, you begin at about 4,000 feet with the hard chaparral community common to these dry “upper desert” landscapes, and with almost no trees. The few oaks cling to the intermittent watercourses, like the streambed at Oak Camp. Beyond Oak, we encountered larger manzanita bushes (no tree form here) and more oaks, and then by 5,000 feet, a sprinkling of gray pine and occasional stands of big-cone Douglas firs. In places, the trail widened and we saw flats that in my imagination would have been sacred sites for ceremonies and mystery traditions in ancient Greece.
By the time we reached Chorro Grande Springs (and Camp) at 6,450-feet elevation, noble conifers such as ponderosa pine and elegant sugar pine crowded in with fewer oaks and hard chaparral ladder story evident. While the usually copious Chorro Grande Springs barely trickled at all, we were happily surprised to run into Carey himself there, and with a trail crew removing some enormous trees that had fallen across our trail (23W05). He’s a cool guy and expert backcountry woodsman. (I am grateful that these people were working out there on a Sunday.)
For those interested in the variations in the intertidal zones at the beach, these ecozones on Pine Mountain’s southern slope have an inter-related, inter-tidal set of variations, too: Sespe sandstone/grass/chaparral/low conifers/sugar and ponderosa pines. They overlap and present pleasing patterns to the eye as one trudges patiently ever upward and onward through these zones.
The 0.8-mile final stretch from Chorro Grande Springs Camp is equally the steepest and the most alluring! As you suck up thinner oxygen nearing 7,000 feet, the pines’ fragrant terpenes fill your heart as well as your heaving lungs. Sometimes I’ll muse that the rushing blood through the brain both heals and stimulates. The Hindus claim “breath” — prana — is sacred, and as I push tired legs and exhale/inhale vigorously, a cleansing and rejuvenative sensation buoys up my spirits. The glorious beauty spread out here refutes fear of the Anthropocene agonies, yet I do realize this isn’t old-growth forest here on the south side of the Pine Mountain massif.
Panting and sweating heavily, five hours after setting out far below (we can see Highway 33), we top out at the crest right next to site No. 6 at Reyes Peak Camp — 6,980 feet. We walk along the paved road a bit to my truck parked next to site No. 3. As we look over to the far side, the mysterious “north side” of Pine Mountain/Reyes Peak, the dry Cuyama River gleams white against the rough paradise of the Cuyama Badlands. We also observe thick old-growth forest, a sacred tract most of us hope President-elect Joe Biden's administration will choose to spare as it reformulates the U.S. Forest Service’s goals.
4.1.1.
» Maps: Sespe Wilderness Trail Map (Tom Harrison Maps); U.S. Geological Survey 7.5 topo series “Reyes Peak”; Craig Carey, “Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara and Ventura” (2012), Route 75 with his map.
— 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.
