While I’ve mentioned the glories of storied Blue Canyon before, this twisty and fascinating canyon less than 5 miles from Montecito also offers a challenging physical workout for weekend warrior power hikers.
Striding along mostly uphill amid the masses of late spring flowers, across gushing creeks and with inspiring vistas, the Blue Canyon one-way dash can be very difficult — and physically rewarding.
Even the short drive up Gibraltar Road and then east on East Camino Cielo invigorates the brain with awesome views and natural silence. At 6 a.m. on June 16, the marine layer lapped just below the narrow ribbon of the paved road. (See 4-1-1 for driving directions.)
While my two friends and I drove slowly east, fog floated high on both sides of the narrow ridgeline road, also forming a metaphoric isthmus barely separating “the abysses of mania and depression yawning to either side,” in the words of Oliver Sacks.
There’s an outrageous Wild West aura as we tool along East Camino Cielo — “road to heaven” — and the spiky ridge that divides backcountry from town, pure green and brown nature from the urban blues, turtles from trucks and spirit from body.
Among the spikes, we saw hundreds of tall, white, flowering stalks of the omnipresent yucca plants, sometimes called Spanish bayonet for obvious reasons. Yucca was a crucial food plant for the indigenous Chumash tribes, and you can still buy yucca root (mescal, i.e. earth-roasted cabbage), but we just admired the hundreds of white bayonets sprouting everywhere in the chaparral (Janice Timbrook in 4-1-1).
Dayhikers will need two vehicles, or a car and a bike, in order to enjoy the 4- to 4½-mile strenuous hike. After dropping down the very steep northside Romero Trail — note the “Romero TR” iron sign as you leave the dirt road (see 4-1-1) — for about a mile, you then cross briskly flowing Romero Creek and enter the wide riparian canyon. The blue comes from mottled deposits of serpentine (aka soapstone).
Walking up the creekside canyon, we enjoyed fields of luxuriant middle-spring wildflowers, often infested with masses of ladybugs crawling around frantically in the heat.
That’s right, by the time we got into Blue Canyon proper, the light mist dissipated almost magically, and while still cool and shady in places, like the swarming ladybugs we also noted the heat increasing dramatically. Later, we would experience 80 degrees and learn that the marine layer never really cleared back in coastal Santa Barbara.
All three of us had affairs to attend to “back in town” on Father’s Day Sunday, so we wanted to press on and, sadly, give this outdoor workout only a half-day.
The warmup is the mile and a half down to Blue Canyon Creek (signed) and over to picturesque Cottam Camp. We could hear Blue Canyon Creek tinkling merrily for most of this portion. We kept walking fast and passed by Cottam since overnight campers were there.
The trail is junglelike, very brushy and redolent with ticks and the onset of the dreaded biting flies. Acres of blooming chamise with its fragrant white blossoms impeded our way by growing right over the trail.
The true workout starts from Cottam. Pushing the pace, we pressed up for nearly 2,000 feet over the 3-mile ascent. There were ticks everywhere, and the lead hiker might get 50 to 60 in a half-hour. All three of us were prepared for overgrown trail, poison oak (forests of it!), ticks and flies with long pants, long sleeves, collars up, wide-brim hats and even gloves. Speeding along and enjoying the heavy sweat pouring off, crazy Peter noticed a turtle to the right just past Cottam, and we saw dozens of alligator lizards, but no snakes.
As the heat ascended, I quaffed my ample water again and again and forced the septuagenarian legs forward, generally lagging behind my exceedingly fit friends. There are natural rest spots at Blue Canyon Camp, Cottam Camp and well-shaded Forbush Flat Camp (Gidney Creek was flowing well; filter the water).
It was a warm and lovely mid-June Sunday, yet we met only two other groups — a man solo backpacking, and the couple from Cottam who later caught up to us despite the fact that we wore only light daypacks and they toted heavy backpacks. The kicker is that the early morning sun was ever behind our backs. We all marveled that we felt totally backcountry, yet Montecito’s Upper Village was less than 5 air miles distant!
This is how the Anthropocene Era works: almost-raw nature backed right up against the urban sprawl. From Camino Cielo in the early morning fog, we were able to look down on the tops of huge electricity transmission towers in Blue Canyon.
Exhausted, and driving back to Santa Barbara, we saw Montecito Peak from the east still in the coastal fog, with glowing yellow mustard right along the way of heaven.
4-1-1
» Directions: Drive to Skofield Park and locate the beginning of Gibraltar Road. Drive carefully to the top, about 6½ miles, and at Camino Cielo Road, turn right (east) toward Divide Peak (signed) and drive to the concrete water tower near Montecito Peak. Park one car on the dirt there. Drive in a second vehicle another few miles until the bar in the road, where the dirt road begins, and park. Begin walking down the dirt road.
» Books: Janice Timbrook, Chumash Ethnobotany (2007), pp. 226-229; Ray Ford’s helpful A Hiker’s Guide to the Santa Barbara Frontcountry is also available at Chaucer’s Bookstore.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity and has written extensively about the local backcountry. His latest book, Eternal Backcountry Return, has been published by Sisquoc River Press and 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.