All of those town and familial obligations and pleasures limiting humans from racing out onto the trail also afflict me. During many decades teaching school, the relatively “free” summers led to intense beach running and mountain hiking, and I would often drag my son along for the thrill of it.
But even with my habitual rushing to the woods and forest-bathing (1971-2018), today’s jangled postmodern 21st century threatens to wear down some of the enthusiasm.
Instead of going to Rattlesnake Canyon, heck, why not have a few beers with the boys while watching the World Series, or LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers — just stay home and indulge in the couch potato thing?
Natural stimulation to combat this physical lassitude comes when I make longer drives to check on and check out favorite replenishment sites near wilder nature, near that moving boundary called the wilderness-urban interface. Figueroa Mountain, Reyes Peak, the Carizzo Plain and Fir Canyon are examples; click here for columns about all of them.
Fir Canyon’s Davy Brown Trail in the Figueroa Mountain Recreation Area is just a 90-minute drive from Santa Barbara via Highway 154 and Happy Canyon Road (see 4-1-1).
Urban-exhausted and ailing with Anthropocene Age anxieties, the best method to truly recharge the spirit involves an overnight or two as well as hiking. I often choose austere Davy Brown Campground for solo overnights in my 2000 Ford pickup truck, since the beginning of the trail winding up incandescent Fir Canyon begins nearby.
Two nights spent under the truck’s shell allowed for two days of glorious hiking as the mid-October weather featured a warm Indian summer effect. In the lead photograph, you see the dense foliage right above flowing Davy Brown Creek, and the gripping dull red of venomous poison oak.
Rainer Rilke writes about the “beauty and terror” in nature, and there it is right along Davy Brown and nearby Fir Canyon Creek.
There are five essential qualities a regeneration site has to have (in order):
» Remoteness — the Fir Canyon Trailhead is 46 miles from Santa Barbara
» Solitude — mainly vs. other homo sapiens, and relative solitude works
» Running water — there were two streams running close to the truck and camp table; crucial ambience in our intense drought and Anthropocene
» No white noise — this enhances the music of the flowing stream, and includes limiting electronic junk (e.g., iPhone/iTunes/laptop/iPad), but singing and live guitar welcome
» Natural beauty — however you choose to define beauty and nature
Arriving late on a Wednesday at Davy Brown Camp, there were no other cars or reservations, and all 13 car-sites looked great and attractively lonely.
After an amazing night’s sleep to the thrumming Wassermusik, I went off along the creek, fording it at the low end and arriving at the large, green cattle-gate that someone carelessly left open.
The large meadow there is where some people think the actual Davy Brown had his lean-to and mule shed in the late 19th century (1879-1895), and Fir Canyon Creek also is there.
I could see that ol’ Davy would have been able to obtain water from two sources. During California’s prolonged drought periods, the doubled supply would be crucial for his stock as well as for him.
I found the simple, iron sign for the Davy Brown Trail right there after I closed the green gate, and I turned south on the obvious trail heading deep into enchanting Fir Canyon itself. The picturesque watercourse is stone dry for about a half-mile, and then the water-table rises and seeps out of the colorful sedimentary rock layers.
The round-trip ending at Figueroa Mountain Road is 5 miles, but includes a demanding 1,100-foot ascent (the U.S. Forest Service website says it’s 6 miles).
In other columns, I have criticized the Forest Service for the absent or outright wrong signage on this complicated trail maze, with its many spurs and dead-ends.
While located in Fir Canyon, somehow this path got named the Davy Brown Trail, and there were several spurs radiating out left and right. One example is the Willow Spur Trail (and Willow Creek Trail), and another is the Munch Canyon Spur (and Munch Canyon Trail)!
I commend the hardworking Forest Service for redoing the signage on the main trail, making it clear, and they even put in a kind of retro iron sign at the most confusing junction.
I’ve wandered around on what they now call the Willow Spring Trail on the new sign, but it’s a scraggly seep at best and easily missed. The new sign is interesting in having very small letters and so much information incised into the metal — maybe it is a lost sign that has been somehow retrieved and re-erected.
The uphill trail continues to narrow and quickly becomes very steep; it’s like ascending endless high stairs, and the uplifting strains of creek-music increase in volume. I was on the lookout for turtles, deer, salamanders, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, bear and fish in the pools.
Breathing hard, I passed a huge boulder with obvious bedrock mortars (BRMs) made by Native American foragers, and a pool made for forest bathing. Forest bathing can be literal (yes!) or metaphoric.
Wandering past the stone remains of Ranger Davison’s 1899 cabin, I arrived at the plaque celebrating this eponymous hero, who actually built most of this trail. The name really comes because it was a trail from Figueroa Mountain Road down to Davy Brown, but located in Fir Canyon.
This there-and-back-again hike covers only about 4.8 miles, but it feels like 6. This is a demanding hike, and overflowing with beauty and Gaia’s great energy.
The path meanders through tall big cone Douglas fir, pine and sycamore trees, and there are fallen giants across the trail that are fun to clamber over or under. It is mostly shaded, which helped on a hot mid-October late morning.
I encountered just one other human on the trail, and none back at my truck in camp. I never heard a car noise, only natural sounds and witnessed riparian woodland events.
We live in dystopian times, with magnified fears and yet justified worries such as climate change, global inequalities, pollution, crazed politicians and a great chasm between two groups of Americans. The Anthropocene Era inspires some of us to charge far away from social media, the political horrors, the ills of the world, the Nov. 6 election, and simply walk about.
As the Australians say: Hike directly into the outback and fear nothing, just one foot in front of the other, one-pointed focus on each step, knowing you’ll have to ford the wilderness-urban interface and return to your obligations and your work, family and society.
But you will be refreshed, planning the next trip and making sure it involves your children and family.
4-1-1
» Directions to Davy Brown Camp: Drive to Armour Ranch Road on Highway 154 past Lake Cachuma and turn right; after one mile, turn right again on Happy Canyon Road. Davy Brown Camp is well-marked and just one mile from the end of the road at Nira Camp. In order to avoid a $20 fee, park just outside Davy Brown; if you overnight like I did for two nights, the fee is $40 ($50 if reserved online). There is ample parking.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity, and has written extensively about the local backcountry. 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.
