Accompanying my fervent hopes that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to slow down, we have to be wary about a letdown and lurching into sadness or regret as the nation begins to heal.
Children returning to face-to-face school, dining at outdoor cafes downtown, finally able to get together with extended family for outdoor meals in the backyard — yet “American life” won’t return to anything like “normal” for at least another six months or longer. Thus, we can see an initial euphoria followed by the harsh social realities that COVID-19 is still around, as well as our staggering political divisions and the indisputable reality that life has become harder for most of us.
I see that part of the letdown could include abandonment of new workout and hiking patterns developed during the pandemic. Don’t lose the commitment to draw your children outside for easy exploration of local parks, modest hikes in Rattlesnake Canyon with its new ceanothus flowers, or venturing out for some of the more challenging backcountry forays I constantly tout. These mini expeditions into the Santa Barbara outback typically enthrall and excite kids, and as parents and family, we take enormous joy in heading out with the young ones.
The three-mile easy backpacking hike — or day hike — along the upper Manzana Creek to Fish Creek Camp is an ideal such foray for openers (and also for older backpackers like me).
After driving the 90 minutes to the Nira Camp trailhead (see 4.1.1.), making sure your child is outfitted properly, you strike off upstream with a jaunty air and huge smile.
Once you start hiking, you have entered the pristine San Rafael Wilderness and one of the most remote landscapes in California. Most of this well-maintained U.S. Forest Service path — the Upper Manzana Trail — is fairly level, with just a couple of inland swings with switchbacks. Equally wonderful, most of the way you are within sight of and can enjoy the singing sounds of merry Manzana Creek.
Walking happily along the cool, dusty trail in mid-February, we noted how fast the dark green “winter grass” sprouts after even a modest rain like we got earlier in February. In a chaparral-based fire ecology like ours, a few inches of precipitation is all these hardy plants may get for a year, so they are evolutionarily programmed to grow fast and tall, and germinate seeds quickly.
We inhaled the lilac fragrance of the very early blooming white ceanothus bushes, toyon and other hard chaparral flora revitalized by the recent, if scanty, rainfall. Chaparral plants exhibit a glorious intensity based on short periods of water for growth.
I’ve taken my very young son to overnight at bonny Fish Creek Camp, and also led groups of Crane School adolescents here as well. There are two large sites, and the main one beneath a striking oak tree giant can handle three or four tents. There are two tables, but campers have moved them around to suit their specific needs. There is also a handy pit toilet.
While overnighting at Fish Creek Camp — campfires are legal in the firepit now — everyone will enjoy the fringe of fresh green “grasses” and the sounds of rushing waters. Unless we reap a bonanza of rain in March, hikers and backpackers should go up (or down) the Manzana sooner rather than later, and certainly by the beginning of June. Water reliability is always an issue, but in mid-February, the Manzana was not only running well, but the smaller Fish Creek tributary itself trilled along its own rocky canyon behind the camp.
My colleagues and I encountered a middle-age father backpacking into Fish Creek Camp with his two younger sons. He was careful entering the area since we were sitting at the table, but we quickly got off the table where we had been noshing and made it clear that the campsite was certainly free. He was grateful and pleasant, and we chatted as they began to figure out where to pitch their small tents.
The gentleman informed me that he had overnight camped at Fish Creek Camp decades earlier as a boy, and he had never forgotten the moving experience. Now, in COVID-19-infected 2021, he led his own sons here to get an inkling of what nature and the world were in paleo times. In those days before the advent of the “civilized” Europeans, firearms and metal tools, the Fish Creek Camp area also would have been highly attractive to indigenous peoples — but only in late spring or early fall.
After some lunch and more desultory conversation, my friends and I hiked the three miles back to our vehicles parked at Nira Camp. If we had chosen to continue hiking the Upper Manzana Trail, there are more inviting Forest Service overnight campsites coming up at Ray’s Camp, Manzana Camp and well-known Manzana Narrows Camp (this latter is seven miles in from Nira).
Although it’s still officially winter in our fire-prone chaparral ecological zone, we realize that spring is well on its way with the parched summer looming. Head for the foothills with your children early this year since spring is already well underway.
4.1.1.
» For Nira Camp: Drive Highway 154 to Armour Ranch Road at the Santa Ynez River bridge and turn right; in about two miles, turn right again on Happy Canyon Road and drive to the end. Nira is two miles past Davy Brown Camp at the end of this road. It’s about 90 minutes one way.
— 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 Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
