Ambling east along the upper Manzana Creek Trail (30W13), neither shaman Ryan nor I dared to expect that intermittent Fish Canyon Creek would be flowing when we set out hiking in early April.
Immersed in a long drought and noticing how shrunken the main Manzana seemed, our hopes gushed forth when we managed to locate Fish Canyon Creek hidden behind the camp of the same name. (No fishing in either the Manzana or Fish Creek.)
By midmorning and at 65 degrees, we strode beneath towering deep-blue skies, and then our hearts soared when we scrambled up to Fish Creek’s rocky border and witnessed the magical flowing water.
This tiny gurgling watercourse sustains many diverse lifeforms, including mountain lion, bear, numerous fowl and even the endangered arroyo toad (anaxyrus californicus).
Two surprises flooded my awareness while staring at the crucial stream — that any water appeared, and that the aquatic denizens still flourished in this very harsh desert environment.
The late rainfall around March 31/April 1 had made very little impact here in the Santa Barbara backcountry, and Fish Canyon Creek will run dry before August.
When the U.S. Forest Service announced the reopening of Sunset Valley Road leading into Nira and Davy Brown camps on March 31, Ryan and I drove the 48 miles the next day to slip into the San Rafael Wilderness at famed Nira Camp so we could make this easy six-mile round-trip hike. (See 4.1.1 for Conant Map, and click here.)
We understand that landscape and memory intertwine, and since I’ve been hiking to and past Fish Camp (and Fish Canyon Creek) for more than 50 years, I reminisced with Ryan about leading many student groups here, meeting a lost Nubian goat by the water, splashing in the creek, and some special backpacking trips with my 4-year-old son in the 1980s.
Ryan has been here for overnight trips with Santa Barbara Montessori School children in recent years.
While walking along the trail, I could often see equilateral Fish Peak far ahead until you reach Fish Camp below. Admiring the same peak over many decades via repeated treks enriches memory and stimulates the imagination.
Just as art critic Jed Perl recently wrote, “The metaphysical is embedded in the material,” thus my material image of glorious Fish Peak melds into refreshing memories of the olden days spent there with family and with children.
We left Santa Barbara at 5 a.m. and were strolling along Manzana Creek by 6:30 a.m. in the pre-dawn gray. Once you start hiking, you’ve entered one of the most remote landscapes in California — the San Rafael Wilderness.
Most of this well-maintained Forest Service path — the Upper Manzana Trail — is fairly level, with just a couple of inland swings involving up-and-down switchbacks. Most of the way you are within sight of and can enjoy the singing sounds of merry Manzana Creek.
We encountered no other humans on the way to Fish but met two backpacking pairs upon our return around noon.
Walking happily on the cool, dusty trail in early April, we noted how fast the dark green “winter grass” had sprouted after the modest rain we received in early January.
In a chaparral-based fire ecology like ours, a few inches of precipitation often supply all the moisture 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 blooming white and blue ceanothus bushes, toyon and other hard chaparral flora revitalized by the scanty rainfall. Chaparral plants exhibit a glorious intensity based on short periods of water for growth, and the sensation felt like the end of spring in terms of pollens and blossoms.
Fish Creek Camp has two sites and each its own wooden table. There is a pit toilet between the two, and the Manzana is, in fact, closer to the campsites than Fish Creek itself. Since the area has been closed for the past six months, one could easily see how nature has rebounded without the pressures of human presence.
The hike is as easy a six-mile jaunt as I know, ideal for bringing young children or elderly folk. Whether one has forged into the hinterlands 14 miles to the more remote Sisquoc River, or just three miles to Fish, any human will feel just as “out there” and free from the city and time as on the Sisquoc.
We wandered a few yards up Fish Canyon Creek, and I know a low but pristine waterfall pours down about one mile upstream (rock hopping).
Ryan and I both appreciated the quiet in this area — no machines, no fires, no people, just a very occasional jet plane flying high overhead crossing the cobalt blue sky. He picked out a strangely “bent” gray pine on the opposite slope.
While we still enjoy the middle spring, haul your children off to Nira Camp and then hike with them upstream past Lost Valley Camp to bucolic Fish Camp, with its own concealed watercourse.
Build family memories amid an intriguing landscape and ponder going overnight while the two streams still flow.
4.1.1.
» Driving directions to Nira Camp (trailhead): Highway 154 to Armour Ranch Road at the Santa Ynez River bridge. Turn right. In about two miles, turn right again on Happy Canyon Road (becomes Sunset Valley Road) and drive to the end (Nira is two miles past Davy Brown Camp where this road dead-ends). About 90 minutes one way. After Cachuma Saddle, drivers can inspect the two new concrete bridges installed by Lapidus Co. for the Forest Service.
» Map: Brian Conant, “San Rafael Wilderness Trail Guide and Map” (2015).
» Books: Simon Schama, “Landscape and Memory” (1995); Jed Perl, “Authority and Freedom” (2022)..
— 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.