While laboriously hiking up the broad Gaviota Peak Fire Road in September, I realized that a complete circumnavigation of the 2,450-foot mountain’s base could lead me down this road and offer the same splendid views yet again without the uphill road ascent.
Thus, at the end of October, our adventurous hiking trio walked 3.3 miles up to the peak from our parked car on the sinister-sounding Trespass Trail. We would find opportunities to see the beach, Vista Del Mar School buildings and perhaps the impressive 1953 Gaviota Tunnel on Highway 101.
We would make it a loop hike by returning three miles down the above-mentioned Gaviota Fire Road (some maps have this as 2.2 miles).
We left the car and paid our $2 fee to the state of California, and after a short distance, we noted the posted warning about mountain lions in the area. The wide road split, and we chose “right,” going with the clear Trespass Trail sign. (The Gaviota Hot Springs can be visited on the way back down.)
After ascending about a half-mile on a recently cleared and bulldozed section, there’s a post with two signs at a turnoff marked “Tunnel View Trail 1.1 mi.” On another side of the same post, we read “Trespass Trail” again, so we continued up the steep road and skipped the chance to look down on the famous freeway tunnel.
Movies such as Sideways and The Graduate featured shots of the 420-foot tunnel through iconic Gaviota Pass. No one forgets driving this narrow tube when a large truck is near your car and you see a cyclist pedaling ahead!
The Trespass Trail fire road moves through a burn area and eventually morphs into a two-track rough trail, and then finally becomes actual trail, which is much more fun and interesting to walk along.
We passed through two fully opened gates, so we knew we weren’t in point of fact “trespassing.” Scattered oak trees dominate the landscape along with scratchy hard chaparral, and we continued to ascend while enjoying the magnificent vistas all around, but especially to the south and the blue sea.
Looking back, sometimes we could pick out the Highway 101/Highway 1 intersection leading to Lompoc and Vandenberg, and the rust-colored hills beyond. After two or so miles, the encroaching chaparral simply overwhelmed the trail and left us in a bit of a quandary. The section has not been maintained in decades since it’s in private ownership.
While I had taken this route many years ago, the actual path vanished and I could pick out only a series of light “animal” trails, some with low mounds of bear scat. We found ourselves in a mini-forest of 4-foot-tall dense and thorny chaparral.
Since I had talked my two school colleagues into this “round trip,” it seemed best for us to drop onto hands and knees immediately and press through right down in the dirt. With the considerable masses of bear excreta, I figured we were in a “bear tunnel” that would allow us to bull through down low and re-engage with the trail.
There were very skimpy traces of the path, but we were sure of our direction — we could see the back of Gaviota’s peak looming ahead and above.
Risks have to be taken on some of these exploratory hikes, and all three of us doubted whether barging ahead in the dirt under the very thorny brush (scrub oak and worse) would be effective, but in my hubris I plunged ahead anyway.
We needed about 250 yards of this awkward crawling, and then managed to reconnect with the trail that had picked up again to the north — we could see it from occasional tiny potreros where we could stand up.
As seen in one photograph, I stood exhausted in one of those openings staring at my bleeding right hand. I had just washed it off with Crazy Peter’s canteen water and, of course, had my small medical kit, so after patching it up we scrabbled on in the dirt and finally reconnected with the main trail.
It was amazing fun and highly energizing to engage in the exhilarating crawling experience — it felt like I was back at Fort Benning during my 1967 boot camp days, crawling under time with the M-14 while on the live-fire course.
From higher up, we saw later that there was a much easier way, but there also was a tricky barbed wire fence over that direction. Crucial for traversing the chaparral on your belly like we did: long pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a wide-brim hat and plenty of patience. We got various tears in the fabric and torn hats, and I wondered why I had left my hiking gloves behind.
Once past that difficult section, the narrow trail heads upward even more steeply and past enticing small wind caves on the left. Crazy Peter crawled into one, but I assured him there were no pictographs there since they’ve all been repeatedly checked.
We enjoyed the effort to climb more than 1,950 feet in three miles to the apex, and at the top ate our sandwiches and drank copious draughts of water.
I looked into the interesting sign-in box and discovered intriguing stories and names of hikers from all over California. If you look around, you can find the very small, copper U.S. Coast & Geodetic Survey marker glued into an anonymous boulder.
The Gaviota Fire Road return hike is easier and completely downhill, while offering those splendid vistas. We met several families coming up, with it being a Sunday, and we had to wonder why the parents were bringing children up around noon on a hot October afternoon?
We began our circumnavigation at 7:30 a.m. and were the first vehicle in the parking area (there were 21 cars when we returned at 1:30 p.m.).
During the 7-plus-mile loop hike, you will enjoy landscapes in 2,800-acre Gaviota State Park, then trudge through private holdings (thanks to the owners!), then cross Los Padres National Forest territory and finally return down to the state park.
When I lead children up there, we take the regular Gaviota Fire Road direction, avoiding the treachery of the Trespass Trail loop, and then the kids can enjoy the shade of the Gaviota Hot Springs.
This adventure is more attractive in late fall and winter, and less so during the hot glare of summer.
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» Driving: Take Highway 101 north past Goleta and continue inland through the Gaviota Tunnel. In just a few more miles, take the Highway 1/Lompoc offramp. At the stop, make an extreme right turn and drive back a half-mile on the frontage road ending at the inland Park Entrance (and parking lot). Remember to have two $1 bills for the envelope. This section of Gaviota State Park opens at 8 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m. Dogs are not allowed for their safety against predatory mountain lions sighted in this area.
— 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.
