It was the end of Spring Break and Jackie needed to get back to UCSB. My
wife had arrangements to be reffing volleyball
in San Diego the following weekend, so we
made plans to meet up there. In between, I had a free week to do some
peakbagging in Southern California, so I made plans to do some stuff in
the Santa Monica Mtns. Jackie and I did an easy hike above
Santa Barbara to Brush Peak on our way there, giving us a chance for one
last hike until summer rolls around. There was some heavy coastal fog
which made for a lot of poor pics, but it helped keep the air cool, at
least.
Brush Peak / Lizards Mouth Rock
Jackie was sleeping for the last half hour of our drive as we turned
off US101 to take SR154 going over Cachuma Pass towards Santa Barbara.
At the pass we turned right onto West Camino Cielo Rd, closed due to
last year's fire until just a few weeks ago. Three miles of driving on
the narrow, winding road got us to the .
The area around here is a popular bouldering site, oddly juxtaposed with
just up the road where the pavement ends. The sounds of gunfire would
mix with the scenery on this hike. is short, just over a
quarter mile to Brush Peak and Lizards Mouth Rock, both found to the west
across some . A huge network of informal trails
criss-cross the
area and it appears to be fairly popular - about half a dozen other parties
were in the area while we were there. We first found our way to
of Brush Peak, the one from LoJ. There is a Brush Peak
on PB that is half a mile NE of the LoJ one, but we didn't visit that one (we
tried, but that portion of the gun club we'd have to travel through was
closed and marked for No Trespassing). The more interesting feature in
the area is just south of our Brush Peak which we
visited in turn. There is a cave on of the rock that is
very much in the shape of a lizards mouth, though getting into it is a hard
class 5 effort we were unprepared for. There are some old manky bolts
at that have been used to rap into the mouth. Jackie was
somewhat excited, exclaiming, "I could jump down to it!" I looked over
the edge and declared, "Are you kidding?!! You'll die!" She then modified
it to, "Well, maybe lowering down..." Dad: "Not without a rope. You
would die! Really." Maybe we'll come back with a rope and some gear in
the future just for the fun of it...
Peak 1,390ft
After dropping Jackie off at school, I headed south on US101 and Hwy 1
to the Santa Monica Mtns National Recreation Area, managed by the NPS.
I've been here on previous occasions and have always enjoyed the rugged
hills and scenic vistas. Some poison oak and ticks are found here, not
too much of the former, but plenty of the latter.
My first stop was on the west end of
the range, a few miles east of Pt. Magu. It was the only significant
hike of the day with about 1,500ft of gain
over about 4mi, roundtrip. One can start (for free) from the La Jolla
TH where the Backbone Trail starts, or use a closer approach from the
Sycamore Campground ($12 for day use or $3 per hour). I chose to use neither,
instead starting from on the north side of Hwy 1.
This necessitated a steep climb with heavy sand in the beginning and
poor footing at
of the headwall, but is probably shorter than the
other two routes. Once above the headwall, one picks up either the Scenic
Trail (coming up from Sycamore Canyon) or takes a more direct (but steeper)
route ,
connecting with for about
half a mile. The route diverges from the Backbone Trail (which is a pretty
cool trail, btw, that runs along the spine of the Santa Monica Mtns for
almost its entire length) as it forks to an old ranch road and eventually
a use trail for the last climb from a saddle to the east.
was
socked in the clouds, so no views at all from there. Lower down I got
some views of the surrounding mountains and the scenic
.
Clarks Peak
This one appears to be private property, but there is a way up without
actually encountering any No Trespassing signs. I drove a rough gravel
road (some rutting that was tricky with low-clearance) to where it is
, "END".
From there I walked a common driveway to a junction. The
right fork goes to some homes down the road ,
signed for No Trespassing.
is gated, but unsigned, easy to breach and
leading to an undeveloped lot. The road continues up to another property
with a home (it has another entrance, so this is just an unused back way),
but before reaching it one can find
cut through the brush
conveniently going up to the summit without being exposed to view from
the nearby home. There is "LITTLE" there as well as some
good .
Triunfo Lookout
An easy peak to finish up the day,
is little more than half a
mile each way. A sometimes overgrown trail leads from the pavement up to
the summit with some poison oak to watch out for. No ticks on this one,
but maybe I just got lucky. There was a very pretty
over Boney Mtn
to the west on my way up. The summit is crowned not by a lookout (only
a few concrete footings remain of that) but by some sort of
with graffiti on it. Nice views, even in
. I drove east
on Yerba Buena Rd with intentions to maybe climb one more, but there was
little light and the sun would be another hour before rising - I decided
to find a place to shower and sleep along Yerba Buena and would do the
next one first thing in the morning.
Continued...