Santa Barbara Canyon
Santa Barbara Canyon
Santa Barbara Potrero
Salisbury Potrero with the Cuyama Valley and Caliente Range in the background.
Looking toward Montgomery Potrero from the east.
The west side of Lion Canyon.
Montgomery Potrero
Looking east over Painted Rock Camp in Montgomery Potrero.
A drawing of Davy Brown’s cabin published in The herald, September 25, 1898.
In the only image known to exist of Davy Brown, a tintype, he sits crossed legged on an upholstered chair in front of what appears to be some sort of backdrop resembling rolling hills or a seascape. It is a formal posed picture. He is wearing a dark jacket, scuffed up boots and heavy-clothed pants turned up at the cuffs a good four inches. He is resting his hands together on his lap with clenched fists, as if handcuffed, and the corners of his mouth are turned down slightly. The rest of his face below his pursed lips disappears behind a shaggy, ratty looking white beard. He is an old man with pale skin and a long narrow nose. He is said to have had “piercing, ice-blue eyes” and a “rose-pink complexion.” Lying beside him on the plank floor is a dark-colored wide-brimmed hat turned on its side. The image looks like a cross between a portrait and a full body mug shot.
Davy Brown was born in Mount Charles Ireland in 1800, though one pioneer from Santa Maria said he spoke with a Scottish accent. As a young lad he took to the high seas on a British privateer that raided American ships during the War of 1812. After the Americans captured the ship he was aboard, he was taken to Charleston, South Carolina and released into the great American frontier. Davy Brown went west crossing the vast wilderness of an untamed continent.
When the Mexican-American War of 1846 erupted he was hired as a teamster for the United States Army. He later became a Texas Ranger fighting gunslingers and smugglers and facing Indian warriors chiseled from the sinewy stock of native America. This was the era of the Wild West.
Davy Brown continued to drift west. He trapped with Kit Carson and was mentioned by John Muir who crossed paths with him in the pine forests of the granite studded Sierra. By his fifties he was in California during the Gold Rush and earning his keep by hunting game and selling fresh meat to miners.
At some point in the early 1870s Brown came to Santa Barbara County and settled on 300 acres of land near Guadalupe. He later left the coast for the mountains to purportedly escape the growing population, and sometime around age 83, he set off to live in a tent in the wilds of what is now the San Rafael Wilderness with two mules, “Jinks” and “Tommy,” loaded for bear.
Davy Brown settled along a brook in a grassy hollow on the west end of Sunset Valley, tucked behind the northeast side of Figueroa Mountain and a short walk from what is now Davy Brown Campground. He crafted a log cabin from the timber of his surroundings with help from a friend named George Wills. Brown lived in the cabin until the mid-1890s before returning to Guadalupe where, according to the coroner’s record, he passed at age 98 from cancer.
(Update August 18, 2011: To learn more about the life and times of Davy Brown and to see the aforementioned tintype image of Brown see Inside the Santa Ynez Valley‘s story “Davy Brown” from the summer of 2003.)
Source: The Yankee Barbarenos: The American Colonization of Santa Barbara County, California 1796-1925 and It Happened in Old Santa Barbara by Walker A. Tompkins.
I found this old Coke can half buried in the leaf mulch, beneath the oak and sycamore canopy in a deep canyon cut by a coastal stream in the mountains above Santa Barbara. On the side it reads, “New! All -Aluminum Can.”
One day, a half century ago, some careless slob chucked his empty can into the brush. I usually cringe, before getting pissed off, when I see litter in the woods so it is interesting to me how I was actually happy to find this piece. I guess, in some ways, certain pieces of garbage gain in value and at some point cease to be trash. What was tossed out fifty years ago is a collector’s item today auctioned off on eBay.
On being observant and habitually taking visual note of your surroundings from differing angles when in the wilderness:
“Busy as I was now a-talking, I found time to check my back trail. A man who travels wild country gets to studying where he’s coming from, because some day he might have to go back, and a trail looks a lot different when you ride over it in the opposite direction.
Every tree, every mountain, has its own particular look, and each one has several appearances, so you look back over your shoulder if you want to know country.”
Consider the experience of a local California hiker named Fred Heiser:
“I retrieved my ball of clothes and carefully worked my way back downstream and almost missed my gear again. The place I hid them [sic] didn’t look at all like it did when I’d first come down and I had hidden it very well indeed. Somehow the shifting shadows and reduced light made everything look different. But I knew it HAD to be there so I persevered and found them.”
Tar Creek Adventure September 18, 2003
Or the far more disastrous experience of Raffi Kodikian, which culminated in the killing of his friend after getting lost in the Chihuahuan Desert in 2000:
Kodikian’s Defense Attorney in court: “Did you ever stop at the top [of the canyon on the trail] and take a good look all the way around you to orient yourself as to where you were?”
Kodikian testifying on the stand: “We looked at the canyon on the way in. We were looking at what was in front of us. I’d say our first mistake–in hindsight–our first big mistake as far as getting lost went was when we got to the bottom of the entrance trail we didn’t turn around and look back at what we had just come down out of. We were looking ahead. We stopped for a couple of minutes and had some water, but we didn’t really look around to check out our surroundings.”
Jason Kersten, Journal of the Dead: A Story of Friendship and Murder in the New Mexico Desert
Potrero John Camp
1.7 miles from Potrero John Trailhead to Potrero John Camp in the Sespe Wilderness
Trailhead located on HWY-33 at Potrero John Creek
Elevation: Trailhead 3696 Camp 4152
The trail leaves HWY-33 plunging instantly into the spectacular gorge cut through the rugged and rocky pine studded terrain by Potrero John Creek. On the other side of the gorge, it opens up into a fairly wide open wash-type expanse created by the torrential runoff that drains into Potrero John Creek from the Pine Mountain watershed, which is formed by Reyes Peak (7514) to the west and Haddock Mountain (7361) to the east. Potrero John Camp is set beside the creek beneath these mountains.
The camp makes an excellent staging ground for further exploration of Potrero John Creek. Up the canyon 1.2 miles from camp is Potrero John Falls. Several other smaller falls are located along the feeder streams that drain into the creek from Reyes Peak.
Potrero John Creek watershed can be extremely dangerous during rainy weather due to flash flooding and mud and rock slides: Rescued Hikers on Potrero John January 18, 2010
Trail cutting through the rocky gorge at dusk.
Deadfall washed off the mountain lies as silent testimony reflecting the level and force of runoff flushing down the canyon in winter.
A fairly large cottonwood tree snapped like a toothpick.
Trail leading out of the gorge in fall with red-tinged poison oak.
Potrero John Camp beneath the peaks.
Potrero John Camp is located under the oaks beside the creek.
The camp in October with water still flowing in the creek.
Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure 
