ADIDAS: All Day I Dream About Soaking.
“Absolutely insane. I’m blown away. Complete apathy on so many forest issues, yet this is what they decide to enforce? Bullshit.”
–Anonymous, Montecito resident of local birth
“‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass — a idiot.’”
―Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (1837)
On February 14, I was forwarded a video from a close friend showing a man being handcuffed by two Los Padres Forest Service law enforcement officers at Montecito Hot Springs.
The video was taken by another, different person who I’m acquainted with and speak to somewhat frequently.
We believe the ham-fisted use of force over the naked recreationist, who was permitted to dress prior to getting cuffed, is clearly unmerited and for trivial matters of no honest, real concern or consequence whatsoever.
Ostensibly, the harmless skinny-dipper was detained and cited for breaking the law by moving a few small creek stones to partially rebuild a little soak pool damaged by storm runoff.
But that’s actually not really what was happening here.
Properly seen, this is the latest skirmish over public access and use of the Montecito Hot Springs in a simmering battle between average recreationists and well heeled oppositionists, between the common interest of the many and the special interest of an elite few.
Recall Brian D. Fitzgerald’s fit, the incident where a Hot Springs Lane homeowner was caught red-handed leading a demolition crew to destroy the pools:
Fitzgerald’s Fit: Man Leads Work Crew To Wreck Montecito Hot Springs
Dissecting Docherty: Eagle Demo & the Hot Springs Wrecking Crew
See also Noozhawk: Montecito’s Hot Springs at Center of Cold War Over Pools, Parking
And so the hapless stonemover’s actions appear to have provided a pretext for the oppositionists, by way of the Forest Service, to send a loud message to the recreationists at large: SCRAM!
The firearm speaks louder than the calmy folded hands. We are not fooled. This is an act of aggression.
Context
A soaker cited for moving small stones to stack mere inches high to pool water.
At a place where we’ve seen nature pile stones and sediment over three feet high in a slug of debris 40 feet long in a single night’s rainstorm, dramatically lifting the height of the entire creek bed.
Storm runoff does nothing different than we humans do in moving rocks and altering flow, other than doing so with far more force, consequence and permanence.
The Montecito Debris Flows in 2018 killed at least 23 people and destroyed or damaged several hundred homes. Runoff flowing out of Hot Springs Canyon that morning contributed to the natural disaster. My wife knew one of the victims.
It was that natural event on the mountain that brought about the current state of existence and public use of the Montecito Hot Springs as exists today.
Humans moving stones around to form small soak pools is utterly inconsequential by comparison, no matter how you measure it.
The pools are impermanent, insignificant, benign. They’re shallow and modest in depth and size and respectful of place and setting.
We don’t believe the pools alter the flow of water in ways that cause any measurable harm whatsoever.
All the water flows downstream at the same rate in the same general manner and course as happens without the pools.
Does it make sense to dispatch law enforcement and cite people?
The use of force by the Forest Service in our local woods appears intended to squelch public recreation.
That’s a mighty peculiar strain of public service.
Pipe carrying hot springs water to select private interests holding rights. Let them have their fair share of water undisturbed. Let the people have their fair share of water undisturbed.
An Attack
The day the citing happened the creek had been tossed and turned over by runoff from recent rains.
It appears the arrival of Los Padres law enforcement officers was preplanned and consciously timed. This looks like a calculated hit.
Did the Forest Service go in expecting people (of goodwill and decent intentions) to be diverting water (repairing the pools after a rain), so the dissident transgressors (harmless folks) could be made to face justice (railroaded)?
For minor “illegal” maintenance of legal pools?
Hot Springs Trail tramps.
Making violators of well-meaning folks seeking good clean fun in pursuit of happiness.
How does this serve public interests or the general welfare?
An armed raid carried out under the guise of protecting a California waterway.
The law in this instance was employed as a blunt tool, if not wielded as a weapon like a cudgel, to accomplish the ulterior motives of the oppositionists trying to smash recreational use.
A show of brutish force to make a loud statement.
This was meant to inject a chilling effect into the hot springs scene and scare and intimidate common folk.
Why isn’t Brian D. Fitzgerald made to remove the sign he bolted to a creek boulder, which is inaccurate and misleading and misplaced?
Doublespeak
“The Montecito hot springs have been used by the public as well as the native inhabitants in this area since long before Los Padres National Forest came into being.”
“Our position continues to be that we are not removing the bathing pools, as that would amount to eliminating an established and appropriate recreational use. That said, we are also not approving building more pools there.”
–Andrew Madsen, Forest Service spokesman, as quoted in Noozhawk
Macfadyen of Noozhawk said of Andrew “Milquetoast” Madsen’s mealy-mouthed statement:
“In one of the most adroitly lame statements I’ve read in a while, Los Padres National Forest spokesman Andrew Madsen gave a master class in avoiding responsibility.”
Follow the logic and be amused over the incoherence of Madsen’s policy statements and Forest Service actions.
If the Forest Service forcibly prevents maintenance rebuilds of existing pools already deemed to be established and used appropriately, then in practice the end result of their policy amounts to the elimination of the pools.
It’s the same as if the Forest Service purposefully destroyed the pools along with Fitzgerald; the pools ruined, just accomplished by different means, nature.
It’s a theoretical distinction without a practical difference in the end. It’s a dishonest, passive aggressive policy of purposeful ruination.
What an insult. Do Andrew Madsen and Daryl Hodges think we’re thoughtless idiots? They treat us like fools.
Funny how Madsen pretends to speak so fondly of the historical and long standing use of the hot springs as a justification for their continued existence, even slipping a reference to Indians in there.
Very lame, indeed.
Now it appears clear that the unstated policy of the Forest Service is for the hot springs to be washed out and destroyed by natural forces.
The “established and appropriate recreational use,” “since long before Los Padres National Forest came into being,” is promptly ignored when not serviceable by the federal government, as if it suddenly means nothing at all, whatsoever.
We are expected to forget it, Madsen? Take a hike.
Record of Wanton Destruction and Forest Closure
Local press wrote a puff piece introducing Santa Barbara District bossman, Daryl “Scare All” Hodges, as he is affectionately now known in this neck of the woods.
They told us romantically how he grew up “running wild up and down the creeks.”
Now Hodges serves to pester folks for soaking peaceably in creeks. He’s come a long way, indeed.
Let it be known, the Forest Service in this instance was used to thwart public use of one of the greatest public resources and founts of health and well-being on public lands in Santa Barbara County. A place with a history of human use thought to stretch back in time so far it can’t even be known for sure.
How about that?
A travesty of public service.
Will the Forest Service and Daryl Hodges be the death of this prehistoric peoples’ treasure? Will they steal our gem from us through strong-arm tactics?
It is not an unfair question. The Forest Service already has such a track record of state-sponsored vandalism toward natural hot springs and the people’s property.
They are known already as miracle killers.
Related Post:
Hiking Is Not A Crime: Done Dirty By Diktat
Morel growing under a coast live oak tree with California poppies. (April 2025)
Golden cherries ripening riverside in October, 2024.
Sisquoc River serenity.
Western slope of Mauna Loa (13,100′). The old trail of footprints lies somewhere beneath the cloud cover.
The Ka’u Desert.
A sloping deposit of soft, deep sand, textured by wind.
bird brain
Threads of volcanic glass called Pele’s hair cover the Ka’u Desert in thin filaments and windblown windrows, looking remarkably similar to blonde human hair.
The thin layer of ashen mudstone, undercut by runoff, whereupon lie the foot prints.
Tiny balls of mud permeate the ash deposit, as seen with a close look at the previous photo. Once liberated from the deposit by erosive forces, the bb-sized balls litter the desert floor. Did these concretions fall from the sky as muddy rain drops, caused by the thunderstorm rains of 1790?
In the area under the clouds, as shown in the very first snapshot in this post, the prints cross through middle frame here, the western slope of Mauna Loa in the distance.
Three toe prints left, two erased by erosion. (March 2025)
Foot held aloft, not touching the ground.
This is one of the deeper, larger footprints, showing most prominently the heel pressed into the mud, pebbles sitting in it like a bowl. The print lies at the broken off edge of a plate of mudstone, which has been undercut from runoff. The toes and ball of the footprint have been erased by erosion and washed away.
A hand for scale showing a print measuring less than nine inches long.
Photo imagery doesn’t quite convey how striking the coloration appeared in the field when seen for the very first time.
Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure 