Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure

Petroglyphs, Isle of Arran, Scotland

Posted on November 21, 2015 by Jack Elliott

The petroglyphs are found just inside this stand of planted conifers, silviculture being an important part of the local economy.

At nine at night I stepped out for a walk in the woods. Couldn’t sit around the house after dinner any longer and let slip away the last two hours of daylight. Neat novelty for a visiting Californian; darkness doesn’t fall on the Isle of Arran until about 11 o’clock in June. First light cracks in the morning at about four or so.

The mountains of Arran that night, thickly forested in conifer and dripping wet from intermittent rain showers or a stuffy old house? Right. “To the hills!” as the beard with a man says.

I stood gazing into the drenched, mossy forest, the sound of rain slashing through the trees overhead and pecking loudly against my hooded jacket. The strange woods were ominously thick and gloomy beneath a low ceiling of cloud cover.

I had only a vague sense of where I might find the slab of exposed bedrock whereon the petroglyphs were carved. The land was heavily forested with no rock outcrops and any open terrain outside tree cover was buried beneath a dense tangle of plants and peat. I couldn’t much hope to find the mysterious rock art by scanning the countryside for jumbles of rocks, because there were no rocks nor long views.

I walked on into the closed-in wilderness quietly, slowly, eager to find the ancient treasure, but also with a tinge of uneasiness.

“The word [wilderness] is European, and it is revealing that most Native American languages are unable to translate it. Its etymology derives from the Anglo-Saxon wildeor, meaning of wild and dangerous beasts, which speaks volumes about the perceptional differences toward nature between Europeans and Native Americans. For nearly 2,000 years the western mind has been conditioned to the value-laden meaning of wilderness as it is used in the Bible, where it appears more than two-hundred times and designates a wasteland, a chaotic and dangerous antithesis to civilization.

—Dan Flores, Caprock Canyonlands (1990)

Wilderness, as conceived in the Western mind thousands of years ago during the rise of civilization, has historically been a fearful, life-threatening realm of beasts and monsters, wherein the ignorance and imagination of early man combined to create fantastical creatures and supernatural beings.

Roderick Nash, professor emeritus of history and environmental studies at UCSB, writes of one such ancient monster in “Wilderness and the American Mind” (1965).

Pan engaging in some “gross sensuality” with a goat. (c) Marie-Lan Nguyen

“Pan, lord of the woods, was pictured as having the legs, ears, and tail of a goat and the body of a man. He combined gross sensuality and boundless sportive energy. Greeks who had to pass through forests and mountains dreaded an encounter with Pan. Indeed, the word ‘panic’ originated from the blinding fear that seized travelers upon hearing strange cries in the wilderness and assuming them to signify Pan’s approach.”

Standing alone in the darkening, rainy woods of a foreign nation I well understood the primeval emotions underpinning the historical understanding of wilderness. At that moment I was nothing if not a product of Western culture. A fickle human mind burdened with the cultural baggage of misconception, emotion overruling reason. The derivation of the word “panic” seemed apt.

As an aside, author Laurence Gonzales writes in “Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why,” that in dangerous situations emotions can serve defensively as instinctual, hair-trigger reflexes. Reason, by contrast, is methodical and slow in response to environmental stimuli.

When born we don’t fear a gun shot. As we mature we develop that or after being shot at. If shot at enough times our reaction becomes involuntary and automatic and instantaneous. Think of a war veteran immediately throwing themselves on the ground at the sound of gunfire or even a loud pop such as a car backfiring. That is a secondary emotional response designed, as science tells us, to save our life. “To survive, you must develop secondary emotions that function in a strategic balance with reason,” Gonzales writes. (These emotions can also get a person killed and Gonzales describes a number of examples.)

Intellect or reason, by contrast, can be far less effective. It would take a lot longer to seek cover if we had to, every time we heard a gun shot, reason our way through a maze of complicated thoughts to determine the nature of the threat, the level of potential danger, possible consequences, and, finally, what our response should be and how to achieve it. Emotion is automatic and instantaneous whereas thinking takes deliberate effort and time.

And so I wondered, in those gloomy Scottish woods that evening, if despite knowing by way of intellect that I was perfectly safe, emotion was somehow overriding that reasoning along the lines of what Gonzales had described in writing of danger, survival and the human mind.

I knew I had nothing whatsoever to fear from animals or horrid beasts, and that I stood firmly atop the food-chain. But the farther into the woods I wandered the creepier the place felt. I walked on slowly, softly, quietly, and scanned the trees and nervously cast glances over each shoulder every so often.

I hated to admit it to myself, in a running mental conversation as I walked, but there seemed to be a tinge of fear percolating. Was that it? Fear? Every look into the darkened alleyways formed by the conifers I imagined for a brief moment somebody or something storming out of the woods at me or that I might catch site of something, who knows what, scary as hell. As ridiculous as I knew it was, I couldn’t shake the uneasiness. Uneasiness, that’s a better word—if only for my delicate pride as a supposedly stoic woodsman.

I spied a rock slab in the waning evening light. My thoughts changed course to more pleasant pondering of ancient rock art, that is until the return walk to the car with even less light.

The rock slab was found in a small unremarkable clearing, mostly from the fact that no trees could grow from the stone, but probably also because the site has been pruned back and cleared on occasion to prevent the forest from swallowing it.

The scent of saturated peaty woodland and the sound of rain in the forest comprised the fragrance and soundtrack that evening, as I gazed at the concentric rings and cups carved into the rock, gently ran my fingers over and through them and wondered what it all meant.

Since I can only offer these hideous snapshots captured using my meager ability and an old cell phone camera, I have included here two vintage illustrations to give a better idea of what the rock art consists of.

Note the far-reaching view from the site revealed in the old drawing as compared to the density of the forest currently surrounding the rock as shown in my snapshots. The two images below, snapshot and illustration, are views looking in the same direction. Were the trees not there one could also enjoy a bird’s eye view of the sea and coastline just about a mile away in the other direction.

A quote out of the book from which the drawing is taken:

“It may be of some interest to note that a line bisecting the two ring-groups, G and H, points direct to the summit of Goatfell Peak, and this happens to be Magnetic North. The Polar North is also shown on my plan, and in the general view of the rock (Fig. 5) its relation to the fine range of peaks on the north, culminating in Ben Nuis, may be seen.”

—J. A. Balfour, “The Book of Arran” (1901)

Drawing showing magnetic and polar north, as referenced in the quote.

Posted in Scotland | Tagged Archaeology, Hiking, History, Isle of Arran, Nature, Petroglyphs, Rock Art, Scotland, Travel, Wilderness | 3 Comments

Vernal and Nevada Falls, Yosemite National Park

Posted on November 2, 2015 by Jack Elliott

Mortars in Yosemite Valley.

The Urban Wilderness

Yosemite National Park represents a contradiction to me. A place entirely about nature, but it’s crawling with hordes of chattering tourists and hiking trails are paved.

There is something oddly and strikingly askew about sections of the John Muir Trail being asphalted over. That seems more appropriate for a footpath dedicated to an industrialist like John D. Rockefeller, co-founder of Standard Oil, rather than naturalist Muir, founder of Sierra Club.

The hardscape immediately and irrevocably alters the ambiance of the trail making the setting feel less natural and wild, and more like an extension of the metropolis. The tentacles of humanity twisting their way deep into the woods to further claim them for urbanity. Junior pathways, “the very tip of the monster’s tentacle,” linking to the byways of “industrial tourism,” as Edward Abbey wrote.

Sidewalks and paved roads are unmistakably metropolitan. They are the capillaries and arteries of city life and that which connects and binds those urban organs of modern human existence together. Found in the woods, they refuse to let go of nature and allow it to be wild, but rather keep it tied to the sort of artificial human sphere I seek to escape when venturing into the wilderness. Such hardscape makes the forest feel like a park, which of course it is, a National Park.

Mirror Lake

The Wilderness Museum

Aldo Leopold once plead for “the preservation of some tag-ends of wilderness, as museum pieces, for the edification of those who may one day wish to see, feel, or study the origins of their cultural inheritance.”

Paved paths, hordes of people ambling around at every notable sight, metal hand railings and fencing and signs make my Yosemite experience feel more like a visit to a museum rather than a hike into the natural world. Perhaps Yosemite is indeed a museum piece of a sort, but hopefully our industrial society will never render it a mere tag-end of what once was.

I suppose these characteristics are inevitably unavoidable in a majestic place like Yosemite wherein millions of people visit annually. I can offer no reasonable alternatives to development when the park faces the annual onslaught of eight million human feet excitedly trampling about.

Leaving the park as close to wild as possible with scant artificial infrastructure is unrealistic when the millions of visitors can hardly be restrained even with all the barriers and trammels. I suppose it’s a ridiculous idea for Yosemite at this late stage of the game, maybe better suited for newer nature preserves, but I like naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch‘s idea of a good bad dirt road as a filtering device:

“There’s nothing like a good bad dirt road to screen out the faintly interested and to invite in the genuinely interested. And it’s perfectly democratic, open to anyone willing to endure a little inconvenience and discomfort for the sake of getting away from the crowds.”

Vernal Falls

John Muir Trail at Vernal Falls.

Faux falls on “Splash Mountain,” Disneyland.

The Wilderness Theme Park

Aside from being a museum showcasing our national inheritance, sometimes Yosemite feels something akin to a gargantuan theme park like Disneyland. When I think, dream, of having the magical power to create a natural wonderland it’s hard to imagine topping Yosemite, for it has nearly all the facets of a wild gem I could think of ever wanting; awesome granite peaks, raging waterfalls blasting off mountain precipices, serene stretches of crystal clear river and tall conifer forests humming with the silence of wildness. Even were I to top Yosemite in this hypothetical game, the park would be the blueprint of inspiration to begin with.

Yosemite is the quintessence of nature so dearly valued by lovers of wilderness and even those less inclined to value forest can’t help but be awed. It is a blueprint for the building of replicas of nature as found in places like Disneyland and urban parks.

In these artificial places the natural world is imitated and reflected, but also natural places like Yosemite come to reflect those artificial creations. Sometimes hiking the trail, amid the jostling crowds and signs and fences and railings, thoughts flash through my mind, that it’s as if the land before me of Yosemite has all been built, a theme park or the false facade front in a movie set of a spaghetti western.

Emerald Pool above Vernal Falls.

Liberty Cap and Nevada Falls.

John Muir Trail and Liberty Cap.

Luxury In the Woods

Ten years old was about the age I was when I first visited Yosemite. I had visited the park several times in subsequent years and on each visit we always camped. Not RV-style luxury camping, we always lived for the few days or week long trip down in the dirt and sleeping in tents. Roughing it, as they say.

This last March I stayed in a hotel for the first time. We booked a weekend in the prestigious and historic Ahwahnee originally built in 1927 and located on the valley floor of Yosemite. Our brief stay was like no other experience I have ever had.

In the morning I would wake, ready myself and gear, walk down stairs to the second floor to get a cup of exceptionally good complimentary coffee and proceed to walk out the door into the conifer forest and onto a hiking trail within just minutes of filling my cup. I’d be on the trail walking toward my destination for the day with my cup full of coffee still steaming.

Within minutes, by foot, I’d go from the warm, plush comfort of my bed and onto a trail that offered as many miles as I could physically and mentally bear to walk of some of the best hiking in the Unites States of America. I could, in point of fact, walk out the Ahwahnee, onto the Pacific Crest Trail, and all the way to Mexico or Canada by foot.

At day’s end, fatigued, dirty, smelly, hungry, ragged looking, I’d stagger back into the hotel to a hot shower, a cocktail or two at the bar, followed by an exquisite meal in the grand Ahwahnee Dining Room with Mrs. Elliott, and afterward a plush bed with a stack of books to read for the evening.

Looking from the other side at Nevada Falls.

It was a revolutionary trip. The luxury completely redefined in my mind what a visit to Yosemite is all about or, perhaps better stated, can be about should one desire it. Staying in a hotel and camping in tents are alternatives to each other and not substitutes. Each offers opportunities for far different experiences, all of which hold their own particular value.

In enjoying the luxe convenience I shouldn’t niggle about Yosemite seeming at times to be more of a museum or theme park rather than pristine, untrammeled and undeveloped nature.

In fact, now that I’ve tasted of the sumptuousness of such forest recreation I’m forever spoiled. I’ve gone soft. We’ve got plans booked for another trip come spring. I’m sure I won’t miss any of the dusty campsites nearby a lick. I might even shuffle through the jostling crowds with a wee bit more tolerance. Maybe.

View from top of Nevada Falls.

Posted in National Parks | Tagged Archaeology, Hiking, Hiking (2), iPhoneography, National Parks, Nature, Pics, Wilderness, Writing, Yosemite | 4 Comments

The Allure of Grass

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Jack Elliott

A small, but remarkable potrero in the Los Padres National Forest that is a short distance away from Mollisol Meadow.

“But it is upon the grass, mediator of soil and sun, that the human gaze has always tended to settle, and not just our gaze, either. A great many animals, too, are drawn to grass, which partly accounts for our own deep attraction to it: We come here to eat the animals that ate the grass that we (lacking rumens) can’t eat ourselves. ‘All flesh is grass.’ The Old Testament’s earthy equation reflects a pastoral culture’s appreciation of the food chain that sustained it, though the hunter-gatherers living in the African savanna thousands of years earlier would have understood the flesh-grass connection just as well.”

—Michael Pollan, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”

“It seems likely that the Santa Barbara coast in pre-European times was dominated by grassland and oak savanna. … Indian burning may also have been an important factor in maintaining the openness of oak savanna in coastal areas.”

—Jan Timbrook “Vegetation Burning by the Chumash“

The historic population of Chumash in the Santa Barbara area would have well-understood the flesh-grass connection mentioned by Pollan, as they routinely burned the landscape to encourage new plant growth, fresh green shoots and seeds, and thus increase their available food supply. While it is speculative, as per what little we know from historical sources, perhaps they also burned the forest to spur fresh plant growth to attract game to hunt.

But what is the appeal of grass for a modern day urbanite like myself? Few other features of the Los Padres landscape capture my attention like an open patch of grass, the potrero as they’re commonly called.

There is aesthetic value. I enjoy looking at a potrero, the golden brown hue of dry grass set against a dark green, shadowy backdrop of oaks or chaparral carpeted hills and a clear blue sky above. In other ways, as well, fields of grass are instantly pleasing to gaze upon.

Grassy flats serve a utilitarian purpose, too, providing uncommon open and level spaces for ancient habitation, early American homesteading and modern-day camping in a forest that is often densely covered in impenetrable chaparral and folded about by inhospitable mountain slopes. The role potreros have played in shaping the human condition fascinates me.

I like to analyze the character of potreros in this context. Consider their particular components—gnarled old oaks providing shade there, a creek running along the fringe here, an exceptional view of nearby sandstone crags over there—and decide on the best place to locate a campsite. I choose plots where I’d build a cabin and consider where the garden and orchard would go. I wonder about past peoples that have lived, camped and hunted in the potreros 100 years ago or 500 or 1000 years and more. I consider grass gazing a legitimate form of recreation, to relax in the shade of a tree on the edge of a quiet backcountry potrero and watch it lie there. And ponder.

Yet while I have an aesthetic as well as utilitarian interest to these swaths of grass surrounded by trees and brush, sometimes it seems there may be something far more to it than mere superficial attraction and historical curiosity. There is no doubt that I like to go sit around in a potrero for no particular reason.

Matias Potrero, Santa Ynez River environs.

Pollan suggests a far deeper connection to grassland habitat stemming from humanity’s prehistoric roots as hunter-gatherers. He notes that people’s appreciation for grass is often cited as an example of biophilia, the theory posited by E. O. Wilson, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winning evolutionary biologist at Harvard. Wilson’s hypothesis holds that humanity possesses, as a legacy of evolution, an innate bond or instinctual attraction to nature.

Wilson was recently featured in a Washington Times article mentioning biophilia and, specifically, his belief that grassland ecosystems are particularly attractive to humanity:

“Wilson believes that there is an innate tendency to want, as a human, to be in certain types of natural environments — particularly, he says, those that mimic African savannahs where we evolved. ‘People say, ‘I go there and in a short while, I feel somehow completely at home,’ Wilson says of traveling to the savannah.”

—Washington Post 9-30-15

I first came across bear sign on the creek bank under the oaks, along the shadowy fringe of the potrero shown in the first snapshot above. A few yards away a large oval patch of the deep grass was pressed flat to the soil where the bear had been laying. Funny I should have happened upon a bear’s bed when looking myself for a place to nap. Just a few feet away lay a huge wad of bear scat, gut-processed grass in this case.

For whatever reasons the bear and I were drawn to this small and remote parcel of grass. It seems reasonable that something instinctual led or at least nudged the bear to walk there. I would not be surprised and I don’t think anybody else would be either.

“For the most part we still, somewhat awkwardly, occupy the bodies of foragers and look out at the world through the hunter’s eye.”

—Michael Pollan, “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”

“We don’t have to go back to the Pleistocene, because our bodies never left.”

—Paul Shepard

If we are in many ways still the ancient hunter-gatherers from which we evolved, then it does not seem far-fetched to think that I, too, the human animal, am subconsciously motivated by prehistoric instincts or atavistic impulses, which compel me to venture into the wilderness for reasons I am not aware of and will never understand.

Related Posts:

Searching For Soul Outside the Cage

Grass Gazing In Cottam Meadow

Posted in Santa Barbara | Tagged Backpacking, Grass, Hiking, Hiking (2), iPhoneography, Los Padres National Forest, Nature, Pics, Potrero, Santa Barbara | 9 Comments

Mollisol Meadow

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Jack Elliott

“Maybe 7% of the landscape across the world is mollisol.”

-Dr. John Reganold, Professor of Soil Science and Agroecology, Washington State University

“Mollisols (from Latin mollis, ‘soft’) are the soils of grassland ecosystems. They are characterized by a thick, dark surface horizon. This fertile surface, known as a mollic epipedon, results from the long-term addition of organic materials derived from plants roots. …

Mollisols are among some of the most important and productive agricultural soils in the world and are extensively used for this purpose.”

–University of Idaho, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences

I crested the ridge picking my through the scrub, pushing through paths of least resistance in the tangle of wiry hardwood brush, and there it lay below, a remarkable meadow. The grassland covered a sloping depression which was enclosed entirely by chaparral and accented by two large coast live oak trees.

Walking through the grass of the meadow some minutes later it was evident that this field was an exceptional tract of land like few if any others in the vicinity. This was not an average dry meadow or potrero thinly covered in wild oats, star thistle and skinny grasses and floored by hardpan.

The grass, whatever it’s make up, I’m not sure, thickly covered the soil in a dense mat and my feet didn’t feel to be plodding on solid earth, as is the case in most fields I’ve walked across in the backcountry, wherein each footfall stomps the grass firmly down flat against the ground.

The grass was so dense it kept my feet well above the soil on uneven clumps and tufts. I had to tread carefully to avoid twisting an ankle. Despite so little rain in this fourth year of what may be the worst drought in California in 1200 years, and despite the unusually warm winter which at times had felt like summer, the forage was still, amazingly, tinged green and showed no signs of thinning to reveal bare dirt. Grassy fields elsewhere were already dead brown. Clearly the underlying soil was thick and nutrient-rich and held a remarkable amount of moisture.

The north and south sides of the field sloped toward its center and into a slight crease where rainfall naturally funnels. There in the center the grass was especially thick and even greener. In years of abundant rainfall it may be a boggy spot. From that spot there meandered a foot to two foot wide channel carved by flowing water, but which was dry. It led from the meadow, between hills, and turned into a small creek.

I walked over to the largest of the two trees, a skyscraper of an oak, rising unusually straight upward from the soil before branching out high overhead, lush and full and apparently enjoying an uncommon supply of water and nutrients. Sitting in its shade I scanned the meadow admiring how exceptional it was, how were I a pioneer back in the day I would of been keen to build a homestead here and “prove up,” where it not so far from a reliable water source. Although that problem may have been mitigated by the digging of a well and collection and storage of rainwater during winter. I daydreamed about returning to camp there during wetter times.

I dug through a foot of crispy oak leaf mulch, down to the soil to level a spot for my stove to brew coffee and boil soup for lunch. A rich organic fragrance hit my nostrils as soon as I exposed the dirt and instantly brought to mind chanterelle mushrooms. Having foraged for wild fungus for years in the Los Padres National Forest, the sweetish scent of good soil never goes unnoticed to me in the woods.

I glanced up and scanned the immediate area around me analyzing it, looking for softball-sized mounds of leaf mulch pushed up by mushrooms hidden beneath. They would have been dry by then and worthless, as it hadn’t rained in many weeks, while the weather had been exceptionally hot.

There were no signs of mushrooms, but judging by the scent of the dark soil it seemed to have had the qualities to support an abundance of edibles in wetter years. The symbiotic relationship between chanterelles and coast live oaks may be another reason why the tree was so large and healthy looking.

I was shocked to find that the soil was still moist. The hills around me were cooking, sage brush having barely the rain needed to sprout but little new growth. In some areas sage leaves were already shriveled and dead and it was only early April. Many creeks had not run for more than a day or so if at all for the last several years.

Yet here, in this rarely visited meadow without a trail, the soil was moist, fertile and thickly covered in dense green grass. I grabbed a palm full of soil and inhaled deeply of its rich earthy fragrance. How I love that smell. Squeezing it tightly the soil clumped together into a clod lined with the imprints of my fingerprints due to its moistness.

This place, these details, they may be of no import to anybody else and tedious to read. If they even hold one’s attention at all in this age of microwave oven immediacy and short attention spans. To me, however, this meadow is of great interest for various reasons, some mentioned above and some not.

The general point here is that there are or may be places out in the depths of the Los Padres National Forest that pique the personal interests of hikers for a wide variety of reasons, and which they have no idea exist.

On a topographical map these less visited wild places may be nothing more than contour lines, places without names nor labels, and unnoticeable on even the best maps covering Santa Barbara’s backcountry, well-crafted by local cartographer Bryan Conant. They may be unmentioned in the best guidebook to hiking the Santa Barbara backcountry, well-written by local author Craig R. Carey.

These places may even be unremarkable or unnoticeable when viewed online with satellite imagery and may be unknown or never written about nor mentioned even among the more experienced hikers, backpackers and campers of the region.

Hidden in plain sight this way, preserved in perpetuity by law, they are out there waiting to be discovered. If only one may spend the time and effort, and seize the opportunity, to explore the lands of their natural heritage and stumble upon them.

One never knows what they may find in the forest if only they look.

Posted in Santa Barbara County | Tagged backcountry, Backpacking, Camping, Hiking, Hiking (2), Los Padres National Forest, Nature, Pics, Santa Barbara, Travel, Wilderness | 9 Comments

The Trout

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Jack Elliott

(Author’s note: This story is being republished because of a faulty link in yesterday’s post, which when clicked rendered a “Not Found” memo. Please excuse the double posting if you have already seen this piece. Thank you.)

The pool.

“Once there were brook trout in the stream in the mountains. You could see them standing in the amber current where the white edges of their fins wimpled softly in the flow. They smelled of moss in your hand. Polished and muscular and torsional. On their backs were vermiculate patterns that were maps of the world in its becoming. Maps and mazes. Of a thing which could not be put back. Not be made right again. In the deep glens where they lived all things were older than man and they hummed of mystery.”

—Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

The pool filled the creek bed like ink in a well. Glassy and unusually dark, it had an eerie and mysterious blackness to its depths that hid from sight all there might be within. The boulders forming its edges were swallowed in darkness not far below the water’s surface, and although I couldn’t see or focus on anything at all, I couldn’t stop gazing into the opaque water, mesmerized by the rare liquid gem I had just happened upon.

I had spent the last nine hours strenuously hiking when I walked up on this secluded, seldom seen pool I previously had no idea existed. It was one of those treasures a person may luck upon, if they spend enough time exploring the forest for no other reason than just to see what it all looks like and what may be found.

The pool is not labeled on maps and not written about as a destination. My guess would be very few people know about it, still fewer having been there. I did not see sign of humanity, not so much as a telltale trace. An anomaly in a section of creek with few notable pools, this pool was located high up a mountain, far off-trail, and below a long section of dry creek bed. It seemed to be the last perennial pool in the creek.

I stood there alone in late afternoon shadows cast by rocky cliffs gazing into the water. There had to be fish in there. Trout. Steelhead! Well, at least at one point in time there must have been. I needed to keep getting on down the creek, maintain my pace out, for it was getting well into the afternoon, the fall of night a concern. I had a long hard hike remaining, but I could not leave this pool so fast, could not take my eyes off it.

And then it appeared, floating through the darkened water without concern. I knew it!

Steelhead

“Finally there is a glimpse of the snowfed mountain stream, the Santa Ynez River, where dwell the speckled beauties sought by the nimrods and found in abundance.”

—Sausalito News, March 29, 1913

In the weeks and months that followed I pondered the trout, there in that small pool, hole up in a tributary of a tributary, protected from people by a long boulder-filled trench of a brush tangled creek with no trail, and that required near crawling at times just to pass through, and no publicized destination at its end to attract anybody, ignored by all but the most determined explorers, those whom can’t resist beating themselves to a pulp knowing they may find nothing remarkable, yet still seek the satisfaction of seeing a place in person.

One day I would return.

There was nowhere to sleep anywhere near the pool that would afford a wink of rest. It was nothing but uneven bedrock, boulders, and cobblestones and fractured sharp and pointy rockfall. A tent would be completely useless, a minimalistic bed roll no better. A hammock slung between two trees would serve best.

Fresh trout barbecued over an open wood-fired flame for dinner. Not wanting to be wasteful, but respectful of its life, I thought about simmering the bones and head for broth to be filled with its roasted meat as a soup, possibly accented by a few wild herbs and roasted wild bulbs. The entrails and whatnot used as bait in a small trap to catch crawdads. Roasted miniature lobster tails dipped in a wild sage-tinged hot drawn butter plays well in my mind for lunch the following day.

Then it occurred to me that I had taken for granted this one trout I was lucky enough to spot in this lone desolate pool I was fortunate to happen across. I was surprised to see it gracing waters I otherwise thought long emptied of trout, because I believed other people had fished the creek into decline.

Yet I plotted my own attack to take it for myself as soon as I saw the fish. A sort of tragedy of the commons playing out in my mind, I was acting the lead role of plunderer. So rare was it in my experience to find a sizable native trout swimming carefree in a creek in the year 2015 in southern California, that I had felt compelled to get mine while I still could and to hell with everybody and everything else! If I didn’t take the trout somebody else would. And if nobody did Mother Nature would. I had resisted catching other trout in previous years only to return and find the pool holding them had gone dry.

I hadn’t questioned my ability to catch the trout. I know how to fool wary fish in small and calm pools from years of experience. And this particular fish would be even easier to catch, as it had not been acquainted with, and thus wary of, every lure known to mankind like most fish in nearly every other trout hole or lake in southern California.

The trout had glided ever so slowly out into open water, not far below the surface, away from the immediate safety and security of surrounding structure, evidencing an uncommon degree of carefree confidence; another sign of the absence of humanity at this remote location.

I felt I could take the unsuspecting trout with one well-placed cast. But was that the point of all this, to so easily hook an unwary fish?

The longer I pondered the matter and thought of the fish and what it represented, symbolically, metaphorically, the more I knew that that was not the point. It would be a meaningless exercise of dominance with little lasting satisfaction.

I might regret it later, might rue the day for decades to come. “There was this one trout,” I might tell my grandchildren, “that I was obsessed with catching,” before trailing off into a woeful fable of shortsightedness and greed.

I began considering ways to take the trout with true skill and ingenuity worthy of the fish; perhaps crafting a rod from a willow or elderberry branch nearby, a hook and line from natural material collected in the area. (Ray Mears: Hooks from thorns; Hooks from twigs and roots; Cordage from willow; Cordage from nettles.)

If I was lucky I might be unfortunate enough to spend years trying to hook a single trout in this fashion. If I ever did, then it would form a memory of angling worth far more than any fishing experience I have ever had.

At that point maybe the previous daydreams of a wild-caught, fireside meal in a distant creek would alone suffice, and I’d ever so gently release the beautiful specimen, a living reservoir of rare and priceless DNA, back into its natal waters to carry on “a thing which could not be put back” once taken for no other reason, but to satisfy the hunger of one man for a few measly hours.

Maybe that is how this game should be made to play out. That the thought alone will serve sufficient.

The trout left in peace.

And remain uncaught.

* * * * *

Last-Ditch Plan Aims to Prevent First Drought Extinction of Native Fish – Scientific American, July 30, 2015

Shasta Lake, California: “The tanks of Livingston Stone National Fish Hatchery are providing refuge this summer for salmon nearly out of water. There, staffers are rearing the only insurance policy that the Sacramento River’s winter-run Chinook have against extinction: a living genetic bank of 1,035 baby fish, selected to reseed the population should it extinguish in the wild.”

Heat, Drought Cook Fish Alive In Pacific Northwest – USA Today, July 31, 2015

“Freakishly hot, dry weather in the Pacific Northwest is killing millions of fish in the overheated waters of the region’s rivers and streams.

‘We’ve lost about 1.5 million juvenile fish this year due to drought conditions at our hatcheries,’ Ron Warren of Washington State’s Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a statement. ‘This is unlike anything we’ve seen for some time.'”