Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure

A Skillet Full of Fish

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Jack Elliott

A calico bass might of been the first fish I shot as a kid while spearfishing. They seemed to be the most common, best tasting game in the water at that time. Which merely means that they were largely the only fish I was observant and skilled enough to routinely catch sight of as a floundering young freediver.

In other words, the meager water skills I possessed as a kid were nonetheless sufficient enough to enable me to bring home small kelp bass more often than anything else. I always hoped for the halibut, and I nabbed a few lobsters, caught a fleeting glance of a couple white seabass, but mostly came away with calicos.

I was always stoked to shoot a calico. In later years, however, as I got more experience in the water, and came to better understand the sea life community surrounding coastal kelp forests, both perennial inhabitants and seasonal visitors, and the potential to take larger, more highly prized game fish, kelp bass lost their attraction.

Whereas I had previously been proud, or at least happy, to bring home a calico for dinner, they became almost an embarrassment at times when compared to halibut and white seabass and yellowtail and lingcod.

Calico became the grubby little fish you lied to your buddies about having shot to cover the big game jackpot you were hiding on board and didn’t want them to know about.

“Get anything?” He shouted over the gunwale as our boats idled beside each other in the Santa Barbara Harbor entrance.

“Not much. Just a few calicos,” my buddy replied, hoping they wouldn’t see the bloated cooler bag stuffed with limits for four guys of 40 to 50 pound white seabass, big fan tails sticking out.

We’d drive up to a favorite spearfishing spot and, right after killing the engine, somebody would grab a pole with an iron on it and hurl it as far as he could, then crank it in, hooking a calico. “A couple of tacos,” they’d say with a shrug, downplaying the catch while throwing it into the cooler. Then we’d suit up and slip into the water to see about shooting some real fish. Big WSBs.

Jack in blue with a friend and well over two hundred pounds of freshly caught white seabass shot somewhere in Santa Barbara County.

But what about the pellucid waters of late fall or early winter, when the weather is exceptional, the swell nearly nonexistent, the seawater invitingly pacific and clear, yet when the halibut have moved into deeper water far offshore to spawn, and the white seabass have migrated away, and the reefs have mostly been plucked clean of lobster?

This during an epic drought in California, when the Los Padres National Forest is drier than it has been in at least a century, when the creeks and rivers meandering in silence through the forest have been nothing but desiccated crusty cobblestone pathways for months or years.

Well then, in these conditions, the pull of the sea becomes irresistible for a saltwater junky like me despite the lack of bigger game fish. I mentally cannot bear to stand on the coastal bluffs of Santa Barbara County overlooking the Pacific Ocean, peering through the shimmering, crystalline aquamarine waters, and refuse its offer.

Jack heading out. (c) John Pierpont

I kicked out into the sea scanning the rippled sand bottom hoping to spot a laggard halibut perhaps confused by shifting weather patterns and ocean currents and temperatures. But the submarine forest was mostly vacant apart for several varieties of small fishes. That is except for those other perennial residents, calico bass.

I was fortunate enough to cross paths with a respectably-sized calico among a stand of kelp and manage to get off a well-placed shot. I was stoked to have fresh fish for dinner and something wild and healthy I harvested myself to offer my children.

Yet were I too walk by somebody on the beach afterward, traipsing back to my truck hauling my gear, I’d shy away from letting them see it and have no interest in letting it be known that I had a calico bass. Unlike hiding larger game fish so as not to attract people’s attention and give away a prime fishing zone, with a calico I’d actually by embarrassed.

When I got home, however, and prepared the fish and its brilliant white fillets completely filled my iron skillet, sputtering in rich butter made from the milk of grass-fed cows and freshly-pressed olive oil, I understood the silliness of my earlier feelings of embarrassment over a supposedly inadequate catch. I came to appreciate that I need far less to be satisfied than I sometimes think, that I can be a tad greedy, and that I’m far more fortunate than most of the seven billion people on this planet, nearly half of whom purportedly still cook meals over open flame campfires for lack of modern technology.

I hear from friends and see their photos of lunkers, the big flatties, big croakers, big tunas, but what do I have to complain about with a skillet full of fresh fish I caught myself? Halibut and white seabass are exceptionally tasty, but a couple of calico fillets cooked properly are pretty good, too.

The centerpiece of one night’s modest dinner for the small family Elliott. Center mass shot, not bad, eh?

Posted in Santa Barbara County | Tagged Beach, Fishing, Halibut, Nature, Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Photos, Santa Barbara, Spearfishing, White Seabass, Writing | 3 Comments

Lost Hikers and Search and Rescue

Posted on January 3, 2015 by Jack Elliott

A winter scene in the Santa Ynez Mountains, Los Padres National Forest.

“No, I can’t say I was ever lost, but I was bewildered once for three days.”

“I wouldn’t give a tinker’s damn for a man who isn’t sometimes afraid. Fear’s the spice that makes it interesting to go ahead.”

—Daniel Boone (1734-1820)

cowboy up
[kou-boi uhp]

verb

1. ( US, informal) to adopt a tough approach or course of action
2. to tuff up; to get back on your horse; to never back down or give up; to face the hand you’re dealt without complaint

I’m going to opine here and perhaps ruffle a few feathers if not anger some people, but I’m not one to remain silent out of concern about such trivial and fickle matters as human emotions. I’m sick of hearing about so-called “lost” hikers calling in Search and Rescue (SAR) to save them from having to face the inconvenience and discomfort of the consequences of their own poor decisions.

In the neighborhood where I grew up, and within the school from which I come, a man was measured by his willingness to accept without complaint the consequences of his actions. That whatever situation a fella got himself into he was first and foremost responsible for getting himself out of before calling on others to risk their health and lives to help him. He looked not to others to relieve him of unwanted, though entirely bearable circumstances. And I do not mean a fleeting or cursory attempt, but a damn good, all in, everything tried sustained effort.

I do not intend to say that a person should never call on SAR or rely on their selfless and noble service, but that I believe such services should be reserved for rescuing people who have sustained serious injuries or are facing imminent great bodily harm or death. I routinely read about so-called “lost” hikers who when the sun goes down have rescue personnel deployed, at great expense, to save them from a few hours of uncomfortable cold and darkness, circumstances brought on by their own thoughtless actions or misguided behavior, situations entirely survivable without injury let alone death. SAR does not exist, in my opinion, to save people from fear or a few shivers and goosebumps or a sleepless night.

I have noted on this blog before, and I am sincere in saying it, that “I’d rather spend a cold miserable night lost in the woods and have another try at finding my way out next morning, rather than call for help. I’d die sooner from embarrassment than exposure.”

When discussing this matter with my wife recently, after reading a post one night from a lady requesting help on the Santa Barbara Swap Facebook page to locate her boyfriend who had misplaced himself in the Santa Ynez Mountains above Santa Barbara, my wife said she wouldn’t hesitate much in calling SAR if I failed to show up after dark. (We do, however, have an understanding that I should be granted a solid chunk of time well after the sun goes down before she even considers calling in the troops.)

I replied in jest as if acting like a rescuer, “We located the lost hiker, but it was the strangest thing. Upon seeing us he fled further into the bush and we were unable to catch up to him. After several hours of fruitless attempts at relocating him we called off the effort.”

I would dread seeing SAR arriving to “rescue” me if I was not incapacitated or not facing serious harm. We later read that rescuers were purportedly dispatched to find the lady’s confused boyfriend and his friend and found them in the vicinity of Seven Falls. Numerous news reports over the years recount similar events. Were they rescued from serious harm or from mere fear and discomfort?

Posted in Santa Barbara | Tagged Hiking, Los Padres National Forest, Lost Hikers, Nature, Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez Mountains, Search and Rescue | 17 Comments

Fight With a Condor: Experience of a Forest Ranger in Santa Barbara County (1902)

Posted on December 30, 2014 by Jack Elliott

Although the forest ranger mentioned in the newspaper article below is Joseph Montgomery, I wonder if it may actually have been a brief about Josiah T. Montgomery, for whom Montgomery Potrero atop the Sierra Madre Mountains is named. I do not know if Josiah was a forest ranger, but he was a pioneer of the Sisquoc River region and his was the last official homestead claim made in that particular area (Blakley & Barnette 1985).

The article was originally published in the Los Angeles Herald in 1902. About that time the California condor population is estimated to have numbered about 600. By 1987 the condor population had been decimated by intentional and unintentional human actions. In that year the last California condor still flying free in the wild was captured in a desperate attempt to save the species from possible extinction.

A condor soaring over Sespe Wilderness, as seen on a hike to Whiteacre Peak. (Return to Whiteacre Peak or Day of the Condor)

Fight With a Condor: Experience of a Forest Ranger in Santa Barbara County

SANTA MARIA, March 12 —As Joseph Montgomery, one of the forest rangers, was on his way to town last week from the government forest reserve he had quite an experience with a California condor. Coming down a wild canyon he noticed a commotion in some brush near the trail, and on investigation found that two mountain foxes had attacked an immense condor, which was apparently sick and disabled. As the fighters worked out of the brush Montgomery tried to lasso the bird, but with no success, as he would fight the rope off with his wings. It attacked Montgomery by striking at him with his beak and talons, and for a time was getting the best of him until the ranger picked up a club and soon dispatched the bird, but not until his clothes were in a sadly demoralized condition, and he still can show several ugly scratches. The wings, which he brought home, measured nine feet across. As this species is vary rare, he tried to capture it alive.

Posted in Santa Barbara County | Tagged Condors, History, Los Padres National Forest, Nature, Newspapers, Santa Barbara, Sisquoc, Vultures, Wildlife | 1 Comment

Piedra Blanca Creek West, Descent From Pine Mountain Lodge Camp

Posted on December 24, 2014 by Jack Elliott

A smidgeon of Piedra Blanca.

“Civilization has a relatively precarious hold on us and there is an undoubted attraction in a life of absolute freedom once it has been tasted. The ‘call o’ the wild’ is in the blood of many of us and finds its safety valve in adventure.”

—Percy Fawcett, legendary British explorer of the Amazon who vanished without a trace in the “green hell” of the jungle in 1925 never to be heard from or seen again.

After confirming a plan with Stillman to hike up to Pine Mountain Lodge Camp and descend Piedra Blanca Creek, I spent the next week dreading it. How easy it would be to not wake up when it’s dark, to not haul my butt up three thousand feet of mountain in six miles only to turn around and hike down the mountain, without a trail, over unknown terrain.

But the self-imposed forced march is always inevitable. There is something deeply ingrained in me that, sooner or later, always wins out and compels the body to follow the order of the mind. One week I’ll be stumbling back to the trailhead thoroughly exhausted with aching muscles, repeatedly wondering why I do this to myself, while also thinking that at least now I’ve had my fill for awhile. Yet, by the next week my mental half is already Jonesing to get out and punish my physical half some more.

As ridiculous as it is to compare anything I’ve done or ever will do to the adventures, in the true sense of the word, of Percy Fawcett, I suspect I am routinely driven into the woods on long and sometimes grueling hikes by a strain of pathology similar to what propelled him into the jungle time and again.

DavidStillman.blogspot.com

Pine Mountain Lodge Camp along the headwaters of Piedra Blanca Creek.

Piedra Blanca Creek emerges from a crease in the mountaintop, just above Pine Mountain Lodge Camp (PML), a thin brook winding through the rocky high conifer forest alongside the backpacking camps. Neither of us had laid eyes upon the upper length of this creek aside from its headwaters around the campsites.

A short distance below PML prime was a stretch of the unknown. There was even the potential for a chance at encountering some degree of relative adventure. What was there? Waterfalls or caves and incredible sandstone outcrops? Endearing creekside flats perfect for camping but that are never visited? Remnants of historic Americana? Traces of prehistoric Native Americana? It was the lure of the unknown and an unanswered question of how it might proceed. It was tempting. And irresistible.

Fall color in the Sespe Wilderness.

We knew there was no official trail. I was operating on the premise that there wasn’t likely much to see in the upper reaches of Piedra Blanca Creek; little that might set it apart from the other creeks in the neighborhood; nothing that would attract the average hiker.

Despite not thinking I was going to find the extraordinary, I nonetheless felt compelled to put in the strenuous work required to survey the land on foot myself, never satisfied sitting at home scanning through other people’s photos and brief captions via the Internet. Even if I had heard that there was nothing remarkable to see, I’d still have gone. I can’t help it. And much that might be said to be ordinary or unremarkable by most people usually hold a greater degree of value to me.

Hoping boulders down the creek, I turned for a view of my backtrail just as a beam of sunlight shot through a gap in the clouds illuminating a massive old-growth cedar and bringing out its characteristic brilliant red hue.

The gnarled fingers of a giant cedar growing midstream.

This was my first hike of autumn and what a glorious day for it, just following the first rainfall of the season. So long had it been dry. The sky was a brilliant blue, but daubed here and there with just the right touch of white clouds, sometimes puffy, sometimes torn and wispy, to add character and depth to the crystalline air, which was freshly washed and filled with an invigorating mélange of earthy and herbal fragrances, newly moistened soil and damp chaparral.

We walked up on a large black bear, which we may have come face to face with had our timing been less than a minute different. We had been downwind from it and sufficiently quiet enough that it might have told its friends the same tale as I have here, that it unknowingly walked right up on two humans.

I had heard the crack of some bending branches or bushes, but had dismissed it as a deer. When we passed around a boulder blocking our view we saw it traipsing away only to pause once up the slope and out of the creek and give us a good stare down. I didn’t much like the way it looked at us.

We came across a remarkable amphitheater-shaped outcrop or grotto over which the creek flows. Beneath the overhang it was felted over in dense dark green moss and embellished with delicate fern fronds poking from the cracks in the sandstone.

The woods through which the creek flows exude a primeval ambiance. A keen eye, however, may spy telltale signs of previous human passing. But just a couple, and only minute and subtle traces. It’s wild up there. Remote. Shadowy and mysterious with a tinge of creepiness. Big timber. Big boulders. Big beasts. It is legitimate big mountain terrain and wildness quite unlike what might commonly be thought of as typical forest found so close to Ojai and Ventura.

The grotto.

And then, leaving the open tall timber, and falling lower in elevation, we entered into the range of chaparral and the creek suddenly became choked with dense brush and brambles. I went from standing erect and easily hoping boulders while scanning the surrounding conifer-clad slopes, to crouching, scrambling and crawling under a frustratingly thick tangle of overgrowth spread across the creek like a sieve straining the runoff of flotsam during winter storms.

Getting stabbed, poked, and sliced. Incessantly impeded and pestered. And unable to see much more than what was passing within a short distance before me. When possible I’d stand craning my neck straining to see where in the canyon we might be, and then sulk in contempt at how much farther we had to fight our way through the nightmarish tentacles of brush.

Approaching a dry waterfall just prior to entering the unpleasantly brushy section of creek.

We finally broke through onto the official trail once again. That is always a refreshing feeling, to set foot onto a wide-open, well-packed trail that requires so much less physical effort and seemingly zero mental attention, after barging through woody and wiry mountain weeds constantly searching for the path of least resistance.

While I had satisfied my curiosity in experiencing firsthand what that stretch of the wilderness was made up of, the craving for yet more of the same, always coursing through my interior, would soon yet again make itself known. It’s insatiable.

Related Posts:

Pine Mountain From Piedra Blanca

Piedra Blanca

Posted in Ventura County | Tagged Backpacking, Bears, Camping, Creeks, Hiking, Los Padres National Forest, Nature, Piedra Blanca Creek, Pine Mountain, Sespe Wilderness, Wildlife | 6 Comments

Hericium Hunt: Days Late and Feet Short

Posted on December 6, 2014 by Jack Elliott

A hericium or “Lion’s Mane” mushroom growing on an oak tree, circled in red.

With the first rain of the season some weeks ago the countdown had begun until the opening harvest of mushroom season. One week passed. It may have still been a mite early at that point for the particular type of mushrooms I was after, knowing it was far too early for chanterelles, if enough rain had even fallen to make them fruit. I only had a fraction of a day that weekend and so I opted to go spearfishing rather than mushroom hunting.

Another week passed and by this time I was figurin’ it was too late, but I couldn’t blow it off entirely, had to take a looksee at one of my go-to sites. Even if I found the mushrooms rancid or partially dried, it was still important to me to witness the ways of nature and how these things work, how the equation adds up under the variables of an exceptional drought. Conditions, weather, had been so dry for so long, the soil hydrophobic in all but the most protected and moist nooks of the forest, that I figured this site would be producing if anywhere was after such minimal rainfall.

Making my way down the steep slope beneath the chaparral and into the creek I noted right off how dry it was already. It was as if no rain had fallen. It smelled parched. The creek was flowing, not unexpectedly, but everything else was crispy and dusty. The leaf mulch crackled under foot rather than absorbing footsteps in muffled compression.

I was surprised to see that the oyster mushroom colony on a standing dead tree rising from the creek bed had not even sprouted. The hericium I was after had also not sprouted. I wasn’t too late. Nothing had even happened. Not enough rain.

I wandered up the creek, my dog bounding behind me. I walked the canyon aimlessly, observant, searching the forest for whatever might catch my attention: step, hop, bound, step, pause, peer. With head tilted upward, scanning the slope rising beneath the oak canopy, a white spot caught my eye. Bingo! A hericium was growing from a knot hole in a big oak.

I hadn’t seen this mushroom in previous years though it grew just a short distance from one I had harvested numerous times, the one that had not yet sprouted, likely because it grows in the rain shadow under a log and requires heavy rainfall. The one I had just found was growing in an hole facing skyward that collects rain.

Teetering

I scrambled up the slope to the tree and quickly found that the mushroom was too high to reach and that I had no way to climb up and grab it. Using my trekking pole I was barely able to reach the mushroom, standing precariously on tip toes on a rock leaning over a short drop.

I gave it a gentle prod, but they root firmly into the wood and it was clear I wouldn’t be able to liberate it without tearing it to pieces. I drew back my pole, the end of the handle wet with hericium juice. I gave the wet spot a sniff. The fragrance was remarkably fruity and sweet smelling, so much so that it made my salivary glands tighten and my mouth water. That’s probably not something one typically would think of happening when smelling fungus.

I forced a chunk of the mushroom off with my pole and it plopped into the leaf mulch below. I was just a bit too late, the fruit beyond its prime and beginning to rot. While that was a disappointment, I was nonetheless stoked to have found another hericium.

Even on days that don’t go according to plan valuable experience may be gained, experience that accumulates into wisdom. Following the first rain of next season it will be a site I’ll return to, with a rope ladder, to harvest one of the most delectable mushrooms in the forest, far superior to the highly overrated, lesser mushroom, the chanterrelle.