Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure

Holly-leaved Cherries

Posted on September 13, 2012 by Jack Elliott

Holly-leaved cherries (Prunus ilicifolia), seen here in the process of ripening, are a wild grown food that can be foraged in the local mountains.

“Prunus ilicifolia is the most common wild cherry in coastal California south of San Francisco Bay, and it was used as food by every group in whose territory it occurs.”

—Jan Timbrook Chumash Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge Among the Chumash People of Southern California

Holly-leaved cherries, called ‘akhtayukhash in Barbareno Chumash, are fruiting right now. The fruit, which grows as a thin layer of flesh covering a hard marbled-sized seed pod, is edible right off the plant. The pulp is not much thicker than the skin and offers little more than a taste, but it is juicy and sweet tasting.

Though the pulp is edible, the kernel within the fruit pit was the most valued part of the plant for the Chumash Indians. The seed pods were cracked and the kernels collected, which could then when dried be stored for as long as necessary until they were needed.

The kernels, however, contain hydrocyanic acid and are poisonous. Before eating them they must be properly prepared to remove the poison, as well as their bitter taste. The preparation process involves leaching the poison from the kernels using fresh water.

After the kernels were leached of poison, they were cooked for several hours by boiling until they became soft, then mashed, rolled into balls and coated in pinole flour made from juniper or grass seeds. “The Chumash consultants,” Timbrook notes, “all agreed that it was a good-tasting and prized food.” The small cakes were eaten with roasted meat and were also a featured food in ceremonial events.

A cherry pit without the skin showing some of the yellow fruit pulp still clinging to the seed pod.

Posted in Reference | Tagged Backpacking, Camping, Foraging, Hiking, Hiking (2), Outdoors, Photos, Pics, Traditional Knowledge, Wild Foods | 2 Comments

Salmon River, Idaho

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Jack Elliott

The Salmon River, which is the second largest tributary of the Snake River, is also known as The River of No Return. ©Clint Elliott

Map

“The Salmon River Canyon is one of the deepest gorges in North America, deeper even than the famous Grand Canyon of the Colorado in Arizona. But in contrast to the Grand Canyon, the Salmon River Canyon is not noted for sheer walls and towering heights, but instead for the variety of landscapes visible from the river; wooded ridges rising to the sky, huge eroded monuments and bluffs and slides, picturesque castles and towers, and solitary crags. The United States Congress designated the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness in 1980 and it now encompasses a total of 2,366,757 acres.

The name of this Wilderness has two roots. The Main Salmon River was called “The River of No Return” back in the early days when boats could navigate down the river, but could not get back up through the fast water and numerous rapids. The romantic name lives on today even though jet boats can navigate upstream. Second, the name Frank Church that was attached to this Wilderness in 1984, after it’s designation, is a memorial to honor a man who did so much to help preserve this wild central core of Idaho.”

—United States Forest Service

Posted in Idaho | Tagged Fishing, Hiking, Landscapes, Nature, Outdoors, Photos, Pics, Rivers, Salmon River, Travel | 1 Comment

Slippery Rock Stagecoach Road (19th Century)

Posted on September 5, 2012 by Jack Elliott

Crossing Slippery Rock in the mountains above the Goleta Valley, along the original San Marcos Pass route over the Santa Ynez Mountains. The Pacific Ocean defines the horizon in the background. © Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

“Santa Barbara lies on the seashore, and until lately it was isolated from the rest of the world by high mountains. No wagon road or stage route ran into it from without, only mere trails or paths for horses over the mountains. For a few years they had had a mail once in two weeks by steamer from San Francisco—two mails per month was the only news of the world outside.”

—William Brewer (1861)

“A ride on a frontier stage-coach was something to be remembered as a back-breaking, bone-twisting experience. ‘I felt like a mess of eggs being scrambled,’ one traveler described the trip. ‘I was bounced and tossed all over and despite our discomfort the driver never paid us any heed.’”

—James D. Horan & Paul Sann, Pictorial History of the Wild West (1954)

From 1861 to 1901 Santa Barbara was linked to the rest of California and the world by stagecoach. Evidence of the historic route leading upstate over the Santa Ynez Mountains can still be seen in a few locations. Along a thin, sandstone capped ridgeline in the mountains above Goleta, a section of the old road crosses an expanse of exposed bedrock. Tracks left behind by stagecoaches and horse drawn wagons and carriages remain worn into the sandstone some ten- to twelve-inches deep or more. The parallel grooves are remnants of the original San Marcos Pass route that was built by Chinese work crews using picks, shovels and wheelbarrows.

The ruts had originally been carved to a depth of about three inches in order to help guide horse drawn conveyances up the technical section of primitive roadway. Over the years the iron-capped wheels of stagecoaches ground the ruts ever deeper into the soft deposit of stone. Running between the ruts, horizontal grooves were chiseled to help horses maintain traction on the slippery surface as they hauled the heavy stages up the mountain. The exposed bedrock was notoriously slick beneath metal horseshoes and stagecoach wheels and was dubbed “Slippery Rock” or “Slippery Sal.”

The Slippery Rock route was closed sometime around 1892 after the owner of the property the road ran through, Tom Lillard, got tired of drivers leaving his gate open and cows straying. A new route was graded up a ridge to the east of Slippery Rock or what is today known as Old San Marcos Pass.

Looking up Slippery Rock showing the two wheel tracks and the traction ruts carved horizontally across the wheel grooves.

Looking down Slippery Rock. Two different sets of wheel ruts are visible here, along with the horizontal traction grooves for horses. Once the first set of wheel ruts became worn too deeply a new set was carved.

A closeup view of the ruts and grooves.

The narrow section of Slippery Rock, which is shown below in a photo from 2012 with live oak trees having grown in the middle of the old road. © Denver Public Library, Western History Collection

Looking up the old road above Slippery Rock.A narrow section of the road barely wide enough for a stagecoach to slip by pinched between a cliff on the left and and wall of stone on the right.

State of the art suspension: rawhide straps.

Both of these historic stagecoaches can be seen at the Santa Barbara Carriage and Western Art Museum. The yellow carriage was actually one of the last mudwagon stages in use over San Marcos Pass.

Reference:

-Charles Outland, Stagecoaching on El Camino Real: Los Angeles to San Francisco 1861-1901 (1973)
-Walker A. Tompkins, Stagecoach Days in Santa Barbara (1982)

The Klutzy Career of Highwayman Dick Fellows (Stagecoach Robbery circa 1870s)

Posted in Santa Barbara County | Tagged Hiking, History, Landscapes, Non-fiction, Old West, Photos, Pics, San Marcos Pass, Santa Ynez Mountains, Slippery Rock, Stagecoaches | 15 Comments

Stumbling Upon Chumash Rock Art

Posted on August 31, 2012 by Jack Elliott

Last week I spent twelve hours hiking around an area of the woods that I was not familiar with and stumbled across a Chumash pictograph site that I did not know existed, and which I had never seen photos of.

I had been hiking over rugged terrain when I walked up on a sandstone outcrop that stood like a wall against a steep hillside. I stopped in my tracks staring at the rock overhang. Well, well, well, looky what we have here, I thought. It was an X marks the spot moment. Due to its form, prominence and location it was a feature of the landscape well worth taking a closer look at. There is something about rocky outcrops that never cease to attract my attention and lure me in. And this one at first glance felt like a site long visited by humans.

I pulled apart stringy, elongated branches of poison oak and carefully approached the outcrop, scanning its entirety and taking in the whole scene. As I stepped closer my frame of focus tightened and an inch wide ruddle-hued stain on the surface of the sandstone seized my eye; the quintessential telltale trace of prehistoric rock art. Aha! I glanced leftward and saw a panel of highly eroded pictographs about one square foot in size. Inspecting further, a few minutes later, I found several other faded paintings.

The sandstone is extremely flaky and constantly sloughing off, the lithic equivalent to a human face enduring the deep exfoliation of a chemical peel. Slabs of rock have fallen to the ground through the years and piled up and are in the process of being buried under sand and soil and grown over by annual grasses. Along the foot of the outcrop a massive chunk of stone that slid off the cliff face at some point is stuck into the ground on its edge. The semi-buried slab has several paintings on it and the soil level reaches right up to the bottom of the art. Perhaps other pictographs are buried. Beside it another slab of painted stone has fallen free and sits amidst a jumble of rock shards. It’s impossible to tell, however, whether the slabs were painted prior to having slid off of the outcrop or after.

Look closely at the crack line in the center of the frame. The faded remnant half of what looks something like a lizard or newt can barely be seen; a head arm and foot.

Related Post:

Stumbling Upon Chumash Bedrock Mortars

Posted in Backcountry | Tagged Chumash, Hiking, Hiking (2), History, Indians, Native Americans, Outdoors, Photos, Pics, Pictographs, Rock Art | 12 Comments

Project Sespe Creek Connect: Stage II, Middle Sespe

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Jack Elliott

Dry Lakes Ridge in morning light.

Stillman and I worked down the second helping of our Sespe Creek project on Monday. It was a quick half-day, in-and-out through middle Sespe from Tule Creek to Piedra Blanca Trailhead.

Once passed the Middle Sespe Trailhead, and relative the upper Sespe which Highway 33 follows closely, this middle section of the creek feels decidedly more wild and remote. It flows intermittently, as was expected this time of year. Some sections of the creek bed are devoid of any trace of moisture and filled with weeds, others are stagnant and mossy, some mere inches deep and faintly flowing, while still other lengthy portions are six feet or more in depth and notably aquatic and riverine in nature.

Outside the lush shelter of the narrow riparian zone surrounding perennial pools, the summer swelter is unforgiving and the landscape bakes beneath the relentless blinding sun. The arid chaparral covered hills framing deeply shaded, cold crystalline pools makes for a striking desert-oasis juxtaposition of habitat. Lounging in the damp shadows beneath the lush tree cover aside the creek, water defined and tempered the landscape in defiance of the summertime sun and heat. While only a stone’s throw away amidst the dessicated, crispy plant cover the blistering solar radiance dominated.

We marched across sun-scorched dry washes of burdensome, deep sand. Hopped down cattail- and willow-fringed pathways of waterworn and mineral stained dry boulders. And waded through deep emerald-tinged pools faintly illuminated in the penumbrae cast by the shade bearing verdant umbrella of cottonwood trees overhead.

Waterfowl and other large birds attracted to the fresh water oasis and the pray it sustains took flight frightened from the crash and splash of our plodding. A deer and doe trotted up a gravely slope while keeping eyes on our movement, another deer hopped through the brush just in front of our path. Small fish darted about our feet in the shallows, larger ones occasionally streaking through the shadowy depths of deeper pools. We walked by two large bullfrogs of some sort with beautiful mackerel designs on their backs.

In one deep stagnant pond at the foot of an outcrop of layered stone, I stared bewildered for a few seconds at a bizarre sprawling black form rippling beneath the water’s surface. Stillman appeared for a moment equally perplexed by whatever this strange moving thing was. To me it didn’t resemble anything living at first glance, but looked to be something like a wad of moss being slowly spread apart in the flow of a subtle underwater current. Yet, a second later its movement went from seemingly ordinary to mind warping and peculiar as my brain struggled in vain to interpret and define what my eyes were seeing. It then became clear that whatever it was, it seemed to be alive, because no inanimate object moves like that. Only after another few long confused seconds did it register in my mind that it was a tightly grouped, dense school of tiny fish. Few other times has something so ordinary so baffled my mind.

Walking through the creek at one point in about shin deep water, while foolishly messing around with my iPhone rather than watching where I was going, I lost my balance and fell into the water. And tossed my phone into the creek. I was on my hands and knees like a blind man feeling around the murky black water trying to find it. Fortunately I finally grabbed it, but this is an iPhone with a badly cracked glass screen that actually has shards of glass missing. So I wrote it off as done for right away. Yet, when I pulled it out I was surprised that it was still working and that I was able to snap several more photos. Then just as we came across some of the most photogenic stretches of the creek it finally stopped working. It actually remained powered and illuminated, but wouldn’t process any commands when touching its screen. So I stuck it in my pocket and finished the hike with a few less photos. Remarkably, on the drive home it started working and still works!

Overall, Stage Two of the Sespe Creek Project proved wetter, more serene, secluded and picturesque than Stage One.