Jack Elliott's Santa Barbara Adventure

Halibut

Posted on July 8, 2011 by Jack Elliott

I had been throwing my line for sometime on the rising tide at a favorite zone when a guy trudged down the beach and set up just down from me. The interloper effectively reduced my fishing grounds by half, as I typically start where I was standing when he showed up and work my way down the beach beyond where he was. I shouldn’t whine, it was nothing like the near shoulder to shoulder line-up of guys I’ve seen on the Sacramento River when salmon are running the gauntlet. Nonetheless, I didn’t care for it.

With the set up I had tied on, light line and heavy tackle, I was able to launch my line way down the beach and promptly did so as he walked up. A kind of, ‘Hey man, you got a whole damn coastline to fish, so don’t start edging in on me.’ He was about to post up within casting range. I could tolerate his presence, irritably, but not a sidler hornin’ in. As it turned out, it was unnecessary jockeying.

I hooked into the fish right in front of me in several feet of water and provided the guy a show I’m sure he didn’t much care to see. The fish ran once when I brought it into the shallows after a decent fight and saw that it was a legal-sized halibut. It took a bit of line off my reel and disappeared over the seaweed covered boulders and into the murky surfline, but I kept my rod tip up and let it go. I coaxed it back to shore and onto the wet sand with the wash of an incoming wave, tossed my pole into the cobblestones without thinking and pounced on it.

A 27 inch, 7 pound flatty pulled from the beach on light/medium tackle.

Posted in Santa Barbara | Tagged Fishing, Halibut, Santa Barbara, Tales | 4 Comments

Cefalu, Sicily, Italy

Posted on July 7, 2011 by Jack Elliott

A view of Cefalu from this morning relayed back to Headquarters by family living on Sicily.

(Map and History of Cefalu)

Posted in Italy | Tagged Cefalu, Italy, Sicily, Snapshots | 2 Comments

Peculiar to the Pattern

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Jack Elliott

“A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson (1839)

The conformity of it all is satisfying and comforting, but something is lost. It’s group think manifest in cookie cutter conformity congealing into neighborhoods across America, as if all borne of the same mushroom, its spores cast in the wind across the continent. I derive some sense of relief from odd bits peculiar to the pattern.

Like the guy in front of me in what resembles a personal spacecraft made by a four year old. The back end covered sloppily with bumper stickers demanding action and pointing fingers at the usual figures of suspicion. Affixed to the hitch cover is a sticker that reads “Be Nice” in a font resembling child’s writing.

I can see through the rear window to notice the debris deposited along the top of the dashboard like the high tide line on a dirty beach. Small figurines and animals, bottle caps, seashells, feathers, a smudge stick of dried sage, and various grasses inserted here and there standing like small flagpoles. Along with a stash of other random pickings accumulated over the years.

The Toyota 4-Runner glides down the avenue with painted tires spinning in a blur of splattered color. Patches of over spray coat the rest of the vehicle in what looks like a terrible impression of a Pollock canvas.

That’s also why I appreciate, to some extent, seeing those derelicts beside the same busy four lane avenue, perched like two mangy buzzards atop an old pine stump on a dirt slope. I catch a brief split second view of them on my way home as I speed by only to brake into the corner a quarter mile past.

The stump couldn’t be more than three feet in diameter, yet they both crouch there as if joined at the hip. A shopping cart sits below them on the sidewalk stuffed and overflowing with indiscriminate possessions, as if they had just won a shopping spree in a thrift store.

One rests on his haunches hunched over poking the stump with a stray stick, the definition of aimless. And in his aimlessness there is a certain element of freedom from the pack that is appealing, if only for a moment.

Posted in Santa Barbara | Tagged Tales | Leave a comment

Pine Mountain Lodge Camp

Posted on July 5, 2011 by Jack Elliott

Campfire night under the pine at Pine Mountain Lodge Camp.

Last November I set off in late afternoon on the punishing climb up the Gene Marshall Trail from the Piedra Blanca trailhead to the top of Pine Mountain and the camp near the old Pine Mountain Lodge site .

Don’t ask me why I decided on that route. I’d respond that it was the closest trailhead and the shortest distance to the camp, which isn’t a good answer. You’d have to be some kind of masochist to actually enjoy the grueling uphill trudge. Okay, I might be a little dramatic here, but I’m not a mountaineer-type that routinely seeks out high peaks to climb so six miles of uphill and 3000 feet of elevation gain is plenty enough to start me whining.

I had a leg cramp near the crest of the trail just as the sunlight was starting to noticeably wane. I had a fleeting thought of staying the night right there, but knew I was too close to stop and so lumbered the remaining few hundred yards up the slope, through the cedar trees and toward the camp.

As I walked the flats atop the mountain I heard voices, which turned my typically irascible mood in its usual direction. I don’t mean to suggest that I necessarily have a problem with other hikers, but I certainly don’t hike for hours on end, sweating profusely and straining beneath a loaded pack to find myself surrounded by crowds. That is precisely what I seek to escape. It’s like hiking into a remote surf break hoping to score empty waves and seeing a couple of guys already in the water when you get there.

I moseyed on down the trail to confirm the situation and saw two guys chatting in camp and so turned and headed back down the small creek and through the bush. Fortunately the other camp was vacant. I quickly unpacked and set up shop and sparked a fire as darkness enveloped the land in its cold grasp.

Pine Mountain Lodge Camp. An old ice can stove can be seen to the right of the table. The cave shown in the photos below can be seen here toward the upper right.

It was chillier than I had hoped with remnants of crusty snow scattered about the shadier pockets of the basin from an early storm, but not thinking it’d cause me problems, I foolishly pitched my tent on the hard packed sand in the mini-meadow in which the camp is located.

It’s a sort of depression surrounded by small hills and rock formations. Just the sort of geography that funnels cold air off the hills and down into the low spot where my tent was. It was a cold night trying to rest on what felt like a slab of refrigerated cement. The hour before dawn really sucked.

The next morning I heard the two fellas over yonder getting ready to haul out. Apparently one of them started off before the other, because they were yelling back and forth to each other for several minutes before their voices faded and I had the mountain to myself.

That afternoon I moved my tent to a more sheltered location. I prepared a deep bed of pine needles under the tent and created a shallow, reclined depression to lay in. The needles served as not only padding, but as insulation, too, being that, typically, the cold ground draws the most heat out of a person during the night. Pine needles are excellent for padding and piled up they create a spongy mattress. I also piled up needles on the exterior of my tent for further insulation. I slept like a baby that second night well cushioned and toasty warm.

I spent my days lounging around reading at my makeshift Rancho Relaxo and hiking around the basin to see what I might see. I walked up the slope south of the camp and to the crest of the hill, which afforded me a spectacular view overlooking Sespe Creek and the Piedra Blanca trailhead area. I found a hole in the well weathered sandstone up there that looked to me to be an Indian grinding stone.

Another view of the camp looking the opposite direction, south, showing where I set up my tent the first night.

After the first night I moved my tent atop a small rise beneath the pines and oaks (seen in the previous photo on the left).

Showing off my pefect posture looking northward over the basin.

The two dots show the approximate locations of the two campsites. The dot on the left is where the camp shown in the photos here is located.

One of several caves in the area.

Cave’s eye view.

I assumed this to be a bedrock mortar, but am unsure. Whether it is or not, with a view like that, it sure is an excellent place for working the pestle and grinding up food!