Summer is mostly over – today is a great weather day, but the leaves are turning, you know? At least compared to LA, it makes all the apple / corn / pumpkin stuff make a bit more logical sense 🙂 Anyway, I got a little bit of teasing about writing these up so many years later, but they’re as much for me as for anyone else, so no skin off my back. Summer 2011 was really nicely outdoorsy, so here we have another bit of it – the first day of our trip to the Channel Islands.
Nathan and I had been trying to get out to the Channel Islands for some time (well, we’d each been wanting to go, and then when we fell in together, it wasn’t like the desire fell by the wayside : ) we invited some other people, had some interest from other people, and then had that not work out, so, to hades with that, we were going! We planned and booked the trip, heading out for a four-day weekend, from July 29-August 1, to Santa Rosa Island on the Channel Islands National Park. We walked around, saw island foxes, and lots of other things, and had a good time.
The good ship Tole Mour!
We actually headed out to Ventura the night before this trip, on the 28th. Nathan and I met up with my mom for dinner in Burbank (In’n’Out – the right way to start any road trip!), and then headed on down to Ventura where we had booked a room at the Four Points right across the marina from where we would be catching our boat in the morning. After putting our stuff down, we went to the small bar in the lobby and talked to the few people sitting there for a little while, and “closed it down” at 11 PM or so, at which point we decided we wanted to go to bed anyway, since we needed to be up fairly early in the morning.
The next morning we got up, downed some coffee, and headed around the marina to the location of Island Packers. There were already a reasonable number of people waiting, but the office wasn’t open yet, so we brought over our gear to the area marked for it, and waited for the office to open. We then checked in, paid, purchased some last minute things (bug repellant I didn’t end up needing, some breakfast bars, etc) and grabbing a unigrid (yeah, fine, I’m totally a tool for calling them that. I’m ok with it 🙂 and the newsletter for the park. We then just mostly sat around and waited until it was time to load our gear onto the boat. Eventually, after that, everyone boarded, and the boat got under way.
Nathan waiting with our green labelled packs. Also! We’re there! Doesn’t look too islandy yet though
We started to pull out of the harbor, and went around the breakwater, and started picking up speed, but very quickly took a quick stop to look at some sea lions sitting on a stationary buoy. They were kind of cute just laying there, and soon enough the boat just got on its way again. After some part of an hour, we could see Anacapa Island off to the south (our left), but it was mostly shrouded in haze, as it was a cool cloudy morning. Santa Cruz Island is shortly after that point, and Scorpion Anchorage, where we were going to let people off, was on the near (eastern) side of the island, so we got there very quickly after that.
Lions chilling out
We pulled nose up to the dock, and quickly let off the day visitors, and not quite so quickly let off the people who were staying at least overnight. It was kind of amusing to watch, they get all the people to form a bucket-brigade to get all the luggage off the ship, and seeing some of the things people had brought was…something. Giant box of plastic cutlery, paper towels, …napkins. Yes. Ah well. Also, apparently, someone had set up an “inflatable jacuzzi” on the beach, propane heated! Amazing. Anyway, after that point, with the boat much thinned out, we headed along. The boat went all the way along the southern short of the the island, and I spent some of this time reading, as by that point we were starting to be on the boat for a while. I did check out some of the scenery, as the sun was starting to come out.
People disembarking at Santa Cruz
A gull captaining a raft
By the time we got to Bechers Bay at Santa Rosa Island, the weather had basically completely cleared up, and it was a gorgeous, not very windy afternoon. As they are working on rebuilding the pier right then, we had to go off the boat by skiff to the beach, in groups of six. As at Santa Cruz Island, they let off the day hikers first, and then they took off the campers. Once we were all off the boat, they ferried the luggage off, and they again asked for people to make a bucket brigade to get the luggage to a dryer point on the beach. Once everyone was gathered, we got a talk from the ranger and one of the naturalists there that week, discussing things on the island, and how it was all trash pack out, and we should use the food boxes, and so on. We then picked up all our gear (we could take it in one load, but others had a bit more) and started walking to the campsite. From the beach, we had to walk up a steep bit to a bluff, then up and over a hill, and the campgrounds where in a small valley on the other side. First we passed some picnic tables for day use, then came into this lovely little valley area. The (very nice) bathroom was off to one side, and scattered down the valley were 15 wind shelters that sort of looked like half barns. Each had an inset food box, and also a picnic table. Off to one side there is a sort of canyon, with a creek running through it.
Getting the luggage off the Zodiac
All the campsites
We set up all our gear, and then set off for a little bit of a walk. We had been told there would be a hiking discussion by one of the naturalists at 6 PM, so we wanted to be back for that. It was now maybe 2 in the afternoon, so we headed out to go look at the Torrey Pines. Most of the “trails” on the island are truck trails, with occasional foot trails dotting the landscape. Getting to the Torrey Pines (one of only two places they grow!) involved heading east on one of these truck trail. We took a brief pause at a location called “Black Rock”, where there is a jutting promontory of, well, Black Rock, where we got some really pretty views back to the coast, and also saw some nice lizards. After getting back to the main road, the turnoff for the Torrey Pines trail was only a little bit further. The pines do come down as far as the road, but the footpath takes you quickly up more amongst them. I also, somehow, have no photos of the trees. Huh.
Black rocks along the coast
We zigged and zagged our way up the hill, for the first real climbing of the trip, until we reached a bench up on the hillside. We stopped for a break, a snack, and a view, and also to see if the person we had seen heading up the slope would make it to where we were. He did, and we introduced ourselves to Jim, whom we would be seeing for much of the rest of the weekend. From there, we continued up to what we thought was the top of the slope, and decided to continue on the trail part, rather than taking the truck road down. We ambled a bit farther on the trail, realized that we *then* got to the point where it met the road, so I hopped over for a quick look. Then back to the trail. This brief area was fairly flat, and nice walking, and then started heading down. Even though the prior bit up had been fairly steep, this was actually a bit harder, and had some halfway unpleasant down bits, but we made it back down fairly easily to the original truck road we had left from.
Walking down the hill. Those might be pine trees on the right.
Even casual conversation looks amazing with an ocean backdrop
We went along a bit further, trying to find a trail to a wreck that was marked on my map, but were simply unable to do so. This portion was maybe 3.5 to 4 miles RT from the campground. We met up with one of the other hikers at some point on this, and walked back some of the section with him, having some nice conversation. He was also kind enough to take a couple of pictures of the two of us together. As we were walking the final section back, we started seeing this large sailing ship tacking back and forth across the bay. It turned out it is a training tall ship, called the Tole Mour, and the students on it were docking for the night. It was pretty awesome to watch and looked really awesome out on the water. We had a nice supper that evening, mostly just hanging out, and finished up for the day. Until tomorrow!
Nathan and I!
Our campsite!
