Tag: Donation

Los Padres Fire Restrictions Lifted!

Posted on by Addison Jerlow

Doesn’t get much better than a warm campfire with friends on a cold night in the Los Padres….

Hello Friends,

We bring good news for backcountry travelers: Fire Restrictions have been lifted across the Los Padres Forest. Thanks to the storms last week, backcountry season has arrived earlier than usual this year and campfires are now allowed. Just in time for dropping nighttime temperatures and the long, cold, and star-filled nights that accompany this time of year ~ Hurrah!

Make sure to do your research before planning trips and look out for any superseding orders that disallow campfires (ie the Santa Barbara Frontcountry and West Cuesta Ridge). And please remember to be fire-safe and grab a free campfire permit to keep on you while out in the forest. With all this rain, the forest is looking more like early spring than November right now. Backcountry season is NOW!

LPFA

LPFA volunteer trail crews keep our trails open and ready to enjoy! On the Alder Creek Trail, part of the Ventura County Condor Trail. Photo, Brandy L.

We’re here for the trails. The veins of the Los Padres that transport us from our daily life back to the places that feed our being. Places where life is stiller, clearer and breathtaking. Sespe Creek, Pine Mountain, Alder Creek. Places where water flows, birds sing, and trees older than us stand tall and proud. We need the trails. And they need us. They need care, footsteps, and support. 

At LPFA, we know that trails don’t maintain themselves. We’ve seen too many disappear from lack of vital funding to maintain them. We’ve spent too much time crawling in the brush, following a bear path we thought was the trail, fighting through wild rose, whitethorn ceanothus and poison oak, only to find the next section of trail in worse shape than the last. We’re here to ensure our trails stay open and accessible for all to enjoy. To ensure our trails provide more Type 1 fun, than Type 2 or 3. To ensure these veins of the backcountry keep pumping and providing the pathways for us to return to the forest, time and time again. 

This GivingTuesday, show your support for the trails that support you.

For the Trails!

Is in November or February? Here’s to the trails that take us home….

Santa Paula Canyon Cleanup Fund

Posted on by Addison Jerlow

LPFA needs help raising $1000 to remove trash and graffiti from Santa Paula Canyon! These funds will offset the costs of trash cans, paint and clean up supplies (paint sprayers, batteries, trash bags, grabbers, gloves etc). This is just the start of our graffiti and trash clean up initiative to target high-use and heavily impacted recreation locations across the Los Padres.

Santa Paula Canyon sees A TON of use this time of year. Our goal is to clean it up, as well as provide outreach on trail and at the trailhead to keep it clean moving forward. Continuing to provide support, outreach and education to trail users may be the only way to sustain recreation in this area. With more and more visitors each year, we need to provide more and more support.

Help us get this initiative started!

Donate to Clean SPC!

The lower falls is popular with swimmers, hikers, and taggers alike…

Los Padres Fire Restrictions, Trail Updates and Forest Protections

Posted on by Addison Jerlow

There’s plenty of places to explore once the heat sets in! Head up high, know your water sources (check HLP), and follow the weather closely to find a cool window for a summer trip in the LP. Photo, Brian D.

Hi Friends, 

Well, the summer heat has arrived. Fire restrictions went into effect across the Los Padres Forest on June 18th and are set to last until January 31st, 2026. This means no open fires, campfires or charcoal fires are permitted outside of developed recreation sites or designated Campfire Use Sites, as well as no smoking. However, stoves are still permitted in the backcountry and you can grab your fire permit here.  

After two wet winters, this last one was a dry one with the LP receiving roughly only half of our normal rain amounts. Daily highs in the backcountry have been pushing 100 degrees recently, with nighttime lows sitting comfortably above 60. The Los Padres can be thoroughly enjoyed without a campfire this time of year. This is a great opportunity to check out the night sky, play games under headlamp, or head to bed early and get some rest after that long hot hike to camp. 

The view from the hike back down along your freshly cleared trail sure makes the hot hike up and day cutting brush worth it, right? …..right? Photo, Zach C.

PIEDRA BLANCA

LPFA volunteers wrapped up work on the Piedra Blanca Trail this month and boy is it looking GOOD! This was LPFA’s 6th trip on this section of trail in the past 2 years and we are happy to say the trail is now in great shape from Piedra Blanca Trailhead to Pine Mountain Lodge Camp. Thank you to all of the volunteers and donors who made these trips possible!  

These projects were almost entirely funded by individual donations. Please consider donating as we continue to navigate the ongoing restrictions on federal funding. Every dollar helps! And if you have a trail you want to see worked on, come on out and volunteer, get to know LPFA, and get trained to lead your own trail projects. Let’s make it happen. 

Donate to Clear Trails!

SANTA PAULA CANYON CLEANUP: JULY 5TH 

Nothing says 4th of July weekend like some time by the creek! Join LPFA and the Santa Paula Canyon Crew on July 5thfor a trash sweep of Santa Paula Canyon. We’ll be walking the length of the trail to the Punchbowl to remove graffiti and clean up any trash leftover from July 4th festivities. This is a great opportunity for those looking to spend a day hiking and giving back to one of the most impacted canyons in the forest. 

With swimming season in full swing, we’ve definitely seen increased visitation, and unfortunately increased trash and graffiti, at Santa Paula Canyon. Thanks to volunteers, this canyon gets swept every week or two. And two new trash cans at the trailhead are helping a TON. A positive presence in the canyon helps even more. Sign up below for a fun day of hiking, cleaning, and swimming in SPC! 

CLEAN UP THE CANYON!

Help us keep this LP gem clean and free of trash and graffiti!

BIG BUT NOT SO BEAUTIFUL 

At this point we’ve all heard about the One Big Beautiful Bill and what it may mean for public lands across the country. LPFA supports public access to the Los Padres Forest through trail maintenance, outreach and education. Because of that, we will not support the selling off of public lands. The Wilderness Society has made a map of National Forest and BLM lands that could be sold if the bill is passed (it has already passed the House!). If you zoom into the Los Padres, it includes almost all non-wilderness portions of the forest. 

Dark green shows portions of the LPNF that could be eligible for sale including large swaths of the Santa Barbara and Ojai Frontcountry, as well as Pine Mountain and the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Areas that could be up for sale include: 

  • the Santa Ynez Recreation Area
  • the Santa Barbara Frontcountry
  • the Ojai Frontcountry, 
  • Pine Mountain
  • Sierra Madre Mountains above Cuyama Valley
  • Alamo Mountain and Mount Pinos
  • Figueroa Mountain
  • West Cuesta Ridge
  • Timber Top

The List Goes On and On…..

We encourage those concerned to find their Senator and give them a call. Here is a list of the phone numbers of every Senator. Emails and petitions often get filtered out, but phone calls can make a huge difference in how your representatives vote. We know that Los Padres enthusiasts live across the country. Wherever you may be, give your Senator a call and help keep the Los Padres Forest open for all, forever. 

FOREST UPDATES AND OPPORTUNITIES 

  • Join the Santa Barbara Trails Council at Baron Ranch this Sunday, June 22nd for a day of trail work! They’ll be meeting at the Baron trailhead at 8:30am and working on the beloved Arroyo Quemado Trail (AQT). Click here for more info and the sign up link. 
  • Highway 33 is expected to be closed on and off for extended periods this summer/fall season. CalTrans has not provided any dates yet but we’ll be ready to share them once they do! 
  • A-Zone South Hunting Season is right around the corner here in the Los Padres. Archery season begins on July 12th, but the more popular General Season begins on August 9th and lasts until September 21st. Still a ways out but fast approaching! If you aren’t a hunter, try to plan your Los Padres adventures around this season, and remember to wear bright colors if you do head out into the forest…. 

Hard to believe it’s already been 351 days since the Lake Fire…..

Forest Gates Opening & Volunteer Trail Work Updates

Posted on by Bryan Conant

When Los Padres eyes are smiling….. photo A. Jerlow

Hello Friends, 

It’s mid-May and we hope this email finds you well and busy planning your next forest adventure. The big news across the Los Padres at the moment is the opening of most of the seasonal gate closures. Many of the Forest Service dirt roads across the LP are closed during the winter in order to protect those roads and/or prevent vehicles from getting stuck. The gates usually close sometime in December and depending on the extent of needed repairs and when the snow melts, those gates swing open sometime in late-April to mid-May. That’s right now….. 

GOOD NEWS, the Forest Service has been busy working on road repairs over the past month and have reopened most of the seasonal gate closures across the forest ~ yay! Some of the fan favorites that have reopened include Pine Mtn, Grade Valley, Bates and all the usual OHV gates in the Pinos District. Unfortunately, not all the gates have reopened and we’ve listed some of the gates that remain closed within this email. Sometimes information spreads slowly across the forest and we always encourage folks to contact your local District Office or check in with us to confirm if the gates are open or if you have any questions.

It’s starting to warm up but there’s still tons of water and it’s about as good as it gets in the forest right now! As always, if you are looking for trail conditions or more information from the forest, check out HikeLosPadres.com or the LPFA social media feeds. Hope to see you out there!  

Fresh off two Working Vacations in the San Rafael and Sespe Wildernesses, up next is a three-day trail project in the Dick Smith as part of National Trails Day. We’ll be car-camping at Rancho Nuevo Campground and working up-canyon from there restoring the trail as we go. If you’ve not been to this corner of the forest, it’s spectacular and should be epic this time of year after all the rains. Come one, come all, camp both nights or come for the day! We’d love the help if you feel like giving back to the trails – #NationalTrailsDay. To sign up click the link below….. 

Rancho Nuevo Volunteer – YES!

Did you know that the Gene Marshall – Piedra Blanca Trail is one of only two federally desigated National Recreation Trails within the Los Padres NF? We’re doing our best to keep it open for people to enjoy. photo J. Nelson.

• As mentioned above, the LPFA just wrapped up a two-week Working Vacation in the San Rafael Wilderness along the Manzana Trail. We were able to complete 4 miles of trail restoration over that time thanks to a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and the HUGE efforts of the 31 volunteers who helped along the way. We made a short IG reel showing some of the work and vacation from our time in the SB Backcountry. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out which is more fun! Thanks everyone….. 

• Meanwhile, the LPFA Trail Crew has continued our work on the nearby Sweetwater Trail, which is also in the San Rafael. We were able to knock out another 1.25 miles of trail over the past 10 days and will hopefully connect the dots with previous work later this season. Thanks again to NFWF for the funding support and RPL for the water huffing. 

• We also just completed a 5-day volunteer project on the Gene Marshall – Piedra Blanca Trail in the Sespe Wilderness. While it was hot, we were able to do 2.5 miles of trail restoration up towards Pine Mtn Lodge. This was 100% funded by private donations from forest users like yourself and we’re hoping to push on up to PML on an upcoming cooler weekend. Stay tuned! Thanks to the 25 volunteers who helped in the Sespe including T111, you are all welcome back anytime! 

• We also continue with our regular frontcountry volunteer trail projects in both Ojai as well as Santa Barbara, keep an eye out for those. As always, we take requests too. If there is a trail you love and would like to see given some TLC, let us know and we’ll get the ball rolling and hopefully some boots on the ground to help. Thanks everyone…. 

Donate to the Trails

Los Padres Forest Closure Extended Again

Posted on by Kendra Moss
Hi Mountain casting a late August pyramid shadow across the smoky Garcia Wilderness. 
Maybe not as spectacular as some of its larger siblings but still pretty cool looking……

FOREST CLOSURE EXTENDED

Hello Friends – let’s cut to the chase but remember, don’t shoot the messenger…..

Earlier this week the Forest Service extended the closure of nine California Forests, including the Los Padres, through October 1.  Here’s a quote from the Regional Forester:

“Continued closures are based on extreme fire conditions, critical limitations of firefighting resources, and to provide for firefighter and public safety,” said Regional Forester Randy Moore. “We understand how important access to the National Forests is to our visitors.  Our aim is to prevent any new fires on the landscape.”

We’re now in week 3 of this large-scale fire closure and to our knowledge there have been no new fires within any of the closed forests (fact check please).  We know that these closures aren’t very much fun but they do appear to be working.  We do have some hotter weather headed our way next week that should peak on Wednesday and Thursday with inland temps reaching into the mid / high 90’s.  Fingers crossed that the long-term forecasts start to cool and that the forests can safely reopen towards the end of this week (knock knock).  If anyone knows how to perform a rain dance, now’s the time, please.  Wish we had better news and we’ll keep you all posted as events unfold and decisions are made……

— • — • — • —

Big Sur Station, saying a big THANK YOU to all the Firefighters, Crews, Support & Families impacted across California

FOREST 411

• The Dolan Fire in the Monterey Ranger District has slowed down a lot over the past week and has been holding at just under 130,000 acres burned.  It is currently 46% contained with an expected full containment date of October 13.  While the forest remains closed around Dolan, for a few different reasons, Highway 1 did reopen earlier last week after being closed for about a month during the fire fight.  Lastly, some more tragic Dolan new; it was reported that nine California condors perished during the fire.  We all hate hearing that but thankfully nine more condors are expected to be released above San Simeon before the end of the year.

• In case you hadn’t heard from earlier this summer, the Esselen Tribe from Monterey County was able to purchase over 1,000 acres of land along the Little Sur River.  This is a special story some 250 years in the making.  Check out more details here.

• Thanks in large part to a grant from REI in addition to some extremely generous public donations, the LPFA Trail Crew was able to spend a week earlier this summer clearing a mile of the Gene Marshall – Piedra Blanca Trail just above Beartrap Camp.  Once the forest closure is lifted we’d like to head back and complete the remainder of the trail up to the top of the switchbacks and down to Haddock Camp.  In case you’re interested in helping, we’re about $1,000 short of our fundraising goal that would send the crew back out for another week.  If you are interested in donating or to learn more, please click here.  THANK YOU!

• Of course none of us are in the forest right now but if you’ve spent any time exploring the LP you’ve no doubt come across the remnants of illegal marijuana grows.  October is generally harvest time for grow operations within the LP and it can be pretty scary if you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Here are some tips and clues about illegal forest grows and what you should do in case you come across a site.  The forest might be closed but they’re still out there.

• It seems that black bear sightings outside of the forest are becoming more and more common.  Last week there was a particularly photogenic bear seen outside of Solvang, another Solvang bear in April, another in Lompoc, Simi Valley and yet another outside Carmel.  There was even a bear attack reported outside of Santa Paula.  We’ve heard a few theories as to why bears appear to be coming out of the hills more than ever.  Is it that phones (cameras) are everywhere these days and it’s much easier to share (social media) photos of bears who happen to wander into the streets?  Some say that the Los Padres has become the new home of humanized Sierra ‘problem bears’ who were sent packing after tasting one too many picnic baskets in Sequoia or Yosemite?  Others reasons might include drought, competition, easier food sources or that they were here before us anyway (or were they?) ?  It’s always exciting to see a bear in or around the Los Padres and if you’re a podcast person, Outside Podcast shared an entertaining episode earlier this year about “the wrong way to fight off a bear” – check it out.  And if you’re interested in some more information about black bears and what to do if you encounter a black bear, click this link.

• The Los Padres National Forest Supervisors Office (SO) has moved from Goleta to Solvang.  At the moment the offices remain closed due to COVID and we’ll share more information including address and hours once the SO reopens.

— • — • — • —

Speaking of bears….
this mamma and her two cubs (see them?) were spotted earlier this year safely within the Los Padres,
taking the high road to avoid Spencer & Leslie – thanks for sharing!

Sespe Wilderness Campaign

Posted on by Bryan Conant
Donate Here

The Sespe Wilderness covers over 200,000 acres of the Los Padres National Forest within Ventura County and is home to dozens of miles of backcountry trails. One of the most popular trails within the Sespe is the Sespe River Trail, which follows a historic route along Sespe Creek for over 16 miles.  Other popular trails include the Gene Marshall – Piedra Blanca Trail, which is one of only two National Recreation Trails within the Los Padres National Forest.  Some of these trails are also key segments along the 420 mile Condor Trail, which begins in LA County and crosses the length of the Los Padres before ending at Botchers Gap near Big Sur.  The Sespe is also home to the Sespe Condor Sanctuary as well as the only herd of bighorn sheep in the Los Padres.  The Sespe is most popular in spring and early summer when the swimming holes are at their best but remains a popular destination for year-round recreation.

The Los Padres Forest Association is asking for funding to maintain recreational access to the Sespe Wilderness. Trails on the forest do not maintain themselves, and without continued maintenance, our forest will loose these trails to overgrown brush and downed trees. If you’ve ever been on a hike in the Los Padres, you’ve probably had to push your way through thick chaparral on trails that have not been maintained for over 20 years…. 

Maintaining trails involves a massive cooperative effort between the US Forest Service, local outfitters, and volunteers. Funds raised will go directly to the trails by helping to pay for numerous working vacations and volunteer based trips within the Sespe Wilderness. We expect to complete about 10 miles of trail maintenance before the end of 2020. 

Trails needing work:

1. Sespe River Trail

2. Gene Marshall-Piedra Blanca

3. Alder Creek

In response to declining federal funding for recreation, LPFA has become a key player in the continued care and maintenance of trails across the Los Padres. We are out working the trails almost every day of the year. Our continued efforts to keep trails open would not be possible without financial support. THANK YOU!