Tag: #GivingTuesday

Lake Fire + Trail Work = #GivingTuesday

Posted on by Bryan Conant

Hello Friends, 

We won’t take up much more of your time this evening, we’re sure you’ve had plenty of #GivingTuesday emails already, but we did want to share a short YouTube video that we created. The video highlights some of the pre-fire beauty around Figueroa Mountain including critters, flora and of course trails. It also shows some of the Lake Fire damage and many of the obstacles we’ll be facing as we work to restore and reopen the trails. Most of the trails are covered with downed trees and narrowing tread and it’s only going to get worse with the winter rains. Hopefully you’ll enjoy the video and please stay tuned for more forest updates in the near future. 

As always, let us know if there is anything forest related we can help you with: INFO@LPForest.org

#GivingTuesday – Fig Mtn Trails

LPFA: It’s Gotta Be #GivingTuesday Somewhere

Posted on by Bryan Conant

Lake Fire 
Los Padres Trail Restoration

‘It’s gotta be Tuesday somewhere’

Hello Friends,

#GivingTuesday is just about here and we wanted to remind everyone that the LPFA will be focused this year on raising funds to help repair and reopen the fire damaged and currently closed forest trails within the Lake Fire scar. We’ll share more details on Tuesday but the impacted trails include: 

  • Davy Brown Trail (trailhead shown above)
  • Munch Canyon Trail
  • White Rock Trail
  • Willow Spring Trail
  • Sunset Valley Trail
  • La Jolla Trail
  • Sulphur Spring Trail
  • Zaca Peak Trail
  • and a few other trails that include Connector or Spur in their names….

You’re sure to receive dozens of #GivingTuesday emails and we appreciate your support of the LPFA and our continued efforts to keep the trails passable and open. 

Thanks again everyone and sleep well! See you on #GivingTuesday….. 

#GivingTuesday – For Fig Mtn Trails!

  –  UPCOMING VOLUNTEER TRAIL DAYS  –  

December 13: Tunnel Trail, Santa Barbara 

December 5 & 7: Matilija Trail, Ojai 

December 15: Pothole Trail, Lake Piru 

Los Padres LPFA Updates & Lake Fire #GivingTuesday

Posted on by Bryan Conant

Lake Fire Los Padres

Trail Restoration

Hello Friends,

25 miles of Los Padres Forest trails, mainly located within the Figueroa Mountain Recreation Area, were burned this past July during the nearly 40,000 acre Lake Fire. These trails are currently closed. The LPFA has been working with the Forest Service on a plan and schedule to restore and reopen these trails. We got some great news earlier this week that the LPFA won a grant from the Santa Barbara Foundation that will go towards the restoration of the trails burned in the Lake Fire. #AwesomeAmazingThankYou! While the actual trail work can’t begin until the spring, we’ll be busy throughout the winter planning and getting ready to roll. 

The past four years we’ve had very successful #GivingTuesday campaigns. We raised money in 2020 to restore over 10 miles of National Recreation Trails within the Los Padres along the Piedra Blanca Trail and Santa Cruz Trail. 2021 was focused on repairing the scary Alder Creek Slide in the Sespe Wilderness. In 2022, #GivingTuesday supported massive storm repairs along the lower Santa Cruz Trail and last year #GivingTuesday helped reopen sections of the Sespe River Trail as well as the Piedra Blanca Trail.  

This year our #GivingTuesday (technically December 3) campaign will go towards helping out the forest trails within the Lake Fire scar. If you’d like to help the trails, please click the link below. We’ll be organizing plenty of volunteer projects in the spring as well. More to come next week, THANK YOU!

#GivingTuesday – Figueroa Mtn

Before (2023) and After (2024) images of the western side of the Hurricane Deck Trail showing some great trail work accomplished this year by LPFA volunteers and the LPFA Trail Crew. Questions: email INFO@LPForest.org

FOREST 411 & VOLUNTEER DAYS

• Get it on your calendar! Saturday May 3 is our Open House at Wheeler Gorge Visitor Center outside of Ojai. Games, education, forest fun and a whole lot more…. Get ready! 

• After being closed for nearly 5 years due to Dolan Fire damage, the Nacimiento-Fergusson Road has reopened. This is great news as the road provides crucial access across the forest from the Big Sur Coast out to Fort Hunter Liggett. 

• We wanted to congratulate Santa Lucia Ranger District’s Helen Tarbet for being recognized by the Forest Service for her continued educational contributions across the forest. Helen is probably most known for her regular Figueroa Mountain flower reports but more than that, she embodies the stoke of the forest. If you have kids interested in the forest, make sure they find Helen. Good luck Helen, thank you! 

If you are looking for an excuse to work off some of that Thanksgiving turkey or pumpkin pie, we’ve got you!

Sat Nov 30: Pothole Trail

Sun Dec 1: Matilija Trail

Led by legendary LP Super Volunteer Alan Coles, we’ll be continuing work opening up the lower Agua Blanca Trail and Pothole Trail within the Sespe Wilderness. Plan on meeting at Lake Piru on Saturday morning. To sign up or for more information please email VOLUNTEER@LPForest.org. 

Rumor has it that Matilija Road may reopen soon and we’re working hard to make sure the trails are ready for when it does. Peter Wilder will once again lead the charge up Matilija this coming Sunday. To sign up or for more information please email VOLUNTEER@LPForest.org.

The 2025 calendars are just about ready and should be waiting for you at your local REI as early as next week. Stay tuned for more….

#GivingTuesday for the Ventura Backcountry Trails

Posted on by Bryan Conant

Hello Friends, 

Let’s talk a little Ventura Backcountry. Highway 33, which is the primary road used to access the Ventura Backcountry, has been closed since January due to storm damage. Hwy 33 is used to visit many special places including Pine Mountain, Matilija, Rose Valley, Piedra Blanca and large portions of the Sespe Wilderness. The latest update from CalTrans is that Hwy 33 is expected to reopen sometime around the end of the year – that will be great, we can’t wait! 

Unfortunately, so many of the trails accessed from Hwy 33 remain in very bad shape. Not only are there trail-gobbling landslides, washouts and sinkholes resulting from the winter rains but the plants have also been growing like crazy, exploding with trail-guising regrowth. We’ve helped survey many of the trails off Hwy 33 and most of them need a lot of work clearing slides, brushing back the scub oak and helping to once again define where the trail should go.

We’ve started with some of the trail restoration work and have led trail projects this year on the Sespe, Piedra Blanca, Matilija, Chorro Grande, Reyes Peak, Boulder Canyon and Alder Creek Trails but we’ve just scratched the surface of what is truly needed for this amazing network of trails. 

With your support this #GivingTuesday, we’d like to make a huge push over the coming months to get as many of the gnarly sections of trail cleared and back in good shape.

Believe it or not, that is the trail, Kerr Spring Slide,
photo SoniaC

First on our trail priority list would be repairing the Kerr Spring slide along the Sespe River Trail. This section of trail just upstream from Kerr Spring has been a problem for decades but was hit exceptionally hard this past January. Over a hundred yards of trail was buried by a landslide of rock and mud. It’s a disaster and certainly hard to navigate in its current condition. We’d love to organize a combination of volunteers and hired trail professionals to camp at nearby Bear Creek and spend a couple weeks clearing this slide and reopening the Sespe. Please considering helping this #GivingTuesday. 

We’ll also be continuing our work on the Matilija Trail (come volunteer too!), we’d love to clear Lion Cyn again, work the GMPB up towards Pine Mtn Lodge and hack away at both Potrero John and lower Chorro. No shortage of work to be done, we can’t wait to get out there and do what we do best. 

Your support today goes a long way to helping repair the trails across the Ventura Backcountry. Thanks everyone! See you in the forest and on the trails…..

#GivingTuesday for the Ventura Backcountry

PROJECT FULL

We’ll be working the Alder Creek Trail in the Sespe Wilderness above Fillmore all of next week as part of a large scale Working Vacation. The project is full but we’re looking to clear the trail from Dough Flat out to Cow Spring and hopefully down a couple miles towards Alder Creek. Should be fun, with us luck! 

PROJECT FULL

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

We’ve been chipping away at the Matilija Trail for the past few months and are now up about 2 miles from the lower trailhead. We’ll continue our regularly scheduled Thursday and Saturday volunteer days. The canyon is beautiful and we really appreciate all the hard work from the volunteers. Join the fun! 

SIGN UP HERE!

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

This coming Sunday will be the second of many trail days this season pn the Agua Blanca Trail. The ABT is located above Lake Piru in the Sespe Wilderness. Super Volunteer Alan Coles will once again be leading the charge and we’ll hopefully continue pushing up towards the Devil’s Gate. Hope you can make it! 

SIGN UP HERE!

Los Padres Forest Association: For the Lines and the Green

Posted on by Bryan Conant

A colored line with an epic view deep within the green, photo CHorgan

Hello Friends, 

We all love maps. Look below at the map of South Central California and you’ll notice how the Los Padres Forest is a huge green polygon surrounded by roadshields, cities and civilization. It’s so nice to have that large green polygon. Don’t you agree? It’s vital to have designated green for nature to thrive, for critters to roam and for water to flow. People seldom live in the green but having the ability to visit is also essential. The green is a space for us to reconnect and disconnect (no ports or plugs please), to recreate and educate, and the setting where we become the best version of ourselves. While seeing the green from afar is fine, it’s even better to get inside the green and soak up the forest from within. 

Leading to and within the green are colored lines which allow visitors access to explore, to watch, to witness and to be challenged. These lines are more commonly called trails and they lead to many cherished wonders within the green. The lines are used by bikers, hikers, runners and equestrians for nature viewing, backpacking, soaking and adrenaline. Most of us don’t get the chance to venture along the lines and into the green as much as we’d like. Yet we have faith that the green and the lines will be there when we need them.

If you like to visit the green polygon and use the colored lines within, then please consider donating to the LPFA this #GivingTuesday. We are out in the green along the lines just about every day (223 days and counting this year) working to ensure that the green stays green and the lines stay colored.  

We truly appreciate all the continued encouragement from our volunteers, supporters and donors and are honored to be doing what we are doing. 

See you on the lines and in the green……

#GivingTuesday for the Lines & the Green

Giving to the Ventura Backcountry Trails

Posted on by Bryan Conant

Hello Friends,

We hope this email finds you well heading into what should be a lovely Thanksgiving Weekend. Thanksgiving is a fun time of year in the Los Padres. We’ve got peak fall colors across most of the forest and wild temperature swings where the daily highs and lows might vary by 40+ degrees. Certainly lots to be thankful for right here in our own backyard.

#GivingTuesday is just around the corner and the LPFA will be focusing our attention this year on a particularly needy portion of the Los Padres Forest – the trails of the Ventura Backcountry.

Highway 33 connects Ojai with the Cuyama Valley and provides most of the public access into the Ventura Backcountry. As you likely know, Hwy 33 was slammed this past winter during the early January storms and sustained significant structural damage. Despite all the hard work CalTrans has put in over the past 10 months, Hwy 33 remains closed with an expected reopening date of sometime between December 2023 and January 2024. Knock knock, we’re certainly hoping it reopens sooner rather than later.

While the pavement is being repaired, most of the trails off Hwy 33 have not been so fortunate. The LPFA has hosted some trail days on portions of the Ventura Backcountry including Pine Mtn, Reyes Peak, Chorro Grande, Piedra Blanca, Matilija, Alder Creek and the Sespe Trail, but the vast majority of trail miles have a whole lot of work needed. Slides need to be cleared, downed trees bucked, brush cut back and camp areas cleaned. Let’s get to it!

With your support this #GivingTuesday, the LPFA will make a push to maintain as many trails as we can along Hwy 33, the Sespe and the Ventura Backcountry. Any help either through donations or volunteering to help along the trails would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

#GivingTuesday for the Sespe and Ventura Backcountry Trails!

2024 Los Padres Calendar

The gift giving holidays are up next and what better way to say YOU ROCK than hooking up the Los Padres lover on your list with a sweet 2024 LP wall calendar! The calendars go to print next week and they are amazing, the best yet! We will have a limited amount so get em while you can. Twelve months of Los Padres awesomeness! Heck yeah…. And thanks to all of you who submitted photos this year, you all rock too!

HikeLosPadres.com

The weather is looking great this weekend. Last weeks rain knocked back some of the trail dust. It’s a terrific time to put in some post Turkey Day trail miles! If you are looking for trails to explore or new camps to stargaze from, look no further than HikeLosPadres.com for the latest and greatest information on the trails, water and camps across the Los padres. Check it out before you go and share after you get back! Have a fun and safe weekend everyone!

LPFA Trail Work GivingTuesday

Posted on by Bryan Conant
How many #GivingTuesday emails did you receive today?
We’re setting the over/under at 15. How’d you do?

Hi Everyone – Sorry to inundate you with another #GivingTuesday email but we believe in our goal of restoring the Santa Cruz Trail and we believe that you as trail users should believe in it as well. Of course your contributions go to the LPFA but more importantly they go to support the Los Padres Forest, they go directly to the Santa Cruz Trail and they go to help folks like yourself who are out there using the trails. If you use the trails, this is for you!

If you haven’t volunteered with us yet or don’t know about the LPFA, we can almost guarantee you’ve enjoyed the trails we help maintain. We’ve put together a list of 12 trail accomplishments we’re proud of from 2022. If you’ve not enjoyed these trails listed below, please do so, now is the time before they get overgrown again…. trail work in the Los Padres is like painting the Golden Gate Bridge, it never ends!

For 2023 we will be making a big push to continue work on the Santa Cruz Trail and connect the dots between Upper Oso and Santa Cruz Station. We have funding in place for much of this work but not all of it just yet. If you use or have used the Santa Cruz Trail or any of the trails across the Los Padres, please consider supporting our Santa Cruz Trail campaign. Thank you all for your support and see you on the trails…..

– Your Friends at the LPFA

LPFA Accomplishments !

Click here to watch a YouTube of our 2021 #GivingTuesday accomplishments in the Sespe.
Click here to donate for #GivingTuesday 2022 on the Santa Cruz Trail.

Have a great day everyone!

THANK YOU!

Sespe Working Vacation & Exciting Santa Cruz Trail News!

Posted on by Bryan Conant
Sespe, Red Reef & the Topatopa’s – shining!

Hello Friends – HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

While there is much to be thankful for here in the Los Padres, we are most thankful for the 32 volunteers who helped out last week on our Sespe Working Vacation based at Willett Camp. The LPFA has hosted dozens of Working Vacations over the years but they just keep getting better, more efficient and more fun. We had a great time out there, the Sespe in fall is hard to beat and we watched the colors get better and better with each passing day. We’ll share the whole story later but for now some quick bullet points of what we accomplished:

Otis, Annie, Tommy, Honey, Floyd & Jessabelle – could not have done it without you!
  • Our awesome volunteers cleared and restored 4 miles of the Sespe River Trail, mainly between Willett and Coltrell Camps.
  • We hauled out, thanks to the mules, over a dozen trash bags filled with garbage left along the trail and at Willett Camp. Willett is clean now, please help keep it that way!
  • We repaired 4 disastrous fire rings around Willett while creating defensible space for when the fire ban is lifted.
  • Repaired and cleaned most of the out-buildings at Willett Camp. Much more love is needed!
  • Cut out 13 downed trees which were blocking both the Sespe River and Red Reef Trails.
  • Somehow kept everyone well fed and energized despite the freezing conditions and daily long hikes to the work sites.
  • Engaged with countless dozens of backpackers who were out enjoying the Sespe and its fall colors over the past week!
They don’t call him the Shermanator for nothing…..

We want to also thank Southern California Edison, who provided a grant to complete some of this work and a private anonymous donor (you know who you are THANKS!) who paid for all the food and drinks for our hungry and thirsty volunteers.

We are working on scheduling next years Spring Working Vacations and as of right now will be working on the Alder Creek Trail within the Sespe Wilderness and hosting another Working Vacation at South Fork Station in the San Rafael Wilderness. Stay tuned for updates and we hope you can join us in 2023 and beyond……

You likely know that #GivingTuesday is this coming Tuesday November 29. Last year the LPFA raised funds to fix a sketchy section of the Condor Trail within the Sespe Wilderness called the Alder Creek Slide. This year we will be focusing our #GivingTuesday efforts to continue our trail restoration along the Santa Cruz Trail within Santa Barbara County. Thank you everyone who helped support our efforts this past year and we hope you choose to support this #GivingTuesday as well. 

Check out this video of the Alder Creek Slide repairs!
Support #GivingTuesday 2022 on the Santa Cruz Trail!
Sespe Creek in Full Bloom