Tag: Mt. Pinos

Woo Hoo for Chaparral

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Fond Farewell to Heidi Anderson

If you’ve spent any time along the Ventura trails over the past decade or so, no doubt you’ve crossed paths with Heidi Anderson at least a few times.  Heidi has been the Wilderness Trails Manager for the Ojai Ranger District for the past 13 years.  It’s a sad week for us as Heidi will be leaving the LP after accepting a promotion with the Fremont-Winema National Forest in southern Oregon.  During her time on the LP, Heidi was the main cog for trail projects within the Ojai District.  She organized and led most of the volunteer projects within the district and famously provided timely water and trail updates from across the Ventura Backcountry.  In addition, Heidi was a regular out in the forest and it was not uncommon to see her trekking the trails she worked so hard to maintain.  I remember the first time I met Heidi, I was backpacking the Red Reef Trail and she came hiking up in her Forest Service uniform with a smile on her face and excited to be out in the forest.  Her enthusiasm for the forest was infectious and you could clearly see that through her devoted volunteers who followed her literally anywhere across the ORD swinging tools and lopping brush.  The trails around Ojai surely won’t be the same without her but I think I speak for all of us in saying we’re happy for Heidi as she continues her journey.  Best of luck Heidi, thanks for all your help and one last…… WOO HOO!
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 LPFA TRAIL TALK IV
We’re really excited to announce the next LPFA Trail Talk event is on February 16 at 6pm, at the Balboa Building in Santa Barbara.  We’ll be welcoming chaparral expert and author Rick Halsey to discuss our favorite community of local plants: chaparral!  Rick is the founder of of the California Chaparral Institute and brings more knowledge about our local plants than you probably knew existed.  2017 marks the 10 year anniversary of the Zaca Fire and our Trail Talk Events this year will have a Zaca theme to them starting with Rick discussing the cycle of post-fire chaparral regrowth.  Rick’s talk is titled: Grizzly Bears, Condors and Chaparral and chances are if you are reading this, then you’ll love the talk on the 16th.  For more details or to get tickets, click this link and as always the event is FREE for LPFA members or $10 for guests.  We hope to see you there.  INFO@LPForest.org with questions…..

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Pinos Purity, first tracks by Tessa Soutar

Rain Rain, COME BACK!

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Cuyama River, Two Days After Flooding, Where’d It All Go?CuyamaRiver  

Hello Everyone!

We’ve had some weather.  Hurricane Delores did her thing and sent some rain and thunder storms our way last week.  It was about as exciting as summer weather gets along the California coastal ranges.

RainMap
The rain started Saturday with much of Southern California seeing an entire day of rain, very heavy in some places.  Sunday through Wednesday was the more typical thunder storms with morning sun being replaced by fluffy thunderclouds and rain by the afternoons.  As the map shows above, the rain hit hardest in the southern Los Padres but most of the forest did see some precipitation at some point over the week.  Matilija in Ventura County saw the most rain with nearly 4 inches (in July!).  Frazier Park recorded 3.5″ which resulted in flash floods and quite a few road closures.  At one point on Saturday, all roads between Mt. Pinos and Frazier Park were closed due to floods.  There were reports of people being stranded overnight due to the road closures.  Santa Barbara didn’t see as much rain but the Sierra Madre received over 2″ at both Bates and SB Potrero.  Interestingly, SLO County got more rain than SB with most places having over 1.5″ across the forest.  Monterey up into Big Sur didn’t get much rain but did see some incredible lightning and thunder displays.  We’ve had reports coming in showing new green grass sprouting across the forest and increased flow in the creeks.  If nothing else, this most recent rain might extend the campfire season.  We’ll say a fond farewell to Delores and see what comes next.

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Still Spring on Mt. Pinos
ChulaVista
AROUND THE FOREST NEWS
Some stories and links you might find interesting from across the Forest:
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LOST BIG SUR HIKER
Earlier this month a hiker went missing at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park.  Sadly, after nearly a week, the search was suspended.  You can read more about it through a Google search or here.
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CONDORS AND TAR CREEK
There was a recent article in the High Country News about the Tar Creek (Ventura County) closure and its influence on the condors in the area.  The article highlights some of the Forest Service efforts to control the situation at Tar Creek.  Certainly worth a read if interested.
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CONDOR IN SANTA BARBARA
This story made it’s way through Social Media land but in case you missed it, a wild/free condor made a rare visit to Santa Barbara late last month.  Yankee Barbareno did a good job of documenting and sharing the information on his blog.  You can read it here.  Perhaps one day the condor will be feeding along the beaches again, that would be cool to see.