Trip Date: January 16, 2014
You just never know how a trip is going to go. Some of the most anticipated, best planned trips turn out less than ideal and sometimes the impromptu road trips turn out fantastic. Of course, it is more than just the pre-trip planning and research that impacts a trip; the weather, the destination, and the participants all play a role, as do the intangibles – everyone’s mood, mental and physical health, the environment, the stars, moons, and me Lucky Charms. As it turned out, all were aligned for this trip.
Off-season camping, perhaps November through February depending on where you are and where you are going, can be very rewarding as there is a lot of living that happens year-round, not just in the warmer months, and less people is always a big plus. There are any number of places where the highlights occur during the winter months, whether that be a migration, mating or breeding season, preferred weather, clearer skies, or cleaner air. Sometimes it is even worth seeing a place in the off-season, just for the experience. This was the case with our trip to the Carrizo Plain – known mostly for the spectacular wildflower displays in the Spring; but the area was also set aside to protect the rare and sensitive plant species, endangered, threatened, and rare animal species, vernal pools, Native American cultural history including pictographs on Painted Rock, and European cultural history at El Saucito and Travers Ranch.
The Carrizo Plain National Monument is about fifty miles West of Bakersfield; about thirty-five miles West of Highway 99; and/or about ten miles West of Highway 33. It is approximately 250,000 acres in size— about 38 miles long—and 17 miles wide, running approximately NW to SE. The Monument is distinguished for its world-class fossils, paleontological resources, and as the location where several rock formations were first recognized and defined such as the Paso Robles, Caliente, and Morales formations. The geomorphic and geologic structures of the Monument are the product of millions of years of erosion, sediment deposition, faulting, volcanism, and uplift. Most of the sediments that consolidated to form the Caliente and Temblor Ranges that surround the Plain were deposited into marine and near-shore basins during the Miocene Epoch.
However, the main event in and around the area is the geology and geography, and the star of the show is definitely the San Andreas Fault. The San Andreas Fault is the tectonic boundary between the Pacific and North American Plates. The Pacific Plate (west of the fault) is moving northwest relative to the North American Plate. During the last 11 million years, the San Andreas Fault has moved the Pacific Plate some 183 miles (295 km). The Carrizo Plain is world-famous for spectacular exposures of landforms generated by strike-slip faulting which has carved valleys, and created and moved mountains. One of my favorite places is Death Valley and this place reminds me very much of that place.
Of course, we just went to eat, drink, and be merry, but sometimes you just can’t help being impacted by your surroundings. This trip was certainly one of the more impactful for me. The long distance vistas, incredible scenery, isolation and solitude, and a powerful sense of being amidst long-ago California gave us exceptional highs. The incredibly poor air quality, (visibility on the West side of 99 was only about 500 yards because of the oil-stenched air) the impact of massive solar panel arrays and oil extraction, and the most horrifying images of post-apocalyptic modern life in the United States of America gave us exceptional lows. This trip was one of extremes.
I picked Steve up at about 7:45 and we were at Bob’s by 8:30 even though I took the wrong exit off Highway 99 South. If I have been to Bob’s house 10 times, I got lost getting there 8 times. I am not sure exactly where the vortex is, but it seems to regularly find me. At any rate, Steve and I had a nice tour of Franklin Boulevard and its many cool shops, restaurants and old world small businesses. It was the old fashioned lumber yard and the auto shop formerly known as “Happy Hubcap” that let me know I was back on track. As usual, Bob was ready and waiting and we were loaded up and headed to I-5 in a few moments.
We had about 2.5 hours of cruising down I-5, talking and catching up and yacking away. Soon, Kettleman City was upon us and we pulled off for gas and In-and-Out Burger. We wanted to minimize our Interstate Freeway experience, even though we would travel the majority of our miles on I-5, we wanted to take back country roads as much as possible. I always do a fair amount of research before these trips – search google maps on-line, look over the forest service or BLM maps of the area we are going, look over the large Benchmark Maps book Kristen bought for me for Christmas, so I have a pretty good idea of where we are going, how we are getting there, and what is around along the way that maybe we want to check out.
Although I had done this research, this was new country for me and I didn’t have the entire approach set in my mind. Fortunately, Bob assumed the navigator position and so once we got in the truck and I handed the maps over to him, I didn’t look at a map the rest of the way. This was a bit different because I like to keep track of where we are and remind myself where we are going and the routes I initially intend to take so I don’t miss a turn or maybe I notice an alternative route. And, I like to feel like I know where we are or at least where we are supposed to be. However, I have complete faith and trust in Bob, so this was also kind of refreshing to just let it go and drive and not have to try to drive, look at maps, balance all this stuff in my lap, switch into my reading glasses and possibly even use the magnifying glass and then switch back to my prescription sunglasses I almost always wear when I drive all the while keeping at least a finger on the steering wheel trying to stay in my lane or the other and all the while evaluating and considering options. Bob did all that so I could just drive and look out the window and enjoy the ride.
We exited Interstate 5 onto Highway 41, then 33, and then 46, passing near the site of the fatal James Dean car crash just a few miles West of where 41 and 46 merge at Shandon. Further South we followed Bitterroot Valley Road for several miles of classic “old California” landscape – golden hills, rolling on and on, scattered clumps of Cottonwoods revealing a shallow water table; the occasional stock pond turning golden brown to cash green. A cockeyed barn, a rock wall, a wooden post, some rusty wire; just a few lasting reminders of the toil and labor of homesteaders scraping a living from this tough land.
Closer to Highway 58 that runs along the northern boundary of Carrizo, on one side of the road, more remnants of the old West; a stock pen and loading ramp harkening back to Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates on Rawhide. On the other side of the road was the biggest solar panel array I have ever seen. Like a massive vineyard, so common now along 99 or I-5, this modern version may become the next generation row crop. It was quite a dichotomy. Soon we turned left on Highway58, the Carrisa Highway, for just a few miles until we turned right onto Soda Lake Road to enter the National Monument. It was just about exactly the 300 miles and 5 hours Google maps said it would take from Sacramento. We stopped to take a quickie tourist photo at the National Monument sign, and then on to find a good camp spot.
There are two campgrounds in the Monument, Selby and KLR. Selby is the first you come to, but it is about 4 miles down a dirt road tucked up into a canyon. It is fairly remote, but it is pretty much a flat, scraped, gravel parking lot with metal shade structures, concrete tables, and an outhouse. Just before the campground, there is a road that leads up about 3 or so miles to a trailhead. We came back from the campground and took that fork up a pretty steep grade, and within a few turns, knew we were on the right track. A few more sharp turns and we came upon a large flat, open spot between the road and the edge of the steep hill. As we climbed up the road to this spot, at one point, all you could see was the fire ring and then the great beyond – the ground was flat and had absolutely no vegetation within its 100 foot diameter. But it felt like it was a wide spot in the road, with nothing separating it from a passing car. Not that there would be any, put it was just a tad too exposed to the road.
Our thirst momentarily quenched, we remounted the steed, climbing past a few more sharp curves to another wide spot and a fire ring. The BLM encourages dispersed campers to camp in existing/previously used sites. These sites are pretty obvious due to the lack of trampled vegetation, the rocks for a fire ring or perhaps charred remains from campfires. Often flat tent or sleeping sites have been cleared and/or scraped so it doesn’t take a paleontologist to see that other folks have camped in these spots. This spot did not have the totally unobscured 200 degree view of the prior spot, but it did have some large Junipers, Mahogany, and Scotch/Witches Broom along with plenty of smaller shrubs of sage and grasses. It was much greener and far more pleasant, comfortable, calming, and far less chance for dust and dirt. We were up the hill another 500 feet or so in elevation, so the views between the Junipers off the edge and out over the plain below and beyond were a bit more expansive than from the first site. It did not take more than another beverage or two before we decided this was it. We were here; six hours of driving, exploring, and discovery already made it feel like we had been gone for days; we had already seen some great things, fantastic scenery, and knew we were in a real special place. We were off to a great start and were feelin’ real good about the next couple days.
Bob rearranged the few rocks left of the old fire ring; Steve scouted about for several more and soon the ring of many good things was ready. It does seem like on many a trip, the first thing we do after settling on a spot is to make sure the fire ring is in the right spot and it is sound, steady, and stable. Fire is good. I backed the truck up; turned on some mellow tunes and we began to unload. We each roamed about the site, back and forth, this side and that; looking for a flat, clear spot for a tent, with a minimum of the appropriate distance between and among us. Bob has a penchant for setting up farthest away from camp central and this again was the case. Steve was sharing memories of this old backpacking tent he bought in 1973 from the REI on Gilman Avenue in Berkeley. He was happy to have this old friend along.
I know I have said this before, but the beauty of containerizing much of your gear is it makes loading and unloading very quick and easy. We were done in a half hour or so; an excellent spot near a massive Juniper was selected for the kitchen, the views were outstanding; a little breeze was up, but almost nonexistent on the leeward side of the Junipers. Tables, chairs, stove, were out; some gear and tents set up; tunes, beverages, and snacks; thenfire.
We had stopped feeling like we were still in the rig, and starting to get the feel for this place. The sun was getting low and it was going to set behind the much higher ridge behind us. I wanted to stretch my legs, explore a little, and take some pictures. I wondered if the first spot down the road was too far away, but I headed out in that general direction. Shortly, I was off in another direction as a long, wide, flat ridge extended away from the road out in front and below the site we were camped. I followed an animal trail to the edge and I felt like I was going to sing, but fortunately, I heard Bob and Steve’s voices from above. I couldn’t make out the words; they may have been “do not sing”, but I couldn’t tell for sure.
This really blew me away – I was pretty far away but it was so quiet, so peaceful, so still. An occasional breeze rustling the bushes, an occasional birdy whizzing by into some shrubbery; the call of a hawk, the call of a Raven; chirp of a little tweety bird. That was it. Silence. In gigantic open spaces like this, it is often so quiet. The few local sounds can be heard from great distances. Like the views and vistas and massive open landscapes that play tricks on your eyes and make judgment of distance so difficult, so too does the absolute stone cold peacefulness of the desert and open arid plains like this. I was really happy and hopefully captured some of the images of shadows, low light, and mirages that the setting sun was creating over the low lying topography below. I felt like Lawrence of Arabia – it wasn’t that desert-like; there were no sand dunes or camels, or Arabs for that matter but this place felt good and the images being created, and constantly slightly modifying into more perfectly beautiful and fluid scenes, had me. I could have sang; I could have flown with the Ravens; I could have been.
Obviously, I needed to get back to the boys or melt away into this place. I was hungry and the boys had the coals ready and the kettle on the boil. We had a fantastic meal of salmon, pasta, reheated Kale and turkey bacon that I made at home. My daughter Haley is a vegetarian and she bought a garbage bag full of freakin Kale. I mean, I am sure it is healthy for you, and we often try to be healthy, but you just as easily could eat grass clippings. And, the counterfactual is – anything is better with bacon, even if it is turkey bacon. So we ate a lot of Kale with bacon, but still had a massive bag of this stuff in the refrigerator that took up the entire vegetable shelf. In fact, I had to fight with it every time I tried to close the refrigerator door. So, I figured we could make some of it up and bring it on the boys’ trip. Like spinach and probably most other leafy green, when heated it decomposes into a mushy gruel and the volume is reduced by 90% so you could have taken an entire grocery bag full of this stuff and it would have made a nice salad for the three of us. As it was, it was a nice small side dish.
Somewhere’s around cocktail hour and cooking, we had the pleasure of seeing two hawks circling and diving and playing in and out of the currents. Wings spread wide, then, in an instant folded up into a dive, then legs hanging loosely below. We couldn’t decide if we thought the one was actually carrying something in its talons. To watch the two of them interacting, rising, falling, up and down and round and round; it was an absolute pleasure and joy to watch. What a dinner show!
The slab o’ salmon, pasta, Kale, fire, beverage was all excellent. We got the dishes and dinner residue put away sufficiently and got to yakkin around the fire. My chair was facing northeasterly allowing me to eventually notice the massive red orb rising above the ridge. It was somewhat terrifying at first, then with the realization that it was the full moon picking up this intense ball of fire look from the sun, it was spellbinding. It looked like an old flat rubber basketball – all flattened out on the bottom and still rounded at the top. It was rough around the edges, seemingly getting distorted as it rose through the various layers of our atmosphere. As it got higher, it regained its rounded shape, but lost its ball of fire orangeness and transitioned to more of the typical man in the moon look. It was pretty bright – a full moon and all – but maybe the poor air quality, the number of large Junipers around us, or maybe the weight of my eyelids prevented it from being screaming street light bright.
The moon provided enough light to allow the slicing of the pumpkin pie and placing the foil wrapped morsel on the lid of Steve’s cast iron pot making a little skillet – a very cool design for this pot/pan combo. It took a while because I didn’t want to burn it, nor me fingers, but it was definitely worth the wait. Warm pumpkin pie has made an appearance in the late eve of the last few trips and it has been a welcome addition. And it appears to be an excellent sleep aid as soon after, we were all off to bed. It has been rumored that some in the group were wearing masks to bed, presumably to help block the light of the moon, but I would not be surprised if the valley floor saw a new species of masked avenger in all of its winter plumage heretofore not seen in these parts.
The night was clear and calm, bright from the moon, and warm. I awoke several times to remove a layer of clothes and hurl a blanket off of me. I slept off and on – probably didn’t medicate myself enough; and that stupid moon was bright and shining all night. Steve had a theory it would go away early in the night, but it hung out all night past morning light.
Morning was again ridiculously warm. We had a breeze come and rustle the bushes some and maybe blow some smoke around, but we are used to that – didn’t bother us none. Not being a big breakfast guy, I stuck with my “fugitive on the run” morning starter of coffee, yogurt, banana, a little pumpkin pie, and more coffee. The sunrise was spectacular – not so much for the colors, but for the shadows on all the ridges, humps, bumps, rises, and ravines out on the Plain below. Soon, we were discussing the plan for this precious middle day – the best part of the two-night trip. We decided to stay local and not spend so much time in the car. This place is very much like Death Valley – massive flat uplifted valley, surrounded by mountains, incredible geology, erosion, immense vistas, massive skies, quiet, peaceful, solitude. The Monument is large and expansive, with much human history, wildlife, and natural features to explore and find on your own. There are numerous roads and trails and we could have exhausted ourselves and still not seen much of the place, so we decided to see what we could see near us, and enjoy that. The road we were camped on was supposed to have a trailhead a couple more miles up the hill. I assumed it stopped or was gated at that point, but as we found, it was not.
We loaded up an ice chest, day packs, fanny packs, camera, gear and equipment of all sorts and purposes and selected some appropriate tunes, and off we went. We continued driving up our dirt road; up and over the Caliente Range we were camped on and found ourselves facing southwest, looking out over the Cuyama River below along Highway 166 which serves as the county line between San Luis Obispo (the county the Plain is in) and Santa Barbara County. Beyond the road and river is part of the Los Padres National Forest and the Sierra Madre Mountains that rise up to 4,000 – the last mountains between us and the Pacific, with Santa Maria just on the other side. The river valley was very cool – enough water to support some agriculture and some development, but it was largely open country. You could smell and feel the ocean air, very faint at 45 miles inland, but still distinctive. It was very inviting, very tempting to try to make our way to Highway166 and head towards the Pacific, but it would have been another massive day of driving, and the signs said the road was gated prior to reaching 166, so we turned our backs on the sea, stuck with the original plan, and turned our attention to the very strange structure on the flattened hilltop.
We followed the good dirt road down the South slope for a bit, just to see, and it kind of looked like more of the same – very dry, large shrubbery scattered here and there, small brush and tall grass – pretty classic southern California/Mediterranean landscape. So, it was time to go back and really investigate that structure we passed. The road leading up to it was gated and a warning sign posted about not interfering or damaging the structures. Not really a heavy/serious “KEEP OUT” or NO TRESPASSING”, “VIOLATORS WILL BE SHOT” kind of a warning; more of a, we know since you are way the hell out here that you are going to check this weirdness out, so just don’t be stupid and don’t wreck/vandalize anything. Besides, the entire area was surrounded by a really nice three rail PVC fence, like you’d see around a nice house in a nice suburb; not exactly the kind of fortress that Bond, James Bond, (Roger Moore and Sean Connery – the real James Bonds’ –not these phony Jimmy come lately’s) had to penetrate.
We squeezed between the shiny white 2×6 rails and walked up the driveway. The small house-sized concrete bunker hummed with AC units sticking out on all sides cooling what we assumed was massive amounts of electronics inside. Further up the road and around the bend, was a perfectly flat former hilltop, now a massive spectacularly clean gravel pad. But this was no plain, ordinary flat gravel pad that formerly was a natural hilltop; this one had a spaceship in the middle, not just the middle, in the exact center. The craft was perhaps 6 feet in diameter at the base up to about 8 feet up then tapering off to 4 feet in diameter to the top. It was maybe 25 feet tall. Around it in perfect symmetry, were maybe 20 mail box looking things surrounding the spaceship about 30 feet from the base. The boxes were about 4 feet in the air on stout posts – maybe railroad tracks like the historical markers in the Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon. Everything was painted white. The scene was quite striking.
We ventured inside the ring of mailboxes and were maybe 15 feet from the spaceship when we got around to the side that had the warning about staying 150 feet away. We tiptoed away, perhaps afraid of waking the inhabitants, beyond the ring of mailboxes, but we might have had to have been off the gravel flattop altogether to get 150 feet away (maybe that was the point). So we walked the perimeter of the lot, along the glimmering white 2×6 PVC three rail fence. There was nothing higher than the fence along the perimeter, so the views were spectacular. The air was clearer this morning, I think partly because the breeze had cleared it out, and because towards the West, there was more moisture in the ground, more vegetation, and therefore less dust to get picked up into the air.
In any event, this was a very trippy thing to be looking at and at first, I didn’t want to bring my camera with me in case that would anger the inhabitants. Possibly, if our new neighbors appeared to us in some reasonable human-esque form, and we didn’t violently projectile vomit all over the place at the mere sight of them, they wouldn’t mind so much us being here if we weren’t the typical obnoxious rude Americans taking pictures of everything and invading everyone’s privacy and banging away at any lingering sense of dignity or decorum. I figured not taking pictures significantly increased the likelihood of survival, so I could do without a few photos if it meant possibly living a tad longer. With our first covert operation a success, what to do but do it again; this time with a bit more gusto.
I needed to have some photos, so when we returned to the truck, and we seemed to be in the same universe, the same time/space continuum, and we seemed to have all/most of our parts arranged as before, I grabbed my camera and went back up the walkway to click and clack a few quickies to help explain what we were experiencing. I am still not sure we won’t disappear someday, or have our memories of this place erased or perhaps they have already harvested what they wanted from us, or decided our kind was better left out of their experiments, but in any case, we seemed to be able to leave unmolested. I did notice the boys were calling their loved ones just in case they noticed something not quite right about them upon their return. Now my wife accuses me of being a tad different upon returning from most trips, but she attributes these subtle changes to my brief encounters with any number of my ancestral Neanderthal Jungian personas. This site may be the source of an entirely new sort of “subtle change”
This side trip a resounding success, we returned to the gate which marked the beginning of the hike to the top of Caliente Mountain, some 5238 feet in elevation. WARNING: the rest of the trip may have been a parallel universe created by the neighbors down the hill to make it seem like we left the space station, so some of the timing and locations of the following description of events may not exactly jive with what the rest of you typically understand as being possible in your universe.
Parked at the gate, we loaded up our packs with lunch snacks and beverages. There is a trail along the hillside below us, but we decided to take the high road, as it were, and walk along the wide open ridge top. The path was perfect; wide, open, a smooth gentle rise, easy walking. We stopped often to take in the views, put the binoculars on birds, or to just soak it all in. We hunkered down in the shade about 30 feet below the road on the North slope and had a tremendous lunch with a great view out over the plains below and the Temblor Range further off in the distance. It was January 17 and we needed to find shade for lunch – unbelievable. We were just starting to think about turning around and heading back. The top of the peak was still far off in the distance so reaching it was definitely out of the realm, but the air was clear to the East and some super trippy landscapes and formations were coming into focus. We needed to continue on a bit further up the road to get a better view of this area.
Four bright and shiny Western Bluebirds crossed our path and we were sure the Ravens were making fun of us. We thought we saw what looked like a fairly steep drop off towards the East so we figured we could go that far and check it out and maybe get a better view of these strange twisted geologically complex formations below. The air just wouldn’t quite cooperate, but what we could see was profound. It was like a crumpled piece of construction paper. The ridges and lines and dramatically sharp cuts, edges, ravines were awesome. Yet, in the middle of all this pressure, uplifting, clashing was a flat gentle runway like surface right in the middle. It was, including Death Valley, the trippiest natural formations I have seen. We must return for clearer skies and a far longer, intimate exploration.
The hike/walk was perfect. Returning to the rig and back to camp, it was time for fire, cocktails, and sustained vigilance for the moon rise. I was ecstatic at the days events and was very much looking forward to the chicken fajitas Bob was going to prepare for dinner, and getting into Steve’s homemade wine. Steve is one of those more mild Italians (I am not sure where they come from or how they get this way, but they are not your typical outgoing, overtly entertaining Italians). So he is very restrained when it comes to the wine he has been making for several years now, but it is very good. He also makes a clear liquid my older brother would call Screech because that is what your brain does when it is imbibed, but even that, though its strong suit is not taste, would warm you up in the Antarctica.
I vowed to lay off the whiskey and beers, for the most part so I would minimize the probability of getting too hammered too soon and then being a mess for the long drive home tomorrow. So, I am thankful Steve brought as much wine as he did because we needed it. Steve also baked some yams and acorn squash in foil in the coals. It was a perfect fit for the end of the day and the beginning of the eve. As expected, the food, fajitas, festivities, frolicking, and fanciful fiction around the fire were all fabulous. I presume probably because we paid so little attention the previous night, and possibly due to improved visibility, both due to the air quality and the Vino, the stars were quite impressive for the short period between dusk and the moonrise.
This time we were pretty revved up for the moonrise, so we were keeping alert for it and I had my camera and tri-pod on the ready. Steve sped it first I believe, and we sprung into action. I rolled out of my chair and staggered to the front of the truck to get the camera and out onto the road of no vehicles. I clicked a few images, but I wasn’t doing it right. So down it went, and we simply enjoyed the spectacle – not nearly as orange/red as the night before, but perhaps a bit brighter – who is to know? It was stunning by any metric.
I am usually an early to bed early to rise kind of guy, but I have to admit, sometimes on these trips, my cycles get out of whack. This night, I had a bit of energy and after the moonrise, I proposed we load up and drive out onto the valley floor. This is something I have always wanted to do in Death Valley, but in all the times I have been, have yet to do. So, hearing little to no opposition, we loaded up some snacks (just in case we were abducted) and apparently two bottles of whiskey, and headed out. We had some Grateful Dead, Dylan, and Van Morrison on the waves and we had the power with us.
Back down the hill to the pavement, we turned right, new country beneath us. Down the road a piece, a left turn back onto dirt, and we were crossing the Plain – this felt very very right. The night was warm and calm, the tunes were outstanding – we were alone – or at least it felt that way. We had only seen two other vehicles, presumably being driven by human beings, the entire time we had been here. One vehicle we saw from the ridge driving into the campground on the first day. The other vehicle was coming down the road as we were driving up looking for our camp site. Not a sole since; no column of dust trailing a vehicle off in the distance, no airplanes, nothing came from the spaceship, no one about for miles.
So being out in the valley at night just seemed like we had the entire area to ourselves. We left the valley floor and started up and into some very slight humps of the Panorama Hills, smack dab in the middle of the Elkhorn scarp of the San Andreas Fault Zone and were soon a couple hundred feet up in some ravines and canyons. The country was still very open with very little vegetation. Then out of nowhere, like in a Twilight Zone episode, we came upon a shiny new green street sign. Apparently we had reached the corner of Elkhorn and Panorama. We just had to stop and check it out. The moon was bright casting long irregular shadows. We laughed and sang and danced in the intersection. We toasted the gods and wandered off a bit in all directions.
To our surprise, from up high came a light. Up and down, out of site and then within, the light became two and the orange trim lights of a vehicle became visible; a massive cloud of dust rising behind. Upon arriving at this location, I had just stopped the truck in the middle of this intersection and didn’t even think about other cars, but thank god, the roads didn’t intersect in right angles, but kinda merged in an equilateral triangle, and he came across the hypotenuse of the intersection, while we were stopped on one of the sides. Faster than his headlit approach, his tail lights disappeared almost instantly. Our frozen amazement turned to hysterical laughter. A shot of Bushmills was offered to the gods for preventing a collision of the only two vehicles for 700 square miles, and the fandango blazed on.
At some point, the Bushmills ran dry, and we didn’t want to risk becoming too parched in this harsh desert environment, so we climbed aboard and headed back to our camp. We must have had the spaceship hovering above because my headlights were not operational for much of our return, so we were forced to cross the Plain with the faint orange glow of the running lights and the light of the moon (and of course some guidance from the ship above). The magic carpet proved its navigational trustworthiness yet again, and we arrived back at camp. The neighbors may have come by for a visit at that point because I have no recollection of the rest of the night, if there was a rest of the night because it still might be continuing, but if it were, I wouldn’t be writing this yet, or maybe…) Thus ended one of the best middle days of a great camp trip.
I was concerned about the status of the boys upon their awakening, but to my great surprise, nay astonishment, they both were quite spry and active. In fact they were both up before me again and thinking a sausage and egg breakfast was in order. I kept to my manly Neanderthal menu of yogurt, dry toast, banana, and hardboiled egg. Breakfast was consumed; coffee was re-engaging the mono nucleic acids and riboflavin’s and soon energy was being expended on packing up. Synapsis were again firing and cells recovered. The warm sun and fresh breeze were cleansing. We took in the vast vistas and many distant horizons, thousands of ridges, ravines, washes, and alluvial fans carrying their detritus onto the valley floor as we neared the moment of departure to begin our Northward journey home.
I was excited about the looming adventure, experiences, exploration, and discoveries that lay ahead. In six hours we would be back in our homes; back in the existence we surround ourselves with 95% of the time. These trips are a very different 1% of our existence, and I was very much into enjoying the remaining moments. We had barely scratched the surface of the National Monument. We entered from the North and basically took the first right turn we could and camped, hiked, explored in that tiny area. Our night excursion got us a little further South and then slightly East, but that nighttime extravaganza occurred in a different dimension. So the plan for the drive home was to drive all the way out the South end, hook up with Highway166, and then head East. For some reason, I really wanted to go through, possibly even spend some time in Taft, and that route would bring us there.
However, once we rolled down the hill to the valley floor, Bob had consulted the map (and perhaps the Bushmills, the space ship, and the gods) and suggested an alternative. We could retrace our magic carpet ride of the night before to the intersection of Elkhorn and Panorama, follow Hurricane up and over the Temblor Range to Crocker Springs Road, to Mocal Road into Fellows and onto Highway 33 North. It sounded like we would stay on back roads longer and it could possibly turn out to be a short cut, so off we went. We stopped at the intersection, picked up our bottle of Bushmills, toasted the gods, and continued on up the grade. Back in these hills was very much like Panoche – a grey/green soil, very few rocks and almost no vegetation. There were many signs warning or bad road conditions; I can imagine any amount of precipitation quickly turns these roads to real sticky sloppy muck and traction is very tough to come by. The heavy clay soils of the Mendocino NF are like this, leaving Forest Highway 7 impassible until late in the spring when it dries out, not to mention the muckiest muck around – that being the playa in the Black Rock.
Up Hurricane grade, a very narrow, twisty turny one-lane dirt road, it was pretty easy going because there were no other roads to choose or be tempted by. We came down the East side, into one of a million ravines, this area was just a maze of hills and washes and ravines. We stopped momentarily because the road forked to the East, which seemed to be the way we should go, but that road forked again and did not appear to be well used. After a brief pow-wow, beverage outflow and beverage intake, it was decided to follow the better road heading South. In short order it bent to the East and we felt we had made the right choice.
It soon became obvious we had not. This wide, well graded, gravel road led up to what was my first ever up close and personal oil/natural gas drill site. It was about an acre in size (200’ x 200’), perfectly flat, graveled, neat as a pin. There was a well in the middle and three or four boxcar storage units all lined up, well signed, and clean, off to one side. There was no litter, dirt, oil pools, stains, rips, tears, nothing – it was like a Chevron advertisement. Fortunately, a white truck was idling on the pad with a young guy inside. I approached cautiously, not knowing what he might think about us being up on his lily pad or startling him with a sudden interruption of what he was so intently focused on all alone in his cab at this far away place. He seemed like a cool young dude and he directed me back to the one fork that provided us with the one choice we had the entire way. Apparently – it was one too many. Back the couple miles, across the cattle guard, we strayed left at the fork this time and sure enough, two bends later, maybe .25 miles, pavement, the ranch on the right, and signs we were returning towards civilization. We soon had dropped out of the hills, and into, by far, the most hellish place I have ever been.
These were the West Side oil fields. An absolute travesty of brown air, the heavy stench of oil, maybe one mile visibility, thousands of wells, pumps, pipes, wires, signs, pieces of equipment and an absolute maze or roads, drives, paths, and tracks. This being January, albeit a dry stagnant year thus far, I cannot fathom what it must be like after being baked in the typical air quality of July and August. This is where school children should come. This is where tour buses should be. Every Californian should see this place. This is the result of our lifestyle. This is the place that we relinquish to provide us with the energy needs of our vehicles, homes, businesses, and lifestyle. This is the wasteland that 99% of us don’t see that would help us understand some of the repercussions of a lifestyle with such ridiculously high energy demands with so little regard for the real and present impacts to the biology, ecology, and natural systems that heretofore have provided the clean air and water we needed to live, let alone the energy we needed to create the type of world we desire.
Taft, Fellows, McKittrick, Ford City, Dustin Acres, Maricopa, and other communities along Highway 33 should be seen by all. Some fine August day, Caltrans should close I-5 and divert all the traffic to Highway 33 for all to see and hopefully understand, and hopefully respond accordingly. For our part, we wanted to avoid I-5 as much as possible on our way home, so Bob navigated our course up 33 as far as we could, alongside roads which criss-crossed back and forth up and over Interstate-5 until we were finally out of options. Fortunately, the last stretch of country road led us into Coalinga. We stopped at a cool old drive-in for some tasty vittles, tended to the vehicle, then blasted up 5 into town. All in all, a fantastic trip of exploring new country, exceptional natural beauty, and extraordinary educational value.
Find this Spot
Carrizo Plains Photo Gallery
