Tuesday May 13, 20.6mi/33.2km

Nordhoff Ridge (68.0/4990ft) to Sespe Hot Springs (88.6/2680ft) (CA)

it was a cold night and since I zipped up the tent, it got pretty damp inside. I spent a little extra time drying it out and then got moving at 7:30.

I had a few more miles on the truck trail and I was mesmerized by the clouds blowing in from the ocean.

Sometimes the clouds would completely surround me.

And then all the sudden they would clear out and it would be blue skies. After an hour I came to the end of the truck trail road, and it became a regular hiking trail.

The trail stayed up on the ridgeline for another hour and I had more mesmerizing clouds.

I hiked over a small pass and then started to descend, down 3,000 feet to the Sespe River valley.

The trail started off nice enough, maybe just slightly overgrown, but I could still hike almost 3 mph. It also had these cool little retaining walls to hold it up on the steep hillsides.

As I descended further it got brushier, which was annoying but only slowed me down a little bit. And then the trail started to follow the streambed pretty closely, which is where the poison oak grows. So I spent an hour going slowly and dodging all the poison oak, it kinda felt like doing the moves in the matrix. I was so focused on the vegetation I almost didn’t notice this cool little tunnel.

Finally I was down at the Sespe River.

It was a wide river and generally had sandy banks so that made for easy hiking.

Pretty soon I came to the turn off for Willets hot springs, which was an easy half-mile hike uphill to a little protected canyon.

Someone had installed a round metal tank and piped the water directly into it which was really convenient. I sat and soaked for half an hour, and it felt really nice even though it was a hot day. I returned back to the main trail and the Sespe River.

I followed the river downstream for like 4 miles on a pretty good trail, and even saw a couple other groups of hikers. I saw barely any poison oak and even the repeated stream crossings were pretty easy. Towards the end of that stretch, I climbed high up on a bank and had an amazing view of the valley.

And of course the trail immediately descends right back down the other side.

I hiked another side trail up to Sespe Hot Springs, and since it was almost 7pm I decided to camp here.

As my dinner was cooking, I walked over to the steaming creek and soaked in one of the little rock pools that people had built.

What an amazing spot to be camping! I also met a young couple who was out on a three-day backpacking trip. Kylie and Parker are relatively new to backpacking but decided to celebrate their 3rd anniversary this way. Cool! And congrats guys.

Monday May 12, 14.8mi/23.8km

Ojai (54.3/1440ft) to Nordhoff Ridge (68.0/4990ft) (CA) +1.1mi to Ojai

I slept great in the campground with the little stream burbling nearby, and the chorus of frogs. I hung out with camp neighbor Juliana for a couple of hours, and she shared her nice breakfast with me. Eggs, bacon, fruit, tea… amazing!

My tea bag had a nice message, and pretty good timing given that I’m about to climb 5,000 ft today.

We had a fun conversation going all morning, when I realized it was already 10am I started packing up to leave. I was going to catch an Uber to the post office but she really generously offered me a ride. My new shoes!

I unpacked my new shoes in the lobby of the post office (along with a few delicious treats from Toppy, thanks!), and put them on. So much better! Juliana even gave me a ride right to the trailhead so I didn’t have to do the roadwalk through town.

And then from 11am onward, it was uphill almost all day.

The trail was nicely switchbacked, and even had an occasional bench to rest on.

Still going up…

After 3,000 ft of climbing, I gained a ridgeline, and had a nice break at the top of the lookout tower on Nordhoff peak.

The view to the South, into the Ojai valley:

All afternoon I followed the Nordhoff Ridge truck trail, which is drivable with 4wd but I didn’t see any vehicles.

Around mid-Afternoon I noticed some clouds started blowing in from the ocean. They were doing these cool swirling motions around the tops of the peaks.

I carried 5 liters of water from town because I knew from the guidebook there was a long dry stretch, but I did come across this little muck pond which would have been an emergency backup.

Towards the end of the day I arrived at Chief Peak, which isn’t technically on the route but is a short detour.

It was a fun little scramble and pretty quickly I was at the top.

Views:

And the requisite summit selfie.

Looking West, towards tomorrow’s objectives.

I placed a special rock on the summit, and then started eyeing my descent route.

In half a mile I was back on the road. Easy and very scenic!

I started looking for flat places to camp that were out of the wind, it seemed like I could only check one of those two boxes. So I set up in a flat spot at a wide curve in the road. It’s a little windy but hopefully the small bush provides a little protection.

After doing my evening chores, I noticed my watch told me I had ascended a ridiculous amount today.

6073 feet! I’m going to sleep good tonight.

Sunday May 11, 11.2mi/18.0km

Matilija Creek (45.2/1600ft) to Ojai (54.3/1440ft) (CA) +2.1mi to Ojai

I knew that I didn’t have far to walk today, so I slept in and didn’t leave camp until almost 8am. The dirt road was easy walking but then quickly took a turn to cross the creek, which was clearly a makeshift crossing, probably from when the creek flooded its banks 2 years ago.

These huge flowers had a wonderful smell that permeated the valley.

In less than 10 minutes it became a paved road and I entered a tiny fancy little neighborhood.

And this geriatric chocolate lab tried to follow me for a little while, it was adorable.

Most of the neighborhood houses were fancy and had gates on their driveways, and some had confusing little signs.

It was a long road walk, I was on pavement for over 5 miles, and in some places the road was in need of some serious repairs.

The guidebook mentioned a lake down there, all I saw was a grassy meadow and a dilapidated old dam. Not sure what happened to the lake.

And then I had to walk paved highway 33 for over a mile, which was much better than I expected. All the traffic was going slow, since there were tons of cars parked on the roadside where people were enjoying swimming in the creek.

And then I hit the best quality trail of the hike so far.

It climbed up a few hundred feet and I could see the town of Ojai far below me.

Nice little path.

More views.

When I got to my planned camping spot, it was only 2 pm, so fine. I’ll just relax and read a book for a while. But when I looked around I saw there was no practical place to camp as the trees had burned and it was just brush left. I quickly came up with a plan B, and found a campground in town (all the hotels are crazy expensive). So I hiked down into town, to the bus stop at the main intersection. Fortunately the main intersection also had an ice cream shop.

It’s a fancy little town. Lots of little boutique shops and vegan restaurants and kombucha places.

I would describe the architecture as Old Spanish mission style.

I rode the $1 bus/trolley to the Vons grocery store and did a resupply for the next trail section. When I saw these cookies I pretty much had to buy them!

From there I walked to the little campground, at Camp Comfort. I had already eaten dinner at the grocery store Cafe so I quickly setup my tent and then hopped in the shower. I was getting ready for bed when I met my nice camping neighbor Juliana, who travels a lot we had some fun stories to swap.

Saturday May 10, 14.4mi/23.2km

Santa Ynez River (30.8/1620ft) to Matilija Creek (45.2/1600ft) (CA)

I hiked gradually uphill most of the day, fortunately most of it was on dirt roads and easy.As I ascended higher up the valley, I noticed the Santa Ynez River that I had been paralleling was starting to become dry (or run underground). So the next time I saw that it had water I stopped to refill my bottles.The guidebook for the Hot Springs Trail is pretty thorough, but the one thing it doesn’t address well is the water sources. So I filled up three liters and continued on.As I climbed higher up the river valley I saw this giant dam in the distance.The local water utility company built themselves a reservoir, impounding the upper Santa Ynez River, and creating Jameson Lake.I hiked along it for a little ways, and took a lunch break at the upper end of the lake, where I could watch all the waterfowl flying around.Apparently the road I had been hiking on all morning had a name, Juncal Road. As soon as I got past the dam area, I could tell the road was not used.The road was overgrown by road standards, but still made for a nice trail. And it had all these interesting insects.Including some unfriendly ones, one of which stung me repeatedly. I didn’t see the little culprit, but it really hurt and I took a benadryl just to be on the safe side.Fortunately a half-mile later, I came across a nice little swimming hole and I put my arm in cold water.The water felt nice, so I ended up putting my whole body in. Once I exited the water, I was dry within a couple minutes. I finished my climb up to Murietta Divide, still on the old road, which was surrounded by flowering bushes at this elevation.The last couple hours of the day I descended on the old road down to the next valley. About halfway down there is a turnoff to a trail, which I attempted to take, but was quickly turned back within a quarter mile by really thick overgrown brush. So I stuck to the road which was easy walking, but unfortunately also skipped the Murietta campsite I was planning to stay at. At the bottom of the descent, the old road joined a maintained dirt road, and there were some houses nearby. It was clearly a hiking corridor, and there were a few helpful signs.I walked the dirt road for a couple minutes and saw where my intended trail emerged on the other end. A brand new sign!Curious, I hiked up the trail and again was turned back in about a quarter mile by brush. So weird. I eventually found a spot to camp by crossing to the other side of the road and taking a different hiking trail to Matilija Creek.It’s only five minutes off my route, and a beautiful spot. Today and tomorrow are short mileage days, since I don’t want to arrive in the town of Ojai before Monday morning. I have a box with new shoes at the post office, so I’m very excited for 9am Monday morning!

Friday May 9, 15.4mi/24.8km

Ridge of Montecito Peak (7.4/1920ft) to Santa Ynez River (30.8/1620ft) (CA) -8.0mi skip LC Hotsprings

I packed up my campsite at 6:30 and had the most amazing undercast view of the coast below.

The trail was quite nice and I cruised along as I climbed another thousand feet up to Cold Spring Pass.

I even saw a couple morning joggers along the way. And I saw like five rabbits, none of whom seemed all that concerned to get out of my way.

The top of the climb had this little trailhead parking area and a strange water collection tank.

I used the ladder to climb up to the top and get some water through a hatch. after a nice break enjoying the views I continued down off the pass into the next valley.

So many new wildflowers here!

The view down into the valley where I would be spending most of the rest of the day.

There was lots of wildlife today, mostly the animal and insect variety, but also this unwelcome vegetation.

This wildlife was loud, but I couldn’t get close enough to identify them.

It seemed like every three or four miles along the trail there was a little campsite.

Once I got down into the valley, I noticed the trails were significantly less maintained and used.

The trail would alternate between wooded areas and a big open meadows.

I passed by the next campsite around noon so I decided a picnic table would be a fine spot to have lunch.

After lunch I immediately had to cross a little stream, fortunately someone had lined up rocks, so it was a dry crossing.

And a mile later I joined a road. At least, the guidebook called it a road. There’s no way this thing had been a drivable road in this century, it was very overgrown and washed out in a few places.

I basically paralleled the Santa Ynez River all day, and where there’s water there’s wildlife. Snake!

I came to this campground, “P-Bar Flats”, it was all overgrown and unmaintained but otherwise all the picnic tables and toilets and infrastructure was there. It kind of felt like a zombie apocalypse campground.

An hour later I hit another campground with the same eerie abandoned feeling.

This one had a couple of deer roaming around who were eagerly munching on grass.

There were two hot springs on the route today, Little Caliente and Big Caliente. Both of them are on out-and-back spurs from the main trail. I couldn’t get to Little Caliente because the road was washed out in several places, so I turned around and returned to the main trail. Big Caliente, however, was accessible.

It even had changing rooms!

That hot spring was down a 2.7 mile spur road, so it was easy walking but I had to keep alert for snakes.

By the time I had returned to the main route from Big Caliente hot springs, it was almost 6pm and I searched for a place to camp. This whole valley is quite brushy so I ended up just camping in the dry river bed for Santa Ynez River.

Thursday May 8, 7.4mi/11.9km

Stearns Wharf (0.0/10ft) to Ridge of Montecito Peak (7.4/1920ft) (CA)

I slept in a bit, but still made it to the free hotel breakfast. After a final shower, I left and made my way down to Union station. These old train stations have some really cool architecture.

I took the Pacific Surfliner train, which made a bunch of stops but got me to Santa Barbara in about 2 hours. It was surprisingly nice.

The train station in Santa Barbara is only like four blocks from the ocean, so it was a short walk to the start of the trail.

There were lots of fancy shops and restaurants including one that had one of my nicknames.

Officially, the Hot Springs Trail starts at the end of Stearns Wharf. There were more little shops, mostly beach themed or seafood restaurants.

Of course I had to get a starting ice cream cone.

Looking West toward the Channel Islands.

The requisite starting photo.

As I was walking back toward land, I noticed there was a pretty nice beach all along the shoreline.

For a mile I followed a paved multi-use path which followed the shoreline, and was lined with really tall palm trees and flowers.

It felt so much different from the Desert Trail already! pretty soon I left the shore and ventured inland on a series of suburban streets and sidewalks. This sign seemed hilariously unhelpful.

I hiked by a little shopping center so I stopped at the Vons to get some last minute snacks and drinking water, and the post office to mail a mother’s Day card.

Appropriately, the route followed a road named Hot Springs Road the entire way up into the mountains.

The road got smaller and smaller, and the houses got larger and larger, I saw one had a for sale sign so I scanned the QR code. “Great deal, reduced to $7.9M”. Yikes. Finally I was off the road and onto the trail network.

Almost immediately, I crossed a little freshwater stream.

The juxtaposition from the Desert Trail was entertaining. I passed a running creek in the first 4 miles of this trail, on the Desert Trail it took me 400 miles to do that! On the other side of the creek, the trail was on a 2-track road, which started climbing steeply up into the mountains.

A new type of wildflower!

Higher up I recrossed the same stream, but up here it was obvious there was Hot Springs nearby.

The entire area smelled of sulfur and minerals, and the water had all these hot water organisms growing in it. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find the little Montecito Hot Springs, but I stumbled upon it easily enough right next to the trail.

And it was much bigger than I thought, there were about a dozen pools scattered up and down the creek.

So I stopped and took a soak! The pools were nice and big and each could fit three or four people, and it had a nice sandy bottom. After that I hiked another mile up the hill to the top of a ridge, and since it was getting close to dark I found a little spot to squeeze my tent into, between some bushes. The view back down into Santa Barbara was pretty stunning.

What a great first day on the Hot Springs trail!

Wednesday May 7, 0mi/0km

Tecopa Hot Springs to Los Angeles (CA)

I was awake early as usual, but today I had nowhere to hike. Lena saw me packing up my tent, and very generously offered me a ride to town. But she wasn’t going to Baker CA, she was commuting into work in Las Vegas. Works for me! They both have bus terminals. I was in Las Vegas at 8:30am and asked to get dropped off at a Starbucks where I caffeinated myself.

After waking up and using their Wi-Fi to plan the rest of my day, I caught a short 5-minute Uber over to the Last Vegas transit center.

I caught a greyhound down to LA Union station, which took 6 hours with stops. There were beautiful views of the desert the whole way, and also this interesting piece of technology called a solar concentrator.

LA’s Union station is huge, where trains, buses, taxis and light rail all converge. Some of the artwork was pretty impressive.

I had booked a cheap room at the Super8 motel on Sunset Boulevard, just 10 minutes away by taxi. Apparently also known as Avenue of the Athletes, which felt very fitting given I was in between two long distance hikes.

I dropped my stuff in the motel room, and did some laundry across the street, weirdly the laundromat had karaoke. after that, I walked to the Vons grocery store and bought some fresh fruits and protein. Even the tiny grocery stores in Southern California have an impressive selection of peppers.

On the walk back, I picked up some street tacos and enjoyed them relaxing in the motel room. The salad really hit the spot too. I stayed up too late doing planning on my phone, but tomorrow I leave for Santa Barbara, to start the Hot Springs Trail!

Tuesday May 6, 13.5mi/21.7km

Above Amargosa River (430.7/880ft) to Tecopa Hot Springs (444.2/1400ft) (CA)

I woke up early, excited to get to town today. My shadow followed me across the canyon all morning.

For the first few miles, the old railroad grade was pretty smooth and great.

Some of the cuts through cliffs were filled with bits of rocky rubble, it seems the bedrock around here is very loose.

I came to a confluence in the wash, where all the ATV riders split off and went up Sperry wash.

The guidebook mentions three spots where the old railroad trestles are gone, and I have to go down and cross the creek through bushes and weeds.

The first one wasn’t bad. I got my feet wet, but otherwise it was easy to find a route through the tamarisk and mesquite bushes. Then I was back up on the old railroad grade for a mile.

Again, another trestle was missing and I had to cross the Amargosa River.

This one was a bit more challenging. I had to push my way through a short section of aquatic grass.

But it only took 20 minutes and I left with my spirit intact. I made a cairn on the crossing bank for any future hikers.

Back up on the old railroad grade, it was easy walking for another half mile.

The cliffs to my right had this cool fluted pattern.

And then the railroad grade ended for the third time, and the day went to hell. This was my last crossing of the Amargosa River, and it took a couple of hours….to go only 200m/600ft. I only took one photo in the middle of some tamarisk thicket.

It was by far the worst bushwhack I’ve ever done, and involved using all my strength to push through some of the thick brush. A few places I had to turn around and find less thick brush, as I just couldn’t get through. I was afraid I would have to turn around and retrace all my steps today and exit back at the dunes I passed yesterday. After a lot of mud, pollen, sweat and some blood, I emerged 2 hours later on the opposite bank. I was now determined to find a way forward, since I would never go back through that thicket again. I was able to follow the edge of the river where it met a rocky slope.

After a quarter mile of relatively easy walking, I was out on some gravelly flats which was nice.

And then I had to re-cross the river, but here it was only grasses to walk through, and these were only knee-high and pretty easy.

I am emerged back on the railroad grade and trail, and from there it was a pretty easy 4 miles to the town.

I hadn’t seen these white flowers before.

I got to Tecopa at 3pm, it’s basically just a post office, brewery, and cafe.

It’s Tuesday so all the businesses were closed, but I sat on the front porch for an hour and collected myself and charged my phone. Then I finished the day with a 2-mile roadwalk to the Tecopa Hot Springs. This was a funny sign, I’ve never heard of this species of bird.

The Hot Springs! It’s a campground and has showers and also my resupply box.

The caretaker for the campground wasn’t on site today, but I happened to meet some long-term occupants, James and Lena, who were very generous. They gave me some cold drinks, fed me dinner, and drove me to another local hot springs.

After we got back from the hot springs, the maintenance guy had finished fixing the plumbing and I was able to take a wonderful shower. It had been 10 days since my last shower. Tomorrow I will attempt to hitch to either Baker CA or Las Vegas, and catch a Greyhound bus down to the California coast, for my next hike!

Monday May 5, 24.4mi/39.3km

Shadow Mountains Wash (406.3/2860ft) to Above Amargosa River (430.7/880ft) (CA)

It had sprinkled on and off overnight, so I packed up a damp tent, and left a dry rectangle on the ground. Ha!

The hike down the rest of the wide wash was easy and I slowly woke up as my feet crunched over the gravel.

After a couple of miles, the wash was channeled into a deep slot canyon. Not going in there!

I detoured right. followed some gravelly terrain to a different wash, which led me to Kingston Spring.

I poked around the spring, which took a while given how thick some of the brush was, and determined there was no water there. The guidebook says occasionally BLM the will come and burn away the brush, since all that vegetation consumes all the water, leaving none for the animals. Or in my case, people! I didn’t need the water but I added the information to the water report for the Desert Trail. From there I continued an hour on a nice 4wd road, which was easy to follow and even had some of these fancy markers at two of the turns.

When I got to Kingston Road, a medium-clearance dirt road, I took a long break and celebrated finishing the end of that section by finishing my jar of Nutella. The next segment of hiking was 27 miles long and would take me across the Valjean Valley and Amargosa River Canyon. I started with some easy XC across the Valjean Valley.

The clouds kept things nice and cool, I would not want to be crossing this valley when it was sunny and 90°F. As I approached some little hills, they turned out to be sand dunes and I noticed all the ground around me was becoming buried in soft sand.

At the top of a little pass I had a pretty great view to the north. The sandy area is called the Dumont dunes.

I followed an easy wash down from the little pass and encountered even bigger sand dunes.

Thankfully it wasn’t windy at all today or I might have been getting sandblasted. From there it was a slow hike XC across some flat sandy terrain.

There was hardly any vegetation to weave around, it was mostly just the energy sucking sand to slow me down. It’s probably the same stuff they use in the runaway truck ramps! After over an hour that I came to an old railroad grade, what used to be the Tonopah-Tidewater railroad.

Which weirdly had a DirecTV satellite dish installed nearby. The wires didn’t connect to anything so as far as I could tell it was not functional.

I have no idea why that was there, my guess is it’s part of some geocache game. The rest of the day I spent hiking on the flat railroad grade, underneath an ever-changing sky of clouds.

The way they built this railroad grade baffled me, it just went straight across all the little washes, no bridges or anything. Like where was the water supposed to go? No wonder it has a bunch of washed-out areas.

Finally, at the end of the day I entered the Amargosa Canyon, which seemed to protect me from most of the wind out in the open dune areas. I set up my tent in the least rocky spot I could find and enjoyed the sunset.

Tomorrow, it’s only 12 miles to Tecopa!

Sunday May 4, 22.8mi/36.7km

Halloran Summit (383.5/4100ft) to Shadow Mountains Wash (406.3/2860ft) (CA)

After checking the weather and seeing it was going to be nice and cool in the 60s for the next couple of days, I decided to continue on this trail. The morning was a nice cruise on dirt roads through a Joshua Tree forest.

After an hour I left the road network and traversed the rocky volcanic plateau towards Solomons knob.

Looking back at the plateau I had just crossed, unknowingly above a line of rimrock:

From there I cruised downhill on a pretty nice burro trail, which led me to wash and then this little guzzler.

There were plenty of these on the DWTH route, they’re built for wildlife to have drinking water. In this case, birds. I grabbed a liter from the guzzler, figuring the next source would be cattle-polluted. From there it was an easy bit of xc hiking through sparse Joshua trees up to another dirt road.

The guidebook called this “Fence pool”, it looked like it had been dry for many years.

The next water source listed in the guidebook was Francis Spring, which was indeed polluted by cattle. But it definitely had water.

As the morning went on, the sky became much cloudier and threatened to rain. But it was still a nice walk on very faint 2-track old roads thru Joshua trees.

The middle part of the day I had a couple miles of XC hiking through these annoying little bushes. They don’t have thorns or spines, but they are uncomfortable to walk through even in pants.

And I could see the Kingston Range to the north was getting a pretty good rainstorm. I had lunch underneath some huge power lines, which were very buzzy. Most of the afternoon was hiking along this abandoned old road which was actually really easy to follow.

It was a very enjoyable couple of hours, and then the road merged with a wash.

I followed the wash downhill until it was wide enough to have some flat camping spots, and I set up my tent before the approaching clouds arrived.

Good timing again, rain 20 minutes after I was in my tent!