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Cold Spring – Romero Loop

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Forbush Canyon Trail in the Santa Barbara Back Country

This is an adventurous loop that starts and ends at the Cold Spring trailhead, low on the slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains in the Santa Barbara Front Country. The route climbs the Cold Spring Trail to Camino Cielo on the crest of the range, and then descends to Forbush Flat and Blue Canyon in the Santa Barbara Back Country.

The Front Country views on the Cold Spring Trail are spectacular, and the Back Country segment from Forbush to Blue Canyon has a classic, isolated character, accentuated by grassy flats, sprawling oaks, gurgling springs and unique geology. Montecito Peak (3214′) can be climbed on the way up the Cold Spring Trail and depending on how much time you spend on the summit, adds about 15 minutes.



I was running with Kevin Young, whom I’d met during the Backbone Ultra. Kevin is long-time resident of Santa Barbara and this is just one of the challenging routes in his backyard. As is the case with many trail runs, the mileage of this loop — about 22 miles — isn’t the best indicator of its difficulty. Many variations of the loop are possible, but one thing they all have in common is lots of elevation gain.

Thanks to the marine layer it was cool along the immediate coast, but inland temps were hot. When we started the run the temperature at the Montecito RAWS was 60°F. A few hours later when we were climbing out of Blue Canyon on the memorably steep Romero Trail the in-the-sun temperature at nearby Los Prietos was around 100°F.



Having done this loop a number of times, Kevin knew it was longer than it looked, and had stashed some goodies at the Romero trailhead. You might think 100 oz. of water would be plenty for 16 miles. On a different day it might be, but today we both ran out of water part way down the Romero Trail. Neither one of us had particularly fresh legs. Kevin was training for a 100 miler later in May and had run 20 miles the day before.

The PB & J sandwich at Romero hit the spot, but after drinking a 16 oz. recovery drink, half of a large bottle of water, and some Gatorade, I wondered if I had overdone the fluids. Nope — it actually helped a lot and my running attitude improved considerably.

Kevin’s route back to the Cold Spring trailhead from Romero initially followed the Nine Trails course on the Edison Catway, but after reaching the Buena Vista Trail continued down to Park Lane. Here we picked up the Old Pueblo Trail, and then worked across to the McMenemy Trail. We followed the McMenemy Trail to the Hot Springs Trail, which we took down to Mountain Drive. From the Hot Springs trailhead it was about a mile on Mountain Drive back to the Cold Spring trailhead. Even though it had a lot of up and down, this part of the run turned out to be surprisingly cool and enjoyable.

For maps of the area see the Santa Barbara Hikes web sites.

Here’s a slideshow with a few photos from the run. We did this run last Sunday, April 28.

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Unwinding from the Backbone Ultra

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Bear Canyon
Bear Canyon

Doing a moderate run in the San Gabriels and climbing a few peaks was a great way to unwind from the excitement of doing the 68 mile Backbone Ultra last weekend.

I felt good. I’d run more or less normally in the week following the event — depleted, but without any physical issues. In part that can be attributed to how Coyote Cohorts runs their events. It was basically a long training run in the company of a great bunch of runners and the help of incredible volunteers. Amazing! The long hours of training also really helped, particularly the back-to-back runs following 50Ks and the back-to-back night/day training runs. My shoes — Hoka Mafate 2s — also helped, reducing the impact of all the miles.

Paintbrush on the San Gabriel Peak Trail near Markham Saddle.
Paintbrush on the San Gabriel Peak Trail

One of the reasons for doing today’s run was to check how Poodle-dog Bush and some other plants are faring in this low rainfall water year. Since July 1 Downtown Los Angeles has recorded only 5.14 inches of rain. Unless we can manage to wring about a half-inch of rain from the heavens before June 30, this water year will go down as the fourth driest since record-keeping began in 1877. The driest water year on record was in 2005-2006 (3.21 inches). Assuming we don’t get that 0.48 inch of rain, three of the four driest water years have occurred since 2000.

Something I noticed on the Backbone run and recent training runs in the Santa Monica Mountains is that plant growth and flowering has been surprisingly robust given the amount of rainfall. This was also the case today on today’s run — the manzanita on the San Gabriel Peak Trail was covered in blossoms and bees, and the nightshade and paintbrush along the trail also seemed to be doing well.

Prickly phlox along Calabasas Peak Mtwy.
Prickly phlox along Calabasas Peak Mtwy.

What about the Poodle-dog bush, aka Turricula? It looked about the same as last year at this time — just starting to come out of Winter dormancy. Last year we had above average rainfall in April and it really seemed to spur the growth of Poodle-dog bush. This year maybe we’ll see what an extended period of dry weather does to it. Last year some of the Poodle-dog died before the rain in April.

Here’s a short slideshow of a few photos from today’s run in the San Gabriel Mountains, as well as some photos of plants and flowers on recent runs in the Santa Monica Mountains.

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Giant Coreopsis Along the La Jolla Canyon Trail

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Giant Coreopsis Along the La Jolla Canyon Trail

If a sunflower could be crossed with a Joshua tree the result might look like Giant Coreopsis (Leptosyne gigantea).



As tall as six feet, this peculiar plant looks as if it belongs in some distant place, if not some distant time.

It is a member of the Sunflower family and its bright yellow flowers and feathery green leaves create impressive displays on Southern California coastal slopes following Winter rains. It is well-adapted to our Mediterranean climate, its leaves withering and the plant becoming dormant in the dry months.

These are along the La Jolla Canyon Trail in Pt. Mugu State Park and were photographed on Saturday’s run to Mugu Peak from Wendy Drive.