The Road

Historic and scenic Santa Rosa Creek Road

the preamble

    People lived in this area that is now half way between San Francisco and Los Angeles in pre-historic habitation. The native Chumash traveled the mountains, settling in seasonal camps in the highlands or near the Pacific shore. They ranged these mountains to hunt and gather and fed on shell fish and fish when camped by the sea.

    There is evidence some 30 thousand lived here a thousand years before the Spanish arrived. That happened when the Portola expedition camped near what is now Cambria in 1769.

     In the 700's the natives created paths, their version of roads, including a trail that ran along side the stream. Today we call it Santa Rosa Creek and the trail is Santa Rosa Creek Road.

    The settlers began to come in the mid 1800's and it picked  up in 1860 when Cinnabar, the ore of mercury or quicksilver, was discovered and then mined.

     Today's road, in the frame above that mid screen line that winds down on the left, was part of the creekside trail that ran to the Oceanic mine that opened in 1865. Later when the first of several waves of cattle growers came to the area, the Santa Rosa Creek trail was the route for cattle drives.   

    

   Santa Rosa Creek Road is a favorite for riders, motorcyclists, more adventurous tourists or Sunday drivers who want to see the beauty of the Santa Lucia Mountains. It's a 15 mile winding, climbing, series of cutbacks and turns and magnificent views. The road can be seen winding in the right mid frame above. 

    

the delight

     Lana and I were enroute home from Los Osos the other day when to our surprise, and that of a hundred other motorists, Highway 1 was closed at Highway 46, the Green Valley Road. Closed because the Tour of California bike race was speeding south from Big Sur. Someone had goofed because there was no advance warning the road would be closed. Certain exits had been marked days in advance and we planned accordingly.

     So we found ourselves in what amounted to a parking lot on Highway 46 and Highway 1. The inspiration flashed...

     We had not driven Santa Rosa Creek for a while. We used to hike there regularly and always took visitors, some of whom turned a bit green or white knuckled, for a drive. 

      On this day, what a delight!

      The road was resplendent with Sweet Peas and Lupine.

     And the sky over the Santa Lucia danced with clouds gathering a rare May rain storm.

         A good detour, this road less taken.

don't play in traffic

   One more road story here. 

    This is the scene that greeted us after dinner in the village the other night. A quiet street and there at about 3:00 is a street walker, out of place to be sure.

     Dawdling, he or she seems to be. First one way and now the other and seemingly unaware a motorist has entered the scene.

      Oblivious is this gull. Are we about to witness his or her journey to oblivion?

      No dispatch today. And the quiet settles in, the sun sinks more deeply toward the sea, and the street walker dawdles on.

      Certainly these stories left you with less anxiety than the news. But of that, it can be sure we are on the road to an historic battle of legislative rights and Presidential prerogative. 

       Cast another way, a battle between constitutional process and contaminated power. Cast yet another way a battle between right and wrong. 

        See you down the trail.

MYSTICAL MESSAGES THRU TIME?

AMERICAN CAVE PAINTINGS

ON THE CARRIZO PLAIN

      Extraordinary occurrences have taken place here in Painted Rock on the exotic Carrizo plain in San Luis Obispo County. Some look at this formation and see lizards or turtles.

          Pictographs, like the frame above fill the inner chamber of what is a sacred site for Chumash and Yokut Indians.

      The Carrizo Plain is a ten mile wide and almost 50 mile long valley in the eastern portion of San Luis Obispo County between the Temblor and Caliente mountain ranges.  In the 
middle of the northern plain lays Soda Lake, the remains of a prehistoric sea.

      In the rare rainy season the lake becomes 3000 acres of water and a winter home for Sandhill Cranes, but most of the year it is a salt bed.
      Nestled on the western edge of plain is Painted Rock, a curved bowl, not unlike an amphitheater. It is a religious site.  

      It is inside the Painted Rock that shamans and holy men 
of Chumash and Yokut people and perhaps other tribes, have held rituals and left traces of visions.

      The walls are rich with pictographs that are some of the most valuable and rare native paintings in the world.  These
are said to have been made 500 to 2000 years ago.

      The red pigments were made with ochre, the white by shale and gypsum and the black by charcoal.

      Look carefully and you see layers of history and earlier ages speaking through time. 

     Earlier visitors desecrated the ancient paintings, so now
the Painted Rock is open only by appointment.

   

      Imagine the time when a native shaman conducted sacred ritual or activity amidst these stones that were said to resemble specific shapes or powers.

    Ancient California history is visible on the Carrizo Plain national monument, just 90 minutes from Cambria.

     See you down the trail.

A COMBUSTIBLE DEBATE

WHAT ABOUT THE FOREST?

Cambria and this area of the Central Coast
has been recently treated to a sometimes loud and
an animated debate about the clearing of a
a firebreak.  There are differing ideas about
how best to do that.  This post
raises the issue only as a point of context.
I wonder why some of our Monterey Pine forest
is allowed to become a kind of tinder box?

A recent hike across the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve

and into a portion of the forest

revealed what, to this blogger, looked like a dangerous situation.

There are plenty more situations like those captured in these few frames.  A lot of downed branches, limbs and even trees-

simply left to age, dry and become potential kindling.

I know experts who argue that it is best

to leave the forests untouched and natural.  A strain of

naturalist or environmentalist will agree but others differ.

It seems common sense alone would lead to know that

less debris like this, kindling, makes for a reduced fire hazard.  Chumash and Salinan tribes practiced controlled

burns to preen the wilderness and eliminate the potential for greater danger.  It also allowed for healthy soil and native

plant growth.

As I hike the area, I need to suppress the urge to 
clean up the forest floor.
Maybe some of the local hobbits will carry away
the debris and use it in their fireplaces!
In the meantime I wonder why there is such a 
difference of opinion.
See you down the trail.