In spring, while most California backpackers sit around waiting for the snow to melt in the High Sierra I go backpacking in the equally worthwhile coast ranges. In mid-May I took a trip to Sespe Wilderness. Sespe lies a bit inland from Santa Barbara in southern California. It's a 200,000+ acre area of summer-dry mountains and sandstone cliffs cut by steep, well-watered ravines. Within its boundaries lie mountainsides of chaparral and wildflowers, high yellow pine forest, a condor sanctuary and the whitewater of Sespe Creek.

I went to college in Santa Barbara so I had an extra incentive to go. It'd been five years since I'd been back to visit. Betsy, a friend and former mixed-doubles partner, offered to put me up for however many nights of my trip I stayed in Santa Barbara. We made a plan to play tennis after I got out of Sespe.

Thursday was probably the hottest day of the year. I left work early, turned on the air-conditioner and got driving. After five hours on the road I arrived at a downtown exit, drove into State Street and went to a bookstore to pick up some reading for my trip into the mountains. Downtown Santa Barbara is idealized Southern California - mild ocean air, jacaranda and palm trees, mission-style buildings etc.. Somewhere nearby there's a secret lab where they breed beautiful, outdoorsy-looking women and loose them on the town. I told Betsy about the lab. She told me that they must breed men there too.

After picking up a few books I drove to Betsy's a few minutes away. We hung out and talked a while then went to the Paradise Cafe where we ate dinner outside. Afterward, we hung out at her house for a few hours talking. Finally around 11 we pulled her futon onto the floor where I spent the night.

The next morning Betsy left for work and I left for Sespe. It's a beautiful drive up the valley on sunny, orchard-lined 150 leading to the foothill town of Ojai. From Ojai I turned up 33 and into the mountains. My original destination had been Rose Valley campground and the Sespe Creek trail, but the campground was closed to overnight parking because of the endangered species act. I could have parked farther out and walked two miles of road to the trailhead, but I decided against it and continued deeper into the mountains on my way to Upper Reyes Creek campground and the more northerly trailhead there.

That added 45 minutes to my drive, but all of it was scenic. I crossed Pine Mountain and descended to Lockwood Valley and the campground at 4000'. It was Friday, but there was a fair number of campers in the campground.

I drove through to the backpacker parking area which was empty. It had been a two hour drive. My plan was for two nights: backpack into Haddock camp, spend a night, day-hike up to Pine Mountain, spend another night at Haddock and then walk out. However, when I thought about the logistics of getting back to Santa Barbara to hit with Betsy and driving home to go to work the next day I started to consider the idea of making it an overnighter. I packed two days of food and decided to put off the decision until I was in there.

The temperature was already in the 80's and I knew it would get hotter so I left all my cold-weather gear in the car, a 15 degree bag, puffball jacket, mittens, balaclava and pants. I took some lighter clothing and my Coleman Kodiak bag instead.

I crossed a creeklet, hit the trail and immediately saw some poison oak and manzanita. "Just like home," I thought. It was the last I saw of either plant. I slowly ascended though the dry, open, semi-desert landscape. It fascinates me how much life such a landscape can support. Colorful wildflowers, thick, fragrant lilac bushes, yucca plants with giant flowering stalks and other plants I didn't recognize covered the dry hillsides. Lizards, snakes and squirrels scurried through the brush. I knew mountain lions, bobcats and coyotes were about too, but I didn't see any.

After a couple of miles I reached a saddle and looked down onto the tree tops above Reyes Creek. People obviously had camped on the saddle by the looks of one flat area. The heat was tiring so I took a break and looked back on the view toward the Cuyama Badlands.

I then descended and crossed a sunny meadow densely green with bushes and full of buzzing ladybugs, many of whom landed on me. I passed Upper Reyes trail camp, hit Reyes Creek and stopped to collect water. It was a different world down there, watery and shady under old-growth ponderosa pine, incense cedar, canyon oak and white fir.

From there I switchbacked up 1400 feet through chaparral and then walked a level path along an open ridge with clear views of wooded Pine Mountain. The flowers up there were particularly bright and plentiful. There were big clusters of lilac bushes whose fragrance carried to me on the warm breezes. It was better than 90 degrees now.

Just before the trail crossed the crest of the ridge to descend to the other side I pulled out my cell phone and called Shane to tell her that I was still alive and doing fine. I don't like bringing the phone on backpacking trips, but Shane worries when I go solo.

I left her a message, shouldered my pack and descended to Bear Trap Creek. Before the Spanish, Mexicans and Americans arrived grizzlies ruled these mountains. The creek got its name from the grizzly-killing activities of the Reyes family. Bear Trap Creek was even more lush than Reyes Creek had been. I took an extended break at Bear Trap Camp. It was a great spot. A small, flat area under giant trees adjacent to a clear creek with deep pools.

After half-an-hour of sitting around I continued on the trail until I ran into thick undergrowth that first obscured and then completely obliterated the trail. To get through I held my fists in front of my face and pushed through the leaves and branches. After about a hundred feet I hit a clear spot, then went into more brush. This alternating condition continued for as long as I followed the trail.

The trail was following the creek, crossing and re-crossing it a number of times. Several times I walked off the trail because I couldn't tell where it was and had to backtrack a way to find it again. After about an hour of this I sat down on some rocks at a sunny spot in the creek and contemplated the situation. I considered all of the reasons why I should turn this trip into an overnight one and decided that that was a great idea. Besides, Bear Trap Camp looked like a great place to spend a night.

Resolved, I turned around and headed back. I reached the campsite at about 6:30 and set up my tent under a big incense cedar just up the bank from the creek. It was a well-used site with fire rings and flat sites for a tent.

After cooking dinner and fighting off the mosquitoes attacking my long-john covered legs I settled into my Kodiak with "Neither Here Nor There", a Bill Bryson book. As I read I became increasingly concerned about the temperature. I was at 5000 feet in a shady ravine and the temperature was dropping rapidly as the cold night air settled into the ravine. I really knew this would happen. I should have been prepared. In any case, I laughed my way to sleep around 9:30. Bryson tells a funny story.

At 2:00 I woke up freezing. I tossed and turned for another hour, but was too cold to sleep. I got up and started a fire. One of the drawbacks of using an established campsite (as Ray Jardine will tell you) is the lack of fuel for a fire. However, I got a small fire going and huddled near it. It was one night past a full moon. I looked up through the moonlight at the top of the giant ponderosa pine across the way and blew steam into the night air.

Periodically, I would bend down to blow on the coals, stoking my little fire. I also made frequent trips around the area with my flashlight looking for wood. There wasn't much. A couple of abandoned walking sticks was the best I could do for a while. Then about 4:30 I discovered a big pine log with all of its bark on. I peeled off thick chunks of bark and piled them next to me. This allowed me to keep the flames strong until 6 when finally the sky started to brighten and the chill began to wane.

I stopped feeding the fire and stayed near the coals for another half-an-hour. Then I crawled back into my bag and went to sleep. I was still cold, but not so cold that I couldn't sleep.

I woke up at 9:30. I was on my side and my back was roasting. The sun was up and shining brightly into my tent. Already, it was hot. I took off my long johns and had something to eat. I was still tired. It had been a rough night. I was sticky from the sweat of the previous day's hike and I smelled strongly of smoke from the night. I filled my cookpot and water bottles from the cold creek and set them in the sun to warm up. Half-an-hour later I took a re-invigorating bath standing in the sun.

As I soaped up my face, standing there near-sighted and wearing only shorts I saw movement on the other side of the campsite. I made out two blurry people and finished my bath. I dressed, put on my glasses, made some tea and walked over. They were two guys from Ventura, one of whom was on his first backpacking trip. We had a good talk about gear, the Sierra and such. One was curious about my Nomad Lite so I showed it to them. I warned them about the heavy brush ahead, but didn't discourage them from going. They had to go anyway. They were on a one-way trip and had to meet a ride the next day.

After they left I lolled around the site for a while, then pulled out my flute and went down to the creek. I sat on rocks there for a good hour playing. The natural echo was perfect. A couple of times a bit of gravel rolled down the opposite slope and plunged into the creek. Looking at the sheltering incense cedar above, it occurred to me that the flute was made of incense cedar.

Eventually I packed up, waved good-bye to the tree and headed up and out. Along the level open path on the other side of the ridge I ran across a party on their way in, a few adults and three pretty, adolescent girls with perfect complexions (maybe the lab is up in these mountains). One of them asked me if there were any rattlers ahead. I told her I hadn't seen any and asked if they'd seen one.

"Two!" she answered, "About this big."

She made a circle with her hands indicating that the snakes had about a 3-inch diameter. World-record rattlers apparently. I asked her if they had rattled at them.

"Yeah, at us."

She pointed to her two friends. They giggled, waved and walked on. I traded hellos with the adults that followed and then continued. I descended to Reyes Creek where I had a big slow king snake cross in front of me, passed Upper Reyes camp and ascended to the saddle from the day before.

Up there I found 20 or so boys wearing red t-shirts that said "Troop 207". They looked restless. Huddled in the sparse shade of the chaparral were three adults. One of the boys asked me if there was a campsite below. I told him it was right down the hill, about a 10-minute walk.

One of the adults took the hat off his face and said to me, "It's washed out down there, isn't it?"

"No," I answered and told him that there were three large campsites by the creek.

"They're before you get to the creek though, right?"

"Yeah," I answered.

"That's what I thought."

He seemed to take a triumph in that fact and started to put the hat back on his face.

Sensing what he was getting at I said, "It's about a hundred feet to the creek from the first two and the last one is just on the other side."

"It's overgrown though, isn't it?"

I told him no and described the good condition of the path.

"Oh yeah, now I know what you're talking about," he replied as if he had a clue.

Having run out of excuses I guess this guy was going to have to haul his butt down to the campsite. Poor kids. Good thing I came along. If he'd had his way I'm sure he'd have turned around, packed everyone back into the cars and driven home. As I left I told them that there was plenty of water and good shade down there.

About a mile from the trailhead a spray-can went off in a bush to my right and kept spraying. Well, it sounded like a spray-can until I decided that it was more likely a rattlesnake. I stopped and noted that it was directly to my side. Going back wasn't going to help. I walked on. After about 30 feet the rattling stopped.

At the creeklet near the trailhead I refilled my water bottles, rinsed off and walked to the car. It was over 90 degrees again so I opened all the doors and let the hot air out before getting in.

I drove back along 33 to Pine Mountain Road. I had decided that since I wasn't going to walk up to Pine Mountain I would drive in to the campground near the top and take a walk on the trail from that end to see what I could see. The road is six miles long. I only made two miles of it. The road was wide enough for only one car at a time and was full of blind turns. I used my horn before every one. Good thing too, since I was almost hit by an Expedition or a Yukon or something barreling around one of these turns.

After two miles and fifteen minutes the road had become so narrow, twisty, cliff-hugging and pot-holed that I decided it just wasn't worth it on this day. I turned around and headed back, but was able to snap a few pictures of practically glowing purple lupines and some big views.

I went by the ranger station in Ojai at about 5 to see if they had any field guides or maps to look at for the future, but they had closed at 4:30. I called Betsy and asked if she could put me up for another night. She was happy to.

As I made my way past fake Lake Casitas I saw a sign for an Indian Pow Wow and turned in. I'd bought my flute from a flutemaker at a Pow Wow and I thought I'd chat with him if he was there. He wasn't, but I browsed around anyway and had an "Indian taco". Just a regular taco, but instead of a tortilla they use fry bread which is soft, puffy deep-fried stuff that's popular at these things. I also bought lemonade from a local girl (another product of that lab).

I got back to Betsy's around 6:30, put on my tennis shoes, pulled out my racket and walked down to Santa Barbara High with her. We hit for a good hour and a half and then walked back where I took a shower even better than the bath I'd taken that morning.

After putting on street clothes we went downtown to the new Palazzio's for dinner. The original restaurant in Montecito was one of the most popular in town when I lived there and for good reason. After dinner we hung out at her house a while more listening to CDs and talking. Then I went to bed. I slept well.

The next morning I thanked Betsy for all her hospitality and drove home.