Jalama Beach Jan 20

My dad had heard that Jalama Beach had recently been hammered by atypically large waves and had been interested in walking the beach at low tide to see what interesting rocks might have turned up. It had been well over a decade since our last visit but this remote Santa Barbara county beach was a favorite rock collecting trip for my dad and I when I was a kid. Personnel and camping plans shifted such that it ended up just being my dad and I driving up for a long day. I was a little worried we might have to contend with too much rain and large waves that would counteract the 1pm low tide. When we arrived at the beach campground we thought we might have dodged a bullet as half of the sites were mostly flooded from the night's rain. We set off south along the beach towards Point Conception only passing a couple fisherman at the start and someone walking halfway along. The sand was fairly firm and some places had extensive shore platforms exposed such that travel was overall easy. We did our best to avoid the globs of tar intermittently coating the beach and rocks. At a couple places we had to time the waves to stay dry and a couple other places we had to climb on the remnant seawalls to avoid the sea. Along the way we enjoyed the many small wonders from shells, Dr. Suessian coastal plants, rocks, and oil slicks. Initially I was worried we would not find very many interesting rocks as much of the beach was actually free from cobbles but the further we walked the more we saw. We worked our way to the very end of the beach where the cliffs finally enter the sea 4 miles from the campground and stopped for lunch. 

On the way back we looked through the piles of interesting rocks we had assembled to decide which ones were "catch and release" and which we might carry. We certainly could not carry them all but perhaps could have been more selective and carried too much (I later found out my pack weighed 80lbs)! The return hike was slow and painful under our burden but eventually we made it back a little before 5pm. Disappointingly we found out the Jalama Beach Grill closed at 4:30pm and so we headed on to Santa Barbara for food then home. We went the whole day without a drop of rain, had cool hiking weather, timed the tides just right, had the whole beach to ourselves, and found lots of interesting rocks in a nostalgic setting- it was a really nice day overall.

An agatized fossil whale vertebrae, still with identifiable shape

Mecca Hills Jan 14

Our last attempt to visit Mecca Hills was unsuccessful as the access road was closed due to the Tropical Storm Hilary aftermath, and my back up plan of checking out nearby Five Palms Oasis turned up information that the oasis had burned to a crisp a few weeks prior! I had a couple ideas of loops I still wanted to check out. I'm sure the holiday weekend was partially to blame but the Painted Canyon Road was busy with several cars going about 15 mph on the well-graded road and well over 70 cars parked at the trailhead. I noted that there seemed to be up to 1m of added sediment in the wash presumably related to Hilary. Fortunately for us any ladders swept away seemed to have been reestablished. For this hike we past Ladder Canyon and continued on up the main Painted Canyon for about a mile where two good ladders led up dryfalls. We continued another quarter-mile to the prominent side canyon on canyon left that I hoped to ascend. 

I probably should have expected it but the first tall dryfall in this side canyon also had a ladder, albeit a slightly sketchy one hanging off the ground on two rusty bolts; the ladder also did not quite reach the top of the fall requiring some handholds to continue over the lip. Around the corner was two more falls with ladders to climb. At the top we crossed the weird drainage divide that must have fairly recently formed, and continued up the main canyon. The canyon twisted its way up with some nice exposures of the bedrock metamorphic rocks at stream level. We turned right at the prominent junction into one of the better slot sections on this hike and had one more ladder to climb before I spotted an obvious ridge to climb out onto the top of the badlands.

We followed an actual trail for all of 150ft before dropping down into the neighboring canyon via a very loose rocky slope. An unspectacular wash gave way to a dramatic 25ft fluted dryfall requiring a rappel. I was hoping to not leave any anchor material behind but the safest option in this instance seemed to be a webbing anchor. Once down and rope pulled, we were more or less committed to whatever came next. The canyon continued open and soon had a unique 500 ft long slickrock patio section. 

We then passed the canyon's abandoned meander where we were presented with a dramatic horizonline of the last portion of the canyon, a 150ft vertical descent through the metamorphic basement back to Painted Canyon wash. To my surprise this canyon actually had a sketchy ladder and two handlines already installed in it. We opted to rappel 30 ft off of a natural anchor instead down the first two-tier drop and then I meat anchored down the subsequent two of three downclimbs. Next was a short handline that led to a two-stage 80ft rappel with a single bolt already installed. While we were rigging this final drop a group of three appeared in the wash below and we overheard them talking about bolts, etc. In a few minutes they had climbed up to our position and revealed that they were the ones that had installed the gear in the canyon only a few weeks before. I am sure they were just as surprised to see us in the canyon as we were of them. 

Once down and rope pulled we had a simple walk back down the wash to the car. There were still a surprising number of people out hiking and over forty cars still in the parking lot. So by the end of it we had hiked 3.5 hrs on a 4.5 mi loop with 7 ladders and 2 rappels. The second canyon was especially unique for its patio sections and steep bedrock section, unlike anything else in the Mecca Hills. The usually blocked off main wash was apparently open and so we drove up a couple of miles before turning around and passing more slowpoke drivers on the way back to pavement. We stopped off in Redlands to visit with a friend on the way back. All in all another pleasant day of mild adventure in the Mecca Hills.