Summer showers in the Ventana Wilderness

This month I completed my fourth backpacking trip to the Ventana Wilderness along the Big Sur coast. Actually, my first visit to Ventana some 16 years ago was my first backpacking trip ever*, a fun adventure with friends right after college. This time, like before, I traveled via the popular Pine Ridge Trail from Big Sur Station east into the wilderness. I originally intended to travel no more than the 7-8 miles to the campground at Barlow Flat, but decided en route to go an extra couple miles to Sykes, a popular destination because of its hot springs. Starting at Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park, the trail ascends and descends along the northern slope of several mountains in the Santa Lucia Range, running roughly paralleling the Big Sur River.

A south-facing slope north of the Big Sur
River. Mountain valleys, with their more
mesic soils, support populations of red-
wood, Sequoia sempervirens.

The Ventana Wilderness is located in the northern part of the Los Padres National Forest, south of Monterey on the Big Sur coast. Big Sur is of course world renown for its dramatic coastline, where mountains several thousand feet in height immediately hug the Pacific coast. The result is spectacular views of a vast Pacific expanse that transitions from turquoise near shore to deeper blue offshore. The marine influence creeps onshore when the coastal valleys fill with fog, but the higher mountain ridges and valleys farther inland are dry and warm.  

Vegetation along the Pine Ridge Trail alternates between chaparral, oak woodland, and redwood forest. The drier hillsides and ridges tend to support chaparral, while the river valleys and folds between mountains contain redwoods which are dependent on the coastal fog. Madrone, with its beautiful red bark (often peeling back from the trunk in curls) was common throughout my hike.

Tiger lily!

At the floor of the valley below the Pine Ridge trail runs the Big Sur River, which has never seemed to have much water during my visits. This month, flows were likely reduced even further because of the lingering drought in California. The valley floor is a pleasant corridor of riparian habitat with trees such as redwood, alder, sycamores, and oaks. The river is also a corridor for one of my favorite flowers – the tiger lily. I found several blooming along the river, the beautiful orange flowers pendant like small decorative lanterns lighting up the shaded valley.

Adiantum jordanii, a maidenhair fern.

The hillslopes of Ventana were covered in poison oak, and a week and a half later I can thankfully say that I did have a reaction to its menacing oils, even though I brushed against the plant a few times in 20+ miles of hiking. On the drier slopes, flowers included orange monkey flowers, red columbines, and some paintbrushes. For relatively dry habitat, there were also quite a few ferns. There were two or more species of maidenhair ferns, Pityrogramma, and other species.

One of the species I paid more attention to on this trip was the California bay, Umbellularia californica, a mid-sized tree that was relatively common throughout my wanderings. Snapping the leaves emitted a strong aroma. Umbellularia belongs to the Magnoliids, a group of flowering plants believed to be among the more primitive of all angiosperms. It is classified in the Laurel family, Lauraceae, that also includes Cinnamomum the host of our spice cinnamon.

Umbelullaria californica, the aromatic "California Laurel" or "California Bay".

Madrone leaf and its collection of water
droplets after a day-time summer shower.

My initial hike up the Pine Ridge Trail felt very humid and the midday sun turned to cloud cover and then eventually to a half hour or so of rain showers, even moderately heavy at one point. This was a refreshing change for the usual dry California summer. It brought back memories of a backpacking trip here years ago in late June when a daytime summer storm was also accompanied by lightning. We were evacuated from the wilderness early the next morning when it turned out that one of the lightning strikes started a fire. Later named the Basin Fire, it became one of the largest fires in recent history in California. This year, fire scars were evident, but not particularly abundant.

The Ventana gets heavy use, but it is one of the few wilderness areas situated right along the Pacific Coast of the lower 48 states. For the diversity of plant life, close proximity of varied habitats, and a chance to see redwoods near the very southern end of their range, it is certainly worth a visit.

Redwood sorrel, Oxalis, a common herb of the redwood understory. The plants at left were in the shade; those at right had folded to minimize exposure to direct sun.

*In the intervening years, I have definitely learned to travel lighter on overnight trips (though camera lenses and books are a constant temptation). On this first trip I probably had a pack that weighed some 50-55 lb, the culprits being a heavy book, at least one canned food item, a steak (yum) and other gear.

Reference: Baldwin BG et al. 2012. The Jepson Manual. Vascular Plants of California, 2nd ed. UC Press, Berkeley, CA.