Hiking & Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura: A Complete Guide to the Trails of the Southern Los Padres National Forest

Santa Barbara features some of the most extensive and (outside of the Sierra) some of the most challenging hiking in the state. A south facing coastline and Mediterranean climate make the area suitable for year round exploration and the mountain backdrop of the region is among the most rugged in the state. Although hiking is a more popular form of recreation here as compared to the rest of southern California, you can still find solitude and wilderness in this area. Indeed, the Los Padres National Forest offers so much backcountry recreation that other guides to the region have not even attempted to cover it all. But this new book by Craig Carey does. From the area around Gaviota pass, to the high country of Mt. Pinos, and all the ridges and high plateaus in between, including the wild and scenic Sespe River Wilderness, this guidebook explores trails that you will not find described elsewhere.There are two features of this book that set it apart from other guidebooks to the region, even aside from its comprehensive coverage. Both involve maps. The book contains twelve hiking chapters, each covering a specific geographical region, and each chapter includes an overview map showing not only the location of trailheads, but also other recreation facilities (campgrounds, picnic areas, ranger stations, etc). Individual hikes often feature a detailed topographical map. Even where the detailed topographical map is not available, route descriptions are clear, and insofar as I have hiked these trails, accurate. Carey takes care to describe every trail junction and notes the presence of historical as well as currently maintained trails and backcountry camps. Most of the hikes here can be accomplished by strong day hikers, but those looking for year round or off season backpacking opportunities will not be disappointed. Many routes are more than 10 miles and one hike is 26.5 miles one way, with many camping opportunities interspersed throughout.If this book is missing anything, it is the Channel Islands. While not part of the Los Padres National Forest, the subject of this book, these islands also offer day hiking, camping, and limited backpacking opportunities to residents and visitors in the Santa Barbara and Ventura area. But I can't dock this book a star for failing to include this area (or the numerous little open space preserves along the bluffs and by the ocean.) The Los Padres forest is among the most under-utilized recreation areas in the state and this book makes accessible trails and camps that were previously known only to locals. It is a great buy and is the best book to come from Wilderness Press in a long time.

The Los Padres National Forest stretches along California's Coast Range from just south of Carmel at its northern end to just west of Interstate 5 near Castaic at its southern end. The largest contiguous portion of the forest lies in the northern reaches of Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties. Until now, the only truly thorough hiking guide to this sprawling region was Dennis Gagnon's Hiking the Santa Barbara Backcountry, last published in 1991 and long out-of-print and out-of-date.Fortunately, Craig Carey has come to the rescue with this brand-new, up-to-date guidebook, which covers just about every trail, trailhead, and trail camp in the Santa Barbara, Ojai, and Mount Piños Ranger Districts of the Los Padres. Ninety-six hikes are included, all with highly detailed information about not only the trails themselves, but also the fascinating geology and history (both natural and human) of the area. As befitting a 21st Century hiking guidebook, each hike includes GPS coordinates for every major point of interest along the route. These coordinates are particularly valuable, as the effects of massive wildfires in recent years and sporadic trail maintenance have made navigation particularly challenging on many of the more remote backcountry trails.While maps are included for all of the hikes, they are generally not suitable for use out on the trail, and are intended as a general overview only. Fortunately, Carey provides information about several commercially-produced maps for the area, including excellent maps by Tom Harrison Maps and Bryan Conant (both available on Amazon). Known errors in the most recent USGS topographic maps (mostly involving the location of obscure trail camps) are also pointed out and corrected.One slightly disappointing omission is the exclusion of coverage of the southern portion of the Santa Lucia Ranger District. Because of this, only the very southernmost corner of the San Rafael Wilderness is covered in the book. Popular destinations such as Manzana Schoolhouse and the Sisquoc River are left out. Old heads who still have a copy of Gagnon's guide would do well not to throw it out just yet. Perhaps a later edition will include the rest of this area.UPDATE: A Kindle edition of this book is now available. While most hikers won't want to lug a Kindle along on the trail, the Kindle apps for iPhone and Android allow access to the entire guidebook while hiking, using a device you're likely to already be carrying with you. As an added bonus, the photographs in the Kindle edition are in color!

The first thing I appreciate about this book is the “Overview of Routes” preface before the introduction. This table has every route in the book with columns for distance, whether it is good for kids, mountain biking, dogs, backpacking, and whether it’s out and back, a loop, or point to point. To me, that table makes the book. The maps, locations of camps, and descriptions of the trails were all gravy after that.This book has trails that aren’t on my AllTrails or onXbackcountry maps, which honestly don’t cover the Los Padres all that well. I appreciate the additional information.By virtue of time passing, some information is dated by the time a trail book is printed. Forest fires might cross a trail, erosion happens, and vegetation spreads. However, this book received a revision and has held up pretty well. I haven’t found errors yet, though I’ve only personally verified about six trails.Overall, a handy guide to helping me find day hikes and quick overnighters for backpacking with my kid.