The main Coldwater Camp site. 
A Coldwater Camp sign with a table in the background. 
A dry Lower Manzana creekbed. 
A fallen tree over Manzana with winter grass. 
The “fee required” sign at Davy Brown Camp and Nira Camp. 
Mule deer wander along the road to Davy Brown Camp. 
The San Rafael Wilderness sign at the beginning to the Lower Manzana Creek Trail. 
The Santa Ynez Valley near Cachuma Reservoir. 
The West Hurricane Deck formation in the background.
There are times we flee from urban cares to roam in the nearby wilds, but there are other moments when we rush to backcountry camps in search of inspiration, juvenescence and the spiritual regeneration only wilderness can revive.
Muttering and grousing about some recent emotional reverses and recurring political shenanigans, I found myself loading up the old ’00 Ford Ranger for a quick overnight near the San Rafael Wilderness, hunkered down at Davy Brown Camp and day-hiking the three miles to my old standby, beloved Coldwater Camp.
Since mid-September, the weather has been fairly warm. The better choices to achieve cooling overnight elevation lie at Reyes Peak, Mount Pinos and other 7,000-foot or higher altitudes — yet these all require quite a car drive and, consequently, time not spent hiking on the trail.
Thus, the 46-mile drive over San Marcos Pass to Davy Brown is fairly short, and once off Highway 154, there was almost no traffic with which to contend, although there were mule deer in the horse pastures.
Lately, I’ve allowed “politics” to affect my joy in hiking local trails, with gnawing concerns about whether mass democracy is even possible in our digital wilderness, about the resurgence of racism, factionalism and hyper-nationalism similar to 1930s Europe, and so on.
The simple act of driving 90 minutes with right-side vistas of oak-studded potreros above Cachuma Reservoir takes the hyper-active Western mind, unwinds it some, then soothes jangling nerves.
I was solo in the old truck, simple John Mellencamp tunes on the archaic CD player, and gawking at the left side of Highway 154's contrast where the Whittier Fire’s devastation seems intense, and there was still a bit of smoke.
Traveling at 45 mph, worldly cares drop away, off the grid, away from town, on your own, cruising into the hills.
Forty miles in and you see the large “Sunset Valley Road” sign at Cachuma Saddle, so you know it’s just another seven miles to rustic Davy Brown’s 13 car-sites, where the eponymous creek certainly will be running (I brought my own water anyway for the overnight).
While Davy is in the Los Padres National Forest, it’s a couple of miles from Nira Camp where the San Rafael Wilderness begins along Manzana Creek.
The plan was to nail a spot at Davy — which I did by 10 a.m. — and put out the ice chest and cook gear to claim it, then quickly drive on down to a parking place near Nira and day-hike the 2.8 miles west to Coldwater Camp.
With some extra roaming around in the mostly dry creekbed, it will be a six-mile day out in moderate heat and afternoon glare — maybe four hours of hiking.
However, despite Davy looking exactly the same, and with no additional amenities provided, the new U.S. Forest Service agreement to privatize fee collection at sites such as Davy Brown and Nira (and Figueroa Mountain Camp) now requires an overnight visitor to pay $20.
As a veteran car camper at Davy since the 1980s, and having brought several student groups here as well, it’s amazing the feds think they should get $20 for one of these sites!
Thirty-five years ago, the cost was $2, and there was running water from faucets at all the sites. Today, there is a large trash bin — overfilled and reeking at 10 a.m. Sept. 15 — with four pit toilets, and the customary wooden table and iron fire ring at each site — nothing else.
(I made no fires, but I did use a two-burner Coleman portable propane stove for boiling water.)
Law-abiding as apparently the real Davy Brown was not, I paid the $20 to the park concessionaire, the Parks Management Co., and displayed my official “No. 34130” paper on the table at my chosen site.
Since I quickly drove on down to the long dirt “bench” parking area west of Nira Camp, I couldn’t display this numbered receipt on the truck’s dashboard there since it was back holding down the table awaiting the Parks Management employee who would collect the money.
The very large sign at this parking area within view of Manzana Creek had nothing about a fee simply to park there and hike into the San Rafael, despite the rumors I had heard that this free parking soon would cost $10 per day.
Like most of us, I respect the U.S. Forest Service, and all of the rangers and other Forest Service men and women have been knowledgeable, thoughtful and pleasant. The decisions of their superiors, to privatize parts of our national lands, shouldn’t affect relations between the public and the Forest Service.
I began hiking west heading downstream with the mostly dry lower Manzana far below. Beside the wilderness sign is a sign-in binder inside a metal cover, and when checking it I noticed that only two groups had been here since Aug. 31.
That is more than two weeks, and sure August is unbelievably hot back here.
After 1.3 miles, you arrive at lovely Potrero Camp — a bit trashy this time, I am sad to relate — and then hike along the Lower Manzana Creek’s stony wash, wending your way another 1.5 miles to Coldwater Camp itself. Along the way, you enjoy the sycamores and the gray pines, mindful of snakes, and occasional tree falls present great images.
The large, oak-studded meadow (potrero) at Coldwater sits in a scenic and well-watered canyon. The water was low in mid-September, but with a filter one could camp back here for days without any trouble.
In addition to the main site beneath the largest oak, there are two other fire pits and one other table here, for a total of three widely separated sites.
After returning to Davy Brown and washing up with the cool creek water, I began reading my New York Times and Robert Moor’s fascinating 2016 book, On Trails.
Listening to the sweet music from the creek, sipping fresh-brewed iced coffee, the light breeze blowing away most of the hovering black flies, this space suddenly allowed me to mull, ponder and savor reality.
The mental and spiritual invigoration I derive from these hikes and overnights is the main reason I’ve kept coming back to this wilderness time and again since the early 1970s. This stimulation feels far more crucial now as the body ages and the world seems dominated by dystopian visions and toxic cynicism on all sides.
When we can enfold ourselves in an overwhelming wilderness, the vastness itself makes one’s own worries and concerns seem inconsequential. What was an epic concern — say, the insane North Korea guy — becomes an antic play filled with silly scenes and quick violence.
Juvenescence is a social process whereby one makes oneself more “juvenile” and more alert to the wider world surrounding the conscious ego; we become more playful, and hopefully more imaginative.
Via an evolutionary process called neoteny, scientists can actually observe this “acting younger” behavior in various species.
Among humans, rushing with joy to backcountry camps and wilderness stimulates thinking and sparks new thoughts for old dogs to ponder during the long night beside the merry creek.
And what’s the true value of $20 today, anyway?
4.1.1.
» Driving directions to Davy Brown Campground from Santa Barbara: Take Highway 154 past Lake Cachuma, turn right at Armour Ranch Road at the Santa Ynez River bridge, and shortly right again on Happy Canyon Road; 46 miles one way. There is a $20 fee payable at the Davy Brown campsite.
» I used Bryan Conant’s 2009 San Rafael Wilderness Trail Guide Map Guide.
— Dan McCaslin is the author of Stone Anchors in Antiquity, and has written extensively about the local backcountry. He serves as an archaeological site steward for the U.S. Forest Service in the Los Padres National Forest. He welcomes reader ideas for future Noozhawk columns, and can be reached at cazmania3@gmail.com. Click here to read additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.
