Off The Map: A Powerful Thirst
Editor’s Note: After a year's hiatus, the chronicle of Bryan Snyder's misadventures in the Western high country, "Off The Map", returns to the pages of The Evening Sun. Besides the usual tales of Rocky Mountain mischief, Bryan will report from the drought-afflicted backcountry of Southern California and the snow-capped, slumbering volcanoes of the Pacific Northwest.
Bryan Snyder
Correspondent
Before heading up the Manzana Trail, I drank enough water to give myself a mild stomachache. I was only being prudent; there was no more water in the direction I was headed, either in Manzana Creek or in the Sisquoc River. At least, that’s what I’d been told by the local rangers, and the scribbled comments in the trailhead register seemed to confirm their warnings. All I could do was guzzle down a liter of water, pack as many bottles as I possessed, and hope I wouldn’t dehydrate by the end of the day tomorrow.
Temperatures were nearing 100 degrees when I left the Jeep behind, and I had to periodically pause to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. Few people were crazy enough to enter the San Rafael Wilderness in mid-July, but I had always desired to visit the Manzana Schoolhouse, and I had just the right proportions of stubbornness and stupidity to make the trip happen. The Schoolhouse was a relic from 1894, when homesteaders had, for a time, tried their luck at ranching in the Sisquoc Valley. A drought, similar to the one Southern California was currently experiencing, had driven them away. Now the site was a destination for seekers of solitude, and a home to furred and feathered residents only. I hoped to spy a few of these creatures if the search for water had not forced them elsewhere.
Much of the poison oak along the trail had been defanged by drought; their rash-inducing leaves were now shriveled and red, and they crunched harmlessly underfoot. I still had to be wary of the stems, for they also contained urushiol oils, and I didn’t expect to have streams in which to bathe this time. Several other shrubs had lost their green pigments and had turned various shades of yellow, thanks to the hot winds that were scorching these hillsides. Below me, all that was left of Manzana Creek was a white ribbon of bleached stones and algae. And the oppressive heat of this valley was starting to cook my brain, replacing my stomachache with a bad headache.
I was significantly surprised when, contrary to forest service information, I managed to find pools of water hidden among the alders at Portrero and Coldwater Campsites. These remnants were shallow and slightly stagnant, and when I dunked my head in the water, my headache subsided for a while. Unfortunately, my hair didn’t smell particularly clean or pleasant afterwards.
Seven miles in, the trail left the wilderness area for a time, straying onto a parcel of private land. Here the creek was actually flowing, if weakly, thanks to the contributions of a nearby spring. I filled a water bottle for use in cooking, and I was able to find a pool as deep as a bathtub where I could submerge and scrub off the day’s accumulated sweat. The water was opaque, and schools of unseen minnows nibbled at my body the entire time, but I emerged refreshed and ready to tackle the last 1.5 miles to the Schoolhouse Campground.
As expected, I had the place to myself. A few scattered picnic tables and fire pits lay beneath the schoolhouse bluff at the end of the trail, adjacent to where the waterless Manzana Creek merged with the waterless Sisquoc River. The wooden schoolhouse atop the hill had been carefully restored in recent years, as it was the only building that remained from the time when nearly two hundred Kansas settlers eked out a living from the Sisquoc Valley. These ranchers were led by a man named Hiram Preserved Wheat, who sounds more like a breakfast cereal than a person. They practiced faith-healing in their community, but they eventually had to abandon their dwellings when drought and government restrictions on cattle density made the ranching lifestyle impractical.
I feared that the current scarcity of water resources would have caused similar disruptions to the existing wildlife, concentrating them around the few pools I had passed earlier on the trail. But as the sun went down, a pair of gray foxes ambled through the dry grasses beneath the pine trees, exploring for food. A red-shouldered hawk shrieked persistently as it flew over the Sisquoc riverbed, and I was finally motivated to pause from my tent preparations and do a little wandering myself in the hopes of witnessing other animals – undoubtedly thirsty animals – before night fell on the valley.
I strolled out of the campground into the middle of the wide and dusty Sisquoc River plain, and once I was away from the rustling leaves and other subtle background noises of the forest, I could make out the sound of insects coming from a willow thicket downstream. The hums and clicks of the insect population betrayed the presence of more water, which might explain why the larger ecosystem of hawks and foxes was still intact.
As I entered the thicket, dry sand turned to marsh, which became a series of stagnant pools covered with a mat of pale, yellow algae, thick as a down blanket. Wading through this rotting mess eventually led me to open water at the lip of a beaver dam. Aha! Once again, a beaver was sustaining the ecological system, enabling life to endure longer than the climate would have normally allowed. I felt proud of my discovery, contrary as it was to official reports… even if the quality of drinking water was of the last-resort variety.
The next day, I was sweltering on the return journey and feeling slightly traumatized by all the rattlesnakes that had come out to bask in the midday sun. The heat was intense. But by being slightly conservative with my supplies, I felt I could make it back to my Jeep without having to draw water from any questionable sources.
To cool my blood and relax my nerves, I detoured to one of the pools that had caught my attention yesterday. The water seemed clear and deep enough, but when I stepped off the slimy shore to immerse my full body, the movement caused a plume of decomposing muck to upwell from the depths. The instant it touched the surface, a powerful stench flooded my nose, and I immediately scrambled to escape the pool before I was befouled by the odor of rot and putrescence. A bath could wait. The refilling of water bottles could wait. I was willing to return home a little sweaty and dehydrated, as long as there were some cold beverages waiting for me in the fridge. That’s something Mr. Preserved Wheat probably never had back in his cabin. Thank god for the Twenty-first Century!
Bryan is a 1991 Norwich High School graduate and works as a naturalist at the Rancho Alegre Outdoor School in Santa Barbara, CA. You may reach him mid-journey at foolsby@hotmail.com.
Bryan Snyder
Correspondent
Before heading up the Manzana Trail, I drank enough water to give myself a mild stomachache. I was only being prudent; there was no more water in the direction I was headed, either in Manzana Creek or in the Sisquoc River. At least, that’s what I’d been told by the local rangers, and the scribbled comments in the trailhead register seemed to confirm their warnings. All I could do was guzzle down a liter of water, pack as many bottles as I possessed, and hope I wouldn’t dehydrate by the end of the day tomorrow.
Temperatures were nearing 100 degrees when I left the Jeep behind, and I had to periodically pause to wipe the sweat out of my eyes. Few people were crazy enough to enter the San Rafael Wilderness in mid-July, but I had always desired to visit the Manzana Schoolhouse, and I had just the right proportions of stubbornness and stupidity to make the trip happen. The Schoolhouse was a relic from 1894, when homesteaders had, for a time, tried their luck at ranching in the Sisquoc Valley. A drought, similar to the one Southern California was currently experiencing, had driven them away. Now the site was a destination for seekers of solitude, and a home to furred and feathered residents only. I hoped to spy a few of these creatures if the search for water had not forced them elsewhere.
Much of the poison oak along the trail had been defanged by drought; their rash-inducing leaves were now shriveled and red, and they crunched harmlessly underfoot. I still had to be wary of the stems, for they also contained urushiol oils, and I didn’t expect to have streams in which to bathe this time. Several other shrubs had lost their green pigments and had turned various shades of yellow, thanks to the hot winds that were scorching these hillsides. Below me, all that was left of Manzana Creek was a white ribbon of bleached stones and algae. And the oppressive heat of this valley was starting to cook my brain, replacing my stomachache with a bad headache.
I was significantly surprised when, contrary to forest service information, I managed to find pools of water hidden among the alders at Portrero and Coldwater Campsites. These remnants were shallow and slightly stagnant, and when I dunked my head in the water, my headache subsided for a while. Unfortunately, my hair didn’t smell particularly clean or pleasant afterwards.
Seven miles in, the trail left the wilderness area for a time, straying onto a parcel of private land. Here the creek was actually flowing, if weakly, thanks to the contributions of a nearby spring. I filled a water bottle for use in cooking, and I was able to find a pool as deep as a bathtub where I could submerge and scrub off the day’s accumulated sweat. The water was opaque, and schools of unseen minnows nibbled at my body the entire time, but I emerged refreshed and ready to tackle the last 1.5 miles to the Schoolhouse Campground.
As expected, I had the place to myself. A few scattered picnic tables and fire pits lay beneath the schoolhouse bluff at the end of the trail, adjacent to where the waterless Manzana Creek merged with the waterless Sisquoc River. The wooden schoolhouse atop the hill had been carefully restored in recent years, as it was the only building that remained from the time when nearly two hundred Kansas settlers eked out a living from the Sisquoc Valley. These ranchers were led by a man named Hiram Preserved Wheat, who sounds more like a breakfast cereal than a person. They practiced faith-healing in their community, but they eventually had to abandon their dwellings when drought and government restrictions on cattle density made the ranching lifestyle impractical.
I feared that the current scarcity of water resources would have caused similar disruptions to the existing wildlife, concentrating them around the few pools I had passed earlier on the trail. But as the sun went down, a pair of gray foxes ambled through the dry grasses beneath the pine trees, exploring for food. A red-shouldered hawk shrieked persistently as it flew over the Sisquoc riverbed, and I was finally motivated to pause from my tent preparations and do a little wandering myself in the hopes of witnessing other animals – undoubtedly thirsty animals – before night fell on the valley.
I strolled out of the campground into the middle of the wide and dusty Sisquoc River plain, and once I was away from the rustling leaves and other subtle background noises of the forest, I could make out the sound of insects coming from a willow thicket downstream. The hums and clicks of the insect population betrayed the presence of more water, which might explain why the larger ecosystem of hawks and foxes was still intact.
As I entered the thicket, dry sand turned to marsh, which became a series of stagnant pools covered with a mat of pale, yellow algae, thick as a down blanket. Wading through this rotting mess eventually led me to open water at the lip of a beaver dam. Aha! Once again, a beaver was sustaining the ecological system, enabling life to endure longer than the climate would have normally allowed. I felt proud of my discovery, contrary as it was to official reports… even if the quality of drinking water was of the last-resort variety.
The next day, I was sweltering on the return journey and feeling slightly traumatized by all the rattlesnakes that had come out to bask in the midday sun. The heat was intense. But by being slightly conservative with my supplies, I felt I could make it back to my Jeep without having to draw water from any questionable sources.
To cool my blood and relax my nerves, I detoured to one of the pools that had caught my attention yesterday. The water seemed clear and deep enough, but when I stepped off the slimy shore to immerse my full body, the movement caused a plume of decomposing muck to upwell from the depths. The instant it touched the surface, a powerful stench flooded my nose, and I immediately scrambled to escape the pool before I was befouled by the odor of rot and putrescence. A bath could wait. The refilling of water bottles could wait. I was willing to return home a little sweaty and dehydrated, as long as there were some cold beverages waiting for me in the fridge. That’s something Mr. Preserved Wheat probably never had back in his cabin. Thank god for the Twenty-first Century!
Bryan is a 1991 Norwich High School graduate and works as a naturalist at the Rancho Alegre Outdoor School in Santa Barbara, CA. You may reach him mid-journey at foolsby@hotmail.com.
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