Tar Creek –November 2009 , Part One.
I am still composing a general overview of this area, but I’ve been down there twice in the last month and some really cool stuff happened so here goes.

My ace number one dirt-dog, Mr. Crash Fistfight, proposed an overnight adventure to Tar Creek’s lower falls and Condor Cliffs. I’ve been itching to see a condor this year and a late November bivy on the cliffs of lower Tar Creek appealed to my need (alpismo) to get outside and get dirty. I’ve been to The Swimming Hole and the surrounding environs more times than I can count but not once have I spent the night there. So I put together a striped down alpine ruck, opting for some heavier insulating layers ‘cause I knew it would be cold, threw together a sandwich and snacks, grabbed the camera and off we went.
It was nice and sunny and cool for the walk down to Condor Cliffs and we made great time arriving a couple hours before sunset. We picked a ledge on the cliff for the bivy, set our gear down and started gathering some firewood.
There were no condors about, but we hoped that the family who lives on these cliffs would return soon. Crash had a look around at the scattered perches looking for feathers…none found, while I investigated a possible route down off the cliff to the Sespe…no go. It seems that the only way off the cliff from the creek is a 150ft plus rappel to the bottom of the waterfall.
The sun dropped behind Bear Heaven around 6pm and the temperature dropped with it. (Sure am glad I brought those extra layers). We took a few moments to organize our gear for the night and then sat down and ate while we watched the sun set.
About an hour later we got the fire going and sat around talking sour on current events, the Sespe condors and our failed attempt on the east face of Middle Palisade last spring. Around 9pm a little wind kicked up, bringing down the temperature further, but the fire kept us warm and toasty. I was in my sleeping bag and bivy sack by 10 and faded off to sleep sometime afterward.
I was awoken by the nights chill once or twice, but all in all, the cold wasn’t too bad, like 6 out of 10 on the misery scale. I climbed out of my bag at around 7 am and tried to stomp out the cold from my bones and shake the sleep from my head. Eventually the sun returned to out little cliff and warmed the rock and my core. Crash was re-animated by the sun and slowly creaked in action while I got my breakfast ready and finished organizing my ruck. While Crash got himself together, we talked about our plan to stop at First Falls on the way out, hoping we can get us some photos of the big birds.
We climbed off the cliffs around 9am and started working our way up the gorge to the use-trail near First Falls.
We made a short pit-stop for pictures but saw no birds. Oh well. The rest of the hike out was uneventful as we made good time getting back to the truck. We were home in Ventura by noon, gone less that 24 hours.






Part Two.

Exactly one week after Crash and I visited Tar Creek, my son Carlo, and I had a little one day adventure down there.
Tar Creek is a wild and remote place. It requires more than fitness to get in and out of there and because of this, I am reluctant to take most folks down to this place. Carlo has hiked down to the Swimming Hole a couple of times and we’ve had a lot of fun swimming and climbing there, but he’s never been further down the creek. Carlo has been putting down some miles on the trail with me lately so I figured he was up for something a little tougher. He was enticed by stories of monster waterfalls, abundant fossils and Sespe condors and wanted to see it all for himself.


We burned up the trail from the truck down to the creek and were standing at the Swimming Hole proper within an hour, excellent time. The We didn’t stay long as our goal was the upper falls and we wanted to keep to momentum going. Below the Swimming Hole, the going gets tough I expected Carlo to have a hard time through there…wrong! The kid handled the difficulties of the boulder choke just above the falls without a problem and did pretty good with the route finding. At any rate, we were atop the falls in less than 90 minutes from the trailhead! That’s approaching alpinist speeds! Well done boy.
From the top of the falls, we worked the ledges along its northern wall to a use trail just below the falls and worked our way back over more ledges to the pool that sits at the bottom of the falls. Tar Creeks upper falls pour over the sandstone and drop about 60 feet onto a ledge and then spills down a slide another 20 feet into deep pool. One can walk behind the falls on the ledge and access the southern wall of the gorge. This would be our picnic spot.
It was much too cold for a swim but we played around in the waterfall a little anyway, very pleasant. Carlo took it upon himself to explore the area around the falls and its surrounding pools and I could see him working things out in his head about future excursions to the area, like, “I bet that waterslide still goes in the summertime” or “This would be a good jumping ledge for that pool down there”, and so on. After a while we sat down on the main ledge in the sun and ate some lunch. The weather was perfect and we had the whole place to ourselves. And right then, when things couldn’t possibly get any cooler, it happened.
As we sat there eating, the sun blinked out for a second, Carlo and I looked up at the same time to see a glorious California condor soaring a mere 200 feet above us! The big bird circled around us for a few minutes and then landed on a ledge high up the canyon wall just down stream from us. And there he sat, appearing to just watch us, maybe 1000yards away. We couldn’t really gauge its size or whether or not it had tags from that distance, but it was still cool and we were able to squeeze off some photos.
After about an hour, we decided to roll up our gear and head for home. Just as we had climbed out of the gorge and onto the upper ledges around the falls, the condor took flight again and once more began to circle above us. We got out the camera and began shooting him some more when the bird landed on top of the falls and started stretching out his wings.
Carlo said, “Hey Dad, I think he’s posing for you”. And sure enough, the condor stayed put long enough for me squeeze off to great photos. The bird was a little one, by condor standards, maybe only 6 feet from tip to tip, (proly just a kid) and he was tagged with number 55. But it was still awesome sight. This went on for about 15 minutes and then the condor stretched out his wings one more time and off he went. Classic.

With big condor wings on our feet, we set out up the creek to the trail and began the long climb out of the canyon.
Again, Carlo impressed me with his speed and endurance and we arrived back at the trailhead in under 2 hours (condor sighting included). All in all, I am a very proud dirtbag dad.


I just cant get enough of this place.

CircleX

Circle X Ranch - October 2009
In spite of our busy fall schedule, and a recent death in the family, Carlo and I were able to get outside with some friends and do some climbing this last weekend. The boy and I have been booked with work, school and soccer and my wife’s grandfather passed away late last week. Things have been quite hectic and we know things are only gona get busier with the holidays and flu season coming up. A day at the crag was definitely in order.
Carlo has this pal from school named Mitchell whose been itching to go climbing with us. So we made plans early in the week to go up to Wheelers Gorge on weekend. As it turns out, Mitchell’s dad Randy showed some interest in coming along as well. After we made our initial plans it occurred to me that not only did we have a game on the weekend but, Carlo had and obligation to work at a fund raiser for his school. I almost pulled the plug on the whole trip and then Carlo told me that he would rather go climb than go to the festival.
After waffling for a couple of days on a destination, I settled for one of my favorite places in the Santa Monicas; The Grotto at Circle X Ranch. Circle X used to be a Boy Scout camp back in the day and also had a beautiful campground called The Happy Hollow as well as a nice little group camp. During the 90’s there was a fire in the campground that burned the place out. After the fire, the parkies closed the camp, tore out all the fire pits and picnic tables and bulldozed the road and basically left the place fallow. (A similar deconstruction occurred at Lions Camp after the Arroyo Toad was listed as endangered). The closure of Happy Hallow was coupled with new, region wide restrictions on camping the Santa Monica backcountry. Today, the only camping available in the Santa Monicas (not counting the beaches) is in Malibu Canyon and the group camp at Circle X.
The Grotto is part of a gorge like formation in the southern end of the ranch, just below the old Happy Hallow campground on the Arroyo Sequit Creek. The rock there is the same sandstone conglomerate found elsewhere is the Santa Monica’s. The Grotto itself lies in a narrowing of the canyon where the creek sometimes runs underground below the boulders. In these narrows, the creek boulders form caves and alcoves and the rock walls on either side stretch to the sky a couple hundred feet. The approach is a short and easy hike from the parking area that takes about 20 minutes. In the twenty plus years I’ve been going to this place, I have never seen another climber or evidence of climbing activity (bolts, chalk, ect) and considering the rock quality (which is OK) and the setting (which is excellent) I am blown away by this fact.
We met up with Randy at the trailhead at around 11 o’clock and were down at The Grotto by 1130. After giving Randy and Mitchell a chance to explore the caves and alcoves of The Grotto proper, Carlo and I led them down over some class four terrain to a tall, walk behind waterfall. This would be our lunch spot. To one side of the waterfall is a 30ft free standing boulder shaped like a tear drop called The Tear Drop Boulder. There are four or five boulder problems on the Tear Drop, all in the easy moderate range. Now, I’ve soloed all of these routes, many times before but because the landings on this boulder are kind of sketchy (it sits in a pool of water) I figured it best to build an anchor and put the boys on TR for now. I tied off a big Sycamore above the boulder with an old climbing rope, extended a BD Airlock over the edge with 24 inch sling, set the rope, had the boys bounce on it, and then rapped off for good measure. Simple and bomber.
Mitchell had never been on a rope before, so I gave a simple primer to technical climbing where we talked a little bit about the equipment, climbing technique, climbing forces (physics) and communication. After that I had Carlo tie himself in and have a go at the route so Mitchell could see what top-rope climbing is all about. Carlo sent the route quickly and in fine fashion so after lowering him off we tied Mitchell in and sent him up the rock. Mitchell struggled a little his first go but after a while he started to trust the anchor and the belayer (me), and just climbed. After Mitchell, I sent up his dad Randy, and than gave him a chance to belay the boys up the rock. Carlo, as is par for him, started to explore the other routes on the Tear Drop and Mitchell quickly followed suit. After a while we got bored with it and headed back up to The Grotto proper and got busy with some bouldering there.
There are a couple of boulder problems in the Grotto cave that when clear of logs and debris can be quite fun and there is potential for a monster roof problem there as well. Above the cave, there are some heavily featured boulders also sporting easy to moderate problems. The western wall of the gorge is also made of heavily pocketed sandstone conglomerate and stretches skyward through the trees about 200 feet. Much potential exists here for multiple sport routes and maybe even a trad line up an inside corner on the walls left side. (I have a sense that something is up with the Park Service in the Santa Monica’s that has prevented the development of this crag. Something for me to sleuth out).
Anyways, after a couple of hours of bouldering, we rolled up our gear and started back up the hill to the trailhead. Along the way, we were given fantastic views of the of the red sandstone towers that make up the Backbone Ridge and its high point Mt Allen. It only took us about 20 minutes to get back to the trailhead and from there we decided to meet up at Neptune’s Net on PCH for dinner. After a good meal and some warm fellowship, we consigned to do it all again and headed home.