Bikepacking (1 night only)

So last weekend I packed up my gear and strapped it all to my mountain bike, and on Friday morning (I had my first Friday off since last August as we finally went back on our 9/80 work schedule 2 weeks ago). I had to drive 80 miles to my ride jump off point, and climbed up Santa Barbara Canyon (no where near Santa Barbara CA btw) to the Sierra Madre Ridge road, turned right and headed to Painted Cave to explore and spend the night. 

The ride in was just about 20 miles, and when I load up my 25lbs of gear on the bike it suddenly feels like I'm pedaling the Queen Mary up the climbs. It got pretty toasty on the main climb (my Garmin said it hit 104, but I don't believe it, don't think it was THAT hot...but there was ZERO breeze on the way up) but still I was stopping every half mile or so for a bit in any shady spot I could find. When I finally cleared the canyon and got up on the ridge the temp cooled off plenty as there was some breeze/light winds...hooray!

 My bike at the start, all geared up and ready to roll.

 

On the climb out of Santa Barbara Canyon. Just a bit toasty, especially considering that I haven't seen temps over say 75 since last summer/fall.

 

On the climb....yep...that's a cow watching me. I'm pretty afraid of cows mind you.

 

First view of the Painted Rock valley (I'm coming in from the opposite side I usually arrive at, so THE Painted Rock formation is on the far side of this enormous valley).

 

After I made the ridge I had almost 10 miles of mostly downhill to my destination. I had camped here at Painted Rock overnight 2 years ago, only I stayed on the other side of the valley of white rock...this time I was purposely staying on the east side to do some more white-rock exploring for any Native American (ie, Chumash Indians) rock painting...the Painted Rock "paintings" are so- far the only ones I've seen (that's the one that is shown and known by the general public). I've talked to wilderness rangers and they've alluded that there are indeed more and  better than the Painted Rock, but they won't say where...I'm still hoping to find some. 

 

This is a sample of what I'm looking for by the way...this is the art found at Painted Rock. It's inside a small cave up about 20' high in the small'ish formation (compared to many).

I ended up getting my water for dinner/breakfast and my ride out the next day here at the Montgomery Cabin (not much to look at obviously, but it does have a spring fed spigot, and as far as I know it always has water).

Yep...another cow. Watching me. I'm back at my campsite after hiking around getting ready to make dinner, and lo and behold a black cow shows up and stares at me. Pretty un-nerving.

 

At one point in the stare-down she "Moo'd" a long loud one, and about 5 minutes later Brown-Cow shows up (this one has horns)...he/she watched me for a few minutes and then decided that was enough and mosey'd to the left of the picture (the way I rode in) and headed right up/out of the valley. Mrs. Black-cow stayed tho, only she changed locations to watch some more before FINALLY heading west down the dirt road towards Painted Rock (which is 2 miles away).

 

A view of my meager campsite from the high-point on the white-rock formation that I'm camped next to. Looking off in the distance is the far eastern side of the Painted Rock valley.

Saturday morning (15 May), Up and adam, riding over to the west side of the valley. This shot is of the "Valley of the white rock" (what I call it)...always an amazing view. Far down the valley is the pesky marine layer lying on top of Cayuma (small town in the Cayuma Valley). This is a good 50 miles inland, making that a very impressive and way over-achieving Marine Layer.

 

As I ride into the western side of the valley THERE is my staring-cow from last evening (off in the distance, the little black spot)! She's way off by herself, and yes, watching me as I head to the Painted Rock to start my trail hike for the morning. There are no other cows in this area that I have seen.

 

On the Rocky Ridge Trail, winding down the western side of the "Valley of the white rock", yes, you guessed it...MORE white-rock! Still no Indian rock painting that I can find tho.

 

On the map it showed this trail as "not maintained". That is (was?) the trail, and some huge tree has fallen down and wiped out a gate. The trail was very hard to follow at times, it would just disappear into the brush/trees and I'd hike around and I'd find the trail again further down the ridge.

 

Looking back at one of the white rock formations I hiked all around. It's a really neat area, tho a bit rough getting around due to the heavy brush/shrubs/trees and the stupid dry grass with stickers...every time I'd go off the trail for even a few feet it felt like I had 1000 stickers in my socks.

 

Now I'm nearing the top of the ridge (on my way back to my bike), looking down the ridge. Just past the rock on teh right side of the formation you can see the trail going up that green hill...that's where I turned around at being as there was no new rock formations to explore.

 

Back at the Painted Rock, on my bike heading back to the western side of the valley to pick up all my gear (left it at my campsite). This is very odd...a dead jack-rabbit (hare?) lying in the dirt road, no sign of any foul play...no blood or damage of any kind that I can see. If it was any predator, then it wouldn't be here or would be partly eaten. I don't really understand how a VERY FRESHLY dead animal is here with no sign of how it died (wasn't here about 2 hours ago when I rode down here to start my hike).

 

All packed up and heading home, here I'm just a few miles from the top of Santa Barbara Canyon...this is a new sign (hadn't seen it before). A few years back there were about 30 large pickup trucks towing huge horse-trailers and 5th wheel trailers, all parked just a mile or so down this road, having some kind of a big horse-party-thing. Had never seen anything like that out here before...didn't even know they could drive in here (there is a locked gate about 5 miles down the canyon, which the keys are carried by Forest Rangers (this is all part of Los Padres National Forest).

All in all it was a nice trip...first time in 2 years I've gone out camping (didn't do any last year due to the pandemic). It's still a bit spooky camping alone out here...lying in my tent listening to sounds, wondering if any of the cows will show up and stomp me, or coyotes will scare the daylights out of me (like they did the last time I camped at Painted Rock), or maybe if the Chupacabra will show up and eat my eyeballs or something. However this time I had a tent...and that very thin layer of nylon is like a force-field...no harm can possibly come to me inside that magic shell! Or at least, that's how it feels...that and the fact that I can't see what may or may not be out there watching me. Something about lying in my sleeping bag inside a bivy-bag (with my face actually sticking up thru the bag out in the night air, no tent around me for protection) makes it oh-so-much scary. But I know several seasoned bike-packers, and they do it all the time with even less gear than I carry...I guess they are fearless...I am not. I am VERY fearing...especially of mountain lions. 

So...the trip went well, only I did not find any new paintings darn it. I am planning on going out again on the mt bike with gear for TWO nights over Memorial Day weekend (again my Friday off, so will go out Friday, Saturday and finish on Sunday, with Monday off as a Holiday. This time will be a poiut-to-point...having Jeannie drop me off at the very start of the Sierra Madre Ridge, and I hope to make it down into Santa Barbara by Sunday afternoon (somewhere around 100 miles I think). THAT should be pretty interesting...I've never gone out for two nights before...and by myself again too. 

So...that's it for my ride report. Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite.

Cheers!

3....2....1....Launch!

I interrupt the regular Pandemic madness to bring you this:

Last Monday we had another successful launch of a very important spacecraft from one of our launch pads here at Vandenberg AFB. 

It's taken many months of work by a LOT of people since the vehicle was delivered to the launch base preparing it for that moment. And none of that takes into account the years of work building it. And all the engineering involved to design it (from some seriously HOLY CRAP SMART PEOPLE!!). And funding, don't forget that...that was likely put into play a decade or more ago. Oh, and let's not forget the booster (rocket). This particular one was a ULA Delta IV Heavy (which is literally three Delta IV rockets connected together to create a heavy-lift rocket). There are only a few of them left in our inventory, after they are gone then a newer rocket (still being designed and having yet to fly) will do the heavy-lifting for our countries largest payloads. So yes, it's a REALLY BIG DEAL when one of these makes it way to it's new home on orbit. The entire team involved from start to finish is MASSIVE to say the least, all culminated by a successful launch.

Here are a few websites you can go to and view the rocket on launch-day (all provided by Spaceflightnow.com and ULA....United Launch Alliance).

This first link has various views of the rocket with the Mobile Service towers in various stages of being rolled away getting ready for launch. (note: the booster consists of the three enormous orange'ish tubes. Above that there is the 2nd stage, and above that there is a thin orange'ish ring, and then above that sits the payload fairing which is covering/protecting the spacecraft).

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/26/photos-delta-4-heavy-rocket-awaits-liftoff-from-historic-slc-6-launch-pad/

This second link is about the launch, with a few photos taken during the launch, and has a lot of background and such.

 https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/26/spy-satellite-successfully-launched-from-california-military-base/

And finally, here is a ULA provided video of the launch (pretty awesome!). here you get to watch a bunch of all of our tax-dollars flying away into orbit.

https://spaceflightnow.com/2021/04/26/delta-4-heavy-nrol-82-mission-status-center/

I watched it go from the roof of our building on Northbase (Vandenberg), I'd guess about 15-20 miles as the crow-flies from the pad where the launch went from. 

Just a mere 2 weeks ago our team fueled the spacecraft as it sat on top of the rocket, encased in it's protective fairing (the big white nosecone). There are special ports built into the fairing for the fueling lines to connect to the spacecraft. And the "fuel" is a seriously scary bunch of really bad stuff, so scary that the very few of our people that are required to be up there during the actual flowing of the stuff are wearing full on spacesuits (not actual spacesuits of course, these aren't for the vacuum of space but for keeping it's wearer safe if there is any kind of a leak). 

It's a crazy thing to "gas up" a ludicrously expensive and pretty much irreplaceable spacecraft. The procedures are intense and incredibly detailed, all designed to prevent anything from going wrong. They are years in the making, looked at, dissected, and verified by a lot of very smart people. It took the better part of a week and a ton of man-hours to complete this operation, rendering the vehicle pretty much ready to fly.

OK....I won't bore you with any further blah blah blah, all I can say at this point is HOORAY FOR US!! USA! USA!! USA!! (yea...I get a bit excited when we have a BIG WIN, which is what every successful Government launch is). Having been either in the Military or working FOR the Military pretty much my entire life since high-school, this is all very exciting to me. 

All right...I now return you to your regularly scheduled Pandemic madness. 

Sorry.