Channel Island National Park

Preface:

I'm starting this blog to document the journey my brother (Zach) and I are about to embark on. I will be writing each day and will probably be updating this page every few days, as service becomes available. Please feel free to comment and ask questions about our trip, and follow along with our rough itinerary.

I am starting this blog a week early as we are doing a practice backpack trip to the Channel Islands this week.

CHANNEL ISLANDS NATIONAL PARK (Test Trip) 06/19-06/22



The night before:

3:00 pm

We just hammered down the plan to go backpack on Santa Cruz island in the Channel Island National Park. Zach should be coming up this afternoon and we will be heading off bright and early tomorrow morning to catch the ferry over to the island. As for now I am spending the next few hours gathering all of my gear together, and worrying that I'll forget something important, guess that's part of the adventure.
Zach arrived and we have started stacking everything we will be bringing with us in the living room. It's interesting to see the contrast between his gear and mine, as he has gone with the traditional light weight colorful backpacking stuff, and I the green drab brown military equipment. As he calls it "Duel survival.". Going over all our stuff we have made a short list of things we will need to stop and get on the way to Ventura Harbor, including long underwear, ground cover, food and water (we decided on 6 liters each). Unfortunately after packing everything up, leaving room for food and water we discovered that the cost for the boat ride is a whopping $75. This news almost swayed us from going, but in the end we bit the bullet, committed and went to bed.

DAY 1:

6:00 am

It is far to early to be awake, let alone thinking of driving two hours. We left promptly at 7:00am as we were unable to print the confirmation email for the campsite and would need to stop by our parents to use the printer. This turned out to be a good thing as we also pilfered some of their coffee and snagged a little free breakfast. God bless parents.
On the road. We made a quick stop by Target to pick up the necessities, including a couple bottles of propane because both of us forgot to pack ours. We stocked up on water, dried soups, pringles, and Slim Jims. Pretty much anything light and compact. The reason we needed so much water (which turned out to weight about 12 extra pounds each) was because the campsite we are staying at does not have any water within 2 miles.
10:30 am
We reached Ventura Harbor, checked in and got on the boat all without to much trouble, the only real hassle was that they required the propane to be stored in a separate container on board the ship. It was a quick trip across the 20 miles from the mainland, and along the way we saw some sea lions


and went through a pod of dolphins


which surfed the bow and the wake of the ship. Overall the trip took about an hour and a half to Prisoners Harbor, where we were the only ones dropped off. Upon arrival we were greeted by a park ranger who gave us the typical warnings, don't go off the path, make sure you have enough water etc. and we headed on up the trail.
The hike to the campsite was a little bit more strenuous than anticipated, especially with 50 pounds of backpack. We were fortunate enough to make it to camp a few hours before sunset, so we set up camp and took a walk up the ridge to see the Pacific side of the island.


Both hikes combined was about 6 miles. Upon returning to the campsite we decided to heat up some soup for dinner then go to bed. I promptly pulled my little pocket rocket stove from my pack followed by the propane we had worked so hard to get up there when I discovered the two didn't fit together! No hot food for us this trip... I guess that's why we are doing this practice run. So we mixed some cold water into our dry noodles, choked it down, and went to bed.



DAY 2:

6:00am

DING! DING! DING! bah! Zach forgot to turn the alarm on his phone off! Of course it is in his backpack out in the fog. I'll let him deal with it.

10:00am

Ok maybe getting up with the alarm would have been a better idea. Despite how uncomfortable the hard ground was (I need a sleeping mat) we still managed to sleep for 12+ hours. Never again. When we did finally roll out of bed, everything was damp, no, wet. Fortunately we had put our bags up in the trees so they didn't have many bugs crawling around in them. We decided against the oatmeal, as I'm sure it would not have rehydrated properly in cold water, and went for a combo of coco almonds, trail mix and Slim Jims for breakfast. Zach unable to start a day without coffee fashioned himself a nice bottle of cold instant coffee which actually turned out quite good.
After breakfast we immediately set out for Chinese Harbor, a cobblestone beach about 4 miles further from camp.


This hike was far more enjoyable then the day before as it was relatively flat and had some incredible vistas. the only unfortunate part was the spiders, silly things thought it a good idea to build giant intricate webs across the trail at exactly face height. Bummer.
We arrived at the beach, and spent a good portion of the afternoon lounging, reading and swimming, although the swimming was short due to the temperature of the water. The sun on the warm cobblestones, and the soothing sound of stones tumbling in the surf was a perfect prize for the hike to get there, I fell right to sleep and was well burned for it. Around 4:00 we started heading back up the grueling hill from the beach to the relaxing trail, this was by far the worst part of my day, I almost turned back to the beach to wait for rescue.
Another cold meal of dried noodles and Slim Jims, this time accompanied by the Gatorade we brought dried powder for. What a nice break from water. Little did we know that we were in for a surprise dinner guest, a vixen little Red Island Fox decided to grace us with his presents.


He must have smelled my savory noodles. He took a prompt B-line for our bear box and what little food we had. I'm sure he does this routine with every camper coming through here. Fortunately for Zach the little guy stayed around long enough for him to switch lenses and get a few crisp photos. After all that excitement it was time for a chapter of my book, then off to bed.

DAY 3:

9:30am

Again! How could I sleep this long, Zach got up first and I immediately took his sleeping pad, but had to get up when he told me it was 9:30.

7:30am

He lied! Bah, I guess that's what I get for stealing his bed. We were awake now anyway so another cold breakfast, and cold coffee, this time I had some. We quickly packed up our gear and prepared to leave when our little fox friend made another visit. A few more good photos, and we headed off down the trail. A few things we are going to need are allergy and sleeping pills, as both have been a problem these past few days. We made good time getting back to Prisoners Harbor and had little to do until the boat arrived at 2:30. One park down, 20 to go.


MILEAGE:

Walking=20

Total=20