The Pink Moment, Topatopa Bluffs
The area around Ojai and Santa Paula is an odd and beautiful little corner of SoCal. It's really not far from LA but people barely know where it is. I first saw the bluffs from the ocean as I was coming back from Santa Cruz Island in 2015 which is how it got on my List. Just look at them. Of COURSE you want to get closer to them, right? A piece of Sedona, right in SoCal. Let me tell you, they are best appreciated from below. But I get hikes stuck in my brain; random things get into my head and the only exorcism is TO DO THEM (like this one, or this one.) And my opinion on hiking to the top of Topatopa in particular is:
My particular animus may have stemmed from a) yet ANOTHER bizarre circumstance preventing me from also bagging the Santa Barbara trail this same long weekend, that I've wanted to do for years (this year, a big early rainstorm washing out the canyon; last year, the Federal government closing) and b) doing it while in caffeine withdrawal, with very few calories, and starting off dehydrated (due to unnamed Ethiopian restaurant lunch in LA, no further details) and then drinking tons of water to catch up and getting hyponatremic, to the point slurring your words and getting blurry vision. I'm SMART! In all seriousness, some of the upper mileage markers must be incorrect. Signs and guides report it at 18 miles, 4500' elevation gain but I wouldn't be surprised if it's actually more like 21 miles. Or maybe I went further than most people do. But witnesseth: it took me 1h40m to go "3" miles downhill quickly at one point? Really? I noticed maybe not coincidentally, once you're on fire road in the lower areas, and you could measure it in a vehicle, the mileages seem correct. It's also not that pretty, and the views are comparable to a lot of others you can get of the Channel Islands up in Santa Barbara, and which you can get to much more easily. Nice woman in blue hoodie, and French caterer, you guys were cool and were the two bright spots. Otherwise it sucks and I'm sorry I did it, I am a grumpy old man and just glad to get it off my list. Also I used this as a resource.
Below, in the haze you can just barely make out - is that Baldy, or San Gorgonio? Both had snow from the recent storm.
Above, Oxnard and the back of Malibu, and the Channel Islands are visible in the next two below.
While in the neighborhood, I also bagged Mt. Pinos, another infection I needed to clear - and the highest point on the Grapevine Ridge, right on the line between Los Angeles and Kern Counties, and an easy 3 mile round trip hike (though the goofy Forest Service signs are wrong there too, in the other direction - it's really about 3 miles round trip but by the signs it would be 4.) You can honestly just use Google Maps for the route. At 8,847' there were patches of snow already in late October from the rains a few days before.
Above: just before sunrise somewhere on California Route 33 between Ojai and Frazier Park, which I think gives Route 12 a run for its money as most interesting and varied state highway in California.
FIN
