Los Padres Corridor 5/18 - 5/20 (Santa Barbara County, CA)

[LonestarJ]

A small group of friends and I are leaving Friday afternoon for a weekend run (Fri-Sun) on the Los Padres Corridor.

We'll be leaving Goleta around 2PM. Anyone interested in joining us, just reply to this thread.

Jason.

[ec_duz_it]

What route is the Los Padres corridor?  Could you map it for me on bikeroutetoaster.com? 

[LonestarJ]

It's effectively the same route you posted in the 2-3 day SoCal Routes thread.

The main difference is the ride start; we will drive up Bates Cyn Rd, from the 166 to Sierra Madre Rd, then start riding from the gate at McPherson Peak, instead of your route up Big Pine Rd from Ventucopa. Although after talking with the Ranger's office, it seems the road might not be passable all the way to the gate so we'll just get dropped off and ride from wherever we can.

Super old (but cool) Dirt Rag link about the ride: http://www.dirtragmag.com/printrag/corridor

Jason.

[ec_duz_it]

That sounds like a great ride.  I like to join you guys, but I have plans this weekend.  Do you ever ride romero or jesusita?  We like to go there on Thursday evenings.  We should meet up sometime.  A lot of my mountain bike friends are wussies and just ride small rides and do not bikepack. 

One piece of advice- if you want to avoid a long shuttle and a bunch of driving in your car, i would recommend riding to the top of big pine mountain and then just descending back down to your car the same way you came.  the riding between big pine and little pine is OK, but its all burned out still from the zaca fire. 

Your water sources for the ride you described are:

Towards the top of bates road (about .5 mile below sierra madre road) there might be small spring (we collected there 2 years ago). 

The big boulders at painted rock might have water (again, this was 2 years ago).

At santa barbara potrero campground (about .25 miles off of sierra madre road) there is a spring for horses to drink out of. Its marked as "oak spring" on the map (we camped and collected water here this year).

At chokecherry spring (before Malduce peak) there is a great water source. This is really tasty water. 

As you ascend big pine there was snow melt when we were there a few weeks ago.  maybe there will still be water  there.  This water was tasty too. 

I did not check out Big Pine campground, but I would recommend camping there, since it should be pretty warm this weekend. The rangers said there is a spring at that campground but I did not verify this. 

Bluff is a nice campground too (this is where we camped on night #2).  The Rangers were friendly there and gave us beer. 

Have fun! 

[LonestarJ]

Thanks for the information!

I do ride Romero on occasion but during the week is more difficult due to work/commuting. We should totally link up for a local bikepacking trip, as most of my friends bailed I was only able to have one guy follow through on the trip with me.

The ride this weekend was great. Weather was cooler than I expected but made for great riding.

We skipped Bates and started out of Aliso Canyon so we could do the singletrack out of Hog Pen camp up to Sierra Madre road. It meant we got 5 more miles in and my wife had less dirt road to shuttle us on.

Good water abounds on this route right now.

We camped at Big Pine on Saturday, it's quite the steep hike-a-bike down to the campsite off the road but beautiful, with a good nearby spring.

photos here:
https://plus.google.com/photos/107966834694404939614/albums/5745000959143914129

Jason.

[ec_duz_it]

Right on dude looks like you had fun.  Looks like you camped at painted rock and at Big Pine.  No snow left up there it looks like. I figured it wouldn't last long.  Its a pretty sweet ride eh?  I wish I had done it before the Zaca fire! 

I will shoot you an email next time we ride on the weekend.  We usually ride weekdays on Tuesday, Wed, or Thurs.