Mid -October on our scheduled Sunday-Fun-Day run, 8 members from the Santa Barbara 4 wheel drive club explored the Zaca Ridge trail near Figueroa Mountain in the Los Padres National Forest.
In July of this year the Lake Fire destroyed over 38,000 acres immediately in that area. The trail traverses along the top of Zaca Ridge with spectacular views of the San Rafael wilderness, Zaca Lake and the Santa Ynez valley.
The forestry trail leads out to a turn-around point approximately 60 minutes after leaving the pavement and travels directly through the burn scar and is a popular destination for trail runners, mountain bike enthusiasts and OHV lovers. It was stunning to see the devastation of one of our area’s most beautiful and scenic trails. It was also reassuring to notice that the burn area is already beginning to restore itself as well.
We were unable to take the side-shoot trail that leads down to the Davy Brown campground from the Zaca Ridge trail as it is closed because the Sunset Valley Rd leading back out to Happy Canyon is being completely refurbished so we proceeded back out to the Figueroa Mountain road and headed back to Los Olivos.
All in all it was an absolutely beautiful Fall day with amazing views and lots of peace and quiet in the backcountry.