Channel Islands National Park

Lorrie has wanted to visit the Channel Islands National Park off the coast of California since the first time she heard about them 15 years ago. I think it was mostly the prospect of kayaking their coastlines that attracted her, or at least that’s what she mostly spoke about whenever the topic came up as we planned this trip to visit the western national parks. As I’m more of a landlubber, preferring to get about on my own two feet or bicycle and going high for the best views, I was less inclined to incur the expense and hassle of catching a boat to the islands. It takes an hour from Ventura to reach the closest one. And since there are nine national parks in California, including the three spectacular ones in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the Channel Islands fell off our list.

That changed a couple of weeks ago when we found ourselves shivering in the high Sierras and cut short our time there. Suddenly we realized we could easily fit in a few days in the Channel Islands, and that it’s not really so hard to get there. And they are big and diverse enough for some pretty terrific hiking too.

A few words for those who have never heard of Channel Islands National Park. The park protects five of the eight Channel Islands, and there are marine sanctuaries and marine protected areas in the surrounding waters as well. Two of the islands that are not part of the park are occupied by the military, and the final and best-known island is Catalina Island off the coast of Long Beach. But the five islands in the park are NOT like Catalina Island. There are no food or other services on the islands other than the one campground on each island run by the National Park Service.

We decided to visit Santa Cruz Island because it is one of only two with drinking water. It is also the largest Island, about four times the size of Manhattan, though only a quarter of it is managed by the park service; the rest is owned by the Nature Conservancy. The island has mountain ranges that climb to almost 2,500 feet, a fault line that forms a dramatic central valley, and many sea caves on the northern coastline. We reserved three nights in the campground and booked a half-day kayak tour with a local outfitter to explore the sea caves.

Our Channel Islands adventure started on the hour-long boat ride from Ventura. As we pulled out of the harbor, the boat slowed to show us a large Stellar Sea Lion sunning itself on a buoy. While harbor seals and California sea lions are common in these waters, this was a rare visit from a much larger mammal that usually lives much farther north. Lorrie saw them in British Columbia in September; perhaps this one just came south to see her again. Once the boat was well out into the channel and beyond the offshore oil platforms, we encountered a large pod of dolphins (more than 100 of them!) that seemed to delight in playing with the waves around the boat. Groups of five or six would come right up to the bow and race alongside us for about 10 seconds before peeling off to give a turn to another group. Other dolphins preferred to jump across the wake behind the boat. It was quite a show! Whale sightings are also common in the channel, though we didn’t see any this time, and the boat captain told us that the diversity of marine mammals in the channel is among the highest in the world.

The campground on Santa Cruz Island is about half a mile from the dock, nestled among large eucalyptus trees just beyond a small but very informative self-help visitor center. Each campsite has a bear box for food storage, just like those we saw in the campgrounds in the Sierras and other national parks. There are no bears on the island, but there are foxes and ravens that will definitely eat your food if it’s left out of the box for even just a few minutes. The island fox is a species found only on these islands and was brought back from the brink of extinction 25 years ago when there were less than 100 individuals left. They are about the size of housecats, and we thought they had some of the housecat’s mannerisms as well, sitting on their haunches with their eyes just open or lurking nearby looking for food. They are so accustomed to people that they’ll stroll right past you without any hesitation or fear. “Hey, buddy, you can’t touch me! I’m protected!”

The Channel Islands is also a fascinating story about habitat restoration. The Chumash native American tribes lived on the islands for thousands of years until they were run off the islands by European settlers in the early 1800s, and ranchers and others seeking to exploit the islands’ resources moved in. By the late 1800s, a single corporation owned Santa Cruz Island and managed a large agricultural operation there, bringing in sheep, pigs, cattle, olives, grapes and supporting infrastructure. The sheep and pigs wrought terrible destruction on the land. With the disappearance of bald eagles in the Channel Islands in the 1940s due primarily to the eggshell thinning effects of DDT, golden eagles moved in, preying on the pigs, as well as the island foxes. The foxes were the primary predators of the kangaroo rats, so as the fox population dwindled, the rats multiplied rapidly. You get the picture…. Everything is connected.

Congress authorized acquisition of the northern Channel Islands in 1980 to establish the national park. The Nature Conservancy acquired 90 percent of Santa Cruz island when the owner of that portion died in 1987.  It took 16 years of litigation for the federal government to succeed in acquiring the eastern 10 percent from the family that owned it, and the Nature Conservancy ceded a portion of its holdings to the federal government in 2000 so that the park would include 25 percent of the island. The National Park Service and the Nature Conservancy have worked together with other partners over the last three decades to repair the damage to Santa Cruz Island. They successfully removed and relocated all of the sheep, pigs, and golden eagles and reintroduced bald eagles. A captive breeding program has brought back the island fox population, and they came off the endangered species list last year.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time on Santa Cruz island, hiking over 25 miles on high coastal cliffs, through grasslands and up to the highest point in the park, and scrambling our way up a dry creek with steep canyon walls on either side. And, as Lorrie knew all along, the sea kayaking along the coast was truly spectacular. Our guide took us into sea caves along the northern coast of the island, some of which extend 300 feet into the island. We had fun maneuvering our kayaks through narrow passages and timing the 2-3 foot swells that lifted our kayak inside the caves as if it were on an elevator. One cave tunnel was called “limbo,” and we leaned far back in our kayak as we passed through to avoid scraping out heads on the ceiling. Next time, we will add snorkeling to the mix. We heard that the sea life in the protected areas is truly magnificent, and we could only just get a glimpse of it as we peered down into the clear water from our kayak.

An added bonus of our visit to the Channel Islands was meeting Lesley and Jim, our AirBnB hosts in Ventura, who went above and beyond to help us with our logistics, and with whom we quickly bonded.  We often stay in AirBnB lodgings when we don’t have a good option for camping, or when we need to get some “town” things done. When choosing a place, Lorrie is always careful to check the reviews left by previous guests to make sure it’s a good place and to help us know what to expect. There were lots of places to choose from in Ventura, but she had a good feeling from Lesley and Jim’s listing. Sure enough, we bonded with them right away and ended up going out to dinner together two of the three nights we spent with them. We had so much fun! They got engaged on Santa Cruz island in 1996 and shared many fond memories and stories of their visits to the islands and scuba diving there. We really hope to see them again someday. We have met so many kind, fun, and interesting people all along our trip—it’s been great!

We said goodbye to the Pacific coast for the last time on this trip, heading eastward to Joshua Tree National Park to be followed by Death Valley, our ninth and final California national park. Having driven all the way from Redwood near the Oregon border, and snaked our way through the state, California has seemed more like its own country than another state—so varied, so many different mountain ranges, large and small, so much agriculture and industry, so much coastline, both wild and tame. We’ve always thought of San Francisco as “northern California,” so imagine our surprise to see a sign near the Oregon border saying that San Francisco is 350 miles to the south! We’ve already been here over a month and still missed a good portion of it, as we’ve avoided most of the major population centers. Check out the crazy map on our homepage! And also the pictures in our photo gallery.

Sending love and best wishes to all!

2 thoughts on “Channel Islands National Park”

  1. We feel truly honored to have been a part of your amazing journey! We loved you two and look forward to seeing you again! Xoxox. Lesley and Jim

  2. Hi Bob and Lorrie:

    So happy to hear of your great adventure and love for Santa Cruz Island. We throughly enjoyed our trip to SCI and happy to hear you did as well.

    Our beautiful Centinel campground (where we had the pleasure of meeting you two) in Cedar a Grove closes for the season this coming Sunday, Nov. 12th. Always a sad time for us. However we look forward, as always to its opening in late April.

    We look forward to your next post. Keep on keeping on…..enjoy’

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