By John Hankins
It’s not hard to imagine Craig R. Carey, even with his signature long beard, as a kid hanging out and getting soiled and smart in the Los Padres National Forest, a child of the woods who now leads children to the woods.
His legacy expanded this year with a second edition of my well-read and dog-eared Hiking and Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura, the “complete guide to the trails of the southern Los Padres National Forest” published by Wilderness Press.
“My main goal is to make people aware of what’s out there and to have an investment in those public lands,” he said, referring to “a kindred spirit in readership.”
The first page is Acknowledgements: “This one’s for the volunteers, those hearty souls who survey, clear trail and remove brush and downed trees; who toil under the sun and amid the bugs and burns; who protect the archaeological sites and the rare plants and the habitats and who advocate from home and from afield.”
The first edition came out in 2012, and he notes in the preface, “it’s been a rough decade” from the 2007 Zaca Fire, 2017 Thomas Fire, 2018 mudslide – claiming more than 20 souls – and scouring Santa Barbara area trails.
“As a result, the Los Padres again finds itself in an era of recovery,” he writes.
Heeding to Wilderness Press’s rule of thumb that if 10% of an area is changed, such books should be updated, he was “passively” updating as soon as the first book was printed, then geared up in 2017 by planning trips – many with Scout Troop 111 – along with crews fixing and building trails.
His parents were members of a Mountaineering Club and “weekends we bundled into the little Bronco” to go camping in the Los Padres.
“The forest was the world’s best baby-sitting,” he said, also referring to his own kids with his wife Karrie.
“It stills down your existence, you’re just out there with all five senses firing,” but also “very relaxing.”
Why a book in the digital age? “It doesn’t run out of batteries,” he quipped, but it’s also the love of a tactile printed book which is “a bit of a time capsule.”
During the pandemic, Carey found ways to get his scout troop in the woods. They didn’t have school and sports, but with small groups without carpooling, their treks “blew the Covid blues off the kids.”
Our Sierra Club has a special place in our hearts for Craig R. Carey as he’s a regular speaker at our Wilderness Basics Course (suspended until next year) and he’s an Advisory Council member of the Ventura Land Trust.
Readers may notice this piece is not much about the book, but this slice of Carey may enlist you as a “kindred spirit.” The book is available in outdoor stores and online.
A beginning quote before the handy overview of nearly 100 hikes is from John Muir:
"No amount of word-making will ever make a single soul to know these mountains,” and yet Carey’s word-making is sure to open the wonder of our beloved Los Padres National Forest.
