A Trip to a Castle

Hi. Hope you are doing well.

When I think of a castle, an image of mid-evil Europe
comes to mind; not the sun-kissed mountains of
Southern California. Nevertheless Java and visited
just such a place this weekend.

Did you know that yesterday, June 4th, was National
Trail Day (NTD)? Yup it was. The primary purpose of
NTD is to donate your time to restore and maintain
your favorite trail, or join others in doing the same
for theirs. For those not inclined to gather up
gloves, pick and shovel, NTD is also intended to
introduce new people to the great outdoors. I was
not inclined to do trail maintenance, so instead I
elected to drag Julio out to a local trail.

We chose a hike that Java and I did earlier in the
year - The Chumash Trail, starting from the Pacific
Coast Highway. It was a short juant - We reached
halfway up the initial ascent, and then retraced our
steps back to the car and called it a day.

Earlier today Java and I set out for slightly more
challenging trail. So we set our sights on exploring
the Santa Barbara backcountry, in the Santa Ynez
Recreation Area, in the Los Padres National Forest.
Specifically, we hiked the Snyder Trail up to Knapp's
Castle.

The trail was in great shape, no doubt having just
been groomed from the efforts by volunteers just the
day before. The trail gained 2000 ft over 3.3 miles
up to our destination, Knapp's Castle. The so called
castle was built for a wealthy couple as a weekend
mountain retreat at the turn of the previous century,
and was destroyed in a forest fire in 1940.

The views along the way, and from the top were very
impressive despite the lingering haze from the still
retreating marine layer. We strolled under numerous
oak tress canopies, past ferns, wildflowers, springs,
butterflies, lizards, quails and various other
birds. Overall a great quick day hike.

Weekend Summary. Saturday: Distance Hiked = 0.6
miles, Elevation Gained = 700 ft. Sunday: Distance
Hiked = 6.6 miles, Elevation Gained = 2000 ft.

Glad to be alive, and loving it! Take care.


-Manny