Santa Barbara Foothills Hikes: Dr. King Day Scramble to Cathedral Peak Part Two
Filed in archive by raphael on January 18, 2006

From a tunnel-like narrow single track the trail wound further and further up, each step a significant gain in elevation. The hard chaparral of dense woody shrubs almost completely enclosed me during this initial section of incline. An orange-hued, light brown dirt covered sandstone boulders that formed the bedrock of the trail -- where my boots were slowly starting to pick up a rhythm.

Every moment the trail looked skyward. Vistas of the neighboring peaks became so awe-inspiring I was forced to continually reach into my pack for my camera and then after snapping, to goggle for several moments of the turning-to-dusk landscape before me.

. It also provides some dramatic views of the Channel Islands as they form a symmetrical alignment with the Santa Barbara front range.
Suddenly a middle-aged man came charging up the nearly 30-degree pitch towards my meditation zone. He was sweating, glowing, and huffing and puffing. He should have been -- he was not climbing and hiking like myself, but somehow RUNNING up the trail. Heart strong, that one? I would say so. He informed me of my proximity to my goal of Cathedral Peak, I was not too far away, and there was still a sun above the blue, plate glass sea two thousand something feet below us.
I did not have time to pause long at the top, daylight was dwindling, and I had already been "oooing" and "ahhhing" at several different vantage points along the trek. Time to charge down. Fast. A necessary part to my total experience of immersion in the mountains is the descent. The return. Flying down the trail I used the manzanitas again, but in a different capacity. The reddish brown snakeskin that passes for limbs of a short tree became my brakes, slowing me down on the severe, precipice-like sections of the trail.

ER Harris
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