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May 2, 2011

Land Trust Acquires Private Inholding Near San Rafael Wilderness in Los Padres National Forest

The Remote 69-Acre Parcel in the Sierra Madre Mountains
Will Be Transferred to the Forest Service


Cox Canyon. Photo © LPFW

Cuyama Valley, Calif. — High in the Sierra Madre Mountains, in the backcountry of Santa Barbara County, we hiked along a damp drainage on the Cox Canyon property. The Forest Service district ranger suddenly held up his hand for us to stop. He pointed to fresh bear tracks. “They used to hunt grizzlies up here in the Cuyama badlands,” said the Forest lands officer. We all looked around us with ears perked, but no bears rustled the surrounding bushes—only the breeze through early spring wildflowers.

The Wilderness Land Trust — in partnership with the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County — recently acquired this 69-acre private parcel surrounded by the Los Padres National Forest. In the nearby San Rafael and Dick Smith wilderness areas, condors frequently soar and mountain lions roam near one of the largest Native American Rock art assemblages in the country. The parcel is located below the primary flyway for California condors, and an intermittent creek flows through the property before emptying into Santa Barbara Canyon and, eventually, the Cuyama River. It contains scattered conifers, grassy meadows, and lush chaparral and is located at approximately 4,000 feet in elevation. The nearest road is located nearly a mile away.


Cox Canyon. Photo © LPFW

When the parcel is transferred to the Los Padres National Forest later this year, it will become the first inholding acquired in the southern Los Padres National Forest in recent memory.

“The owner was ready to sell and a residence was allowed on the property, which is very close to good roads and an easy drive from the Southern California metro area,” said Aimee Rutledge, California Program Manager for the Wilderness Land Trust.

“We worked with willing sellers to protect Cox Canyon as wild and to ensure that ‘man is a visitor and shall not remain’ — a goal of the Wilderness Act. We are proud to create the future opportunity to add Cox Canyon to the San Rafael Wilderness,” said Reid Haughey, President of the Wilderness Land Trust.

“We are happy to have the chance to partner with the Wilderness Land Trust. We acted quickly to help bring this beautiful piece of land into our national forest,” said Michael Feeney, Executive Director of the Land Trust for Santa Barbara County.

"Our family is pleased to cooperate with the Trust in this transaction and to know that this pristine piece of de facto wilderness in the Sierra Madre will become part of the National Forest lands," said Eric Hvolboll of Santa Barbara.

ForestWatch was involved early in the process, contacting the Trust and urging it to take a leadership role in this acquisition, scouting the property to document its resource values, and building support for the acquisition with various wildlife and land management agencies. The land trusts then negotiated the transaction and acquired the property earlier this year.

The parcel is in an area that could one day be joined to the nearby San Rafael Wilderness. The San Rafael Wilderness was established in 1968 and was the first area added to the National Wilderness Preservation System after passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act. In 197,380 acres of chaparral-covered Sierra Madres and San Rafael Mountains, elevations range from 1,166 feet near the confluence of Manzana Creek and the Sisquoc River in the west to over 6,800 feet on Big Pine Mountain near the eastern boundary and Dick Smith Wilderness.


Cox Canyon parcel indicated with red arrow, approximately
26 miles due north of Santa Barbara (as the condor flies).

 

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