I know I don't always put up trip reports. This is in a way more of a warning...

Sykes is one of those things people stumble on while they are touristing up and down highway 1. The California coast has quite a few hot springs, tho many are tamed and you will be charged money to use them (cf: several resorts/spas in Santa Cruz, Esalen Institute, Tassajara Zen Center). But the trail to Sykes (the short way, anyway) is 10 miles long, one way, and has more than 5,000 feet of gain. Add in that trees fall in the trail on an ongoing basis and encroaching brush full of ticks and poison oak, and I'm sure there are many stories of adventure from this trail.

People don't backpack here. Oh, they pack up stuff in a large pack, all right. But as I was setting up my 10 oz kitchen kit (weight includes the stove and windscreen!) my next door neighbor takes out a heavy-bottomed stainless steel stock pot, then takes out a frisbee and starts using it with a huge knife to chop up leeks, bell peppers, carrots, broccoli, onions, and a lot of mushrooms into the pot. All of this went on a heavy single burner Coleman stove with a fuel canister large enough for any two week expedition into the backcountry. And then he stirred it with a stick because he forgot the utensils.

Across the river I could see a falling-down six man tent, ala Coleman. Also clothes lines with soaked sweats on them. The rain had hit hard the day before. There were campfires up and down the canyon - people were trying to dry out stuff, which you would do too if you carried in 60 lbs of dry stuff and it got all wet!

The trail is deceptive. There is a lot of 1/4 to 2 mile traversing, as you wind back into the river canyon, but a lot of it just goes up, and up, and down... at one point there are a couple of side trails that drop to the river, to campsites. On the way out I noticed a large tent barely 20 feet off the main trail - straddling the trail to Ventana Camp, as there was a large oak blocking the way. No workarounds to get to the actual camp, I suppose. The Ventana Wilderness is crazy with thick brush, which is getting thicker than usual due to the trees having been burned out in a fire a few years back. Cross country is pretty dangerous here, and slow going - nearly everything is steep and covered with either dead and down burned trees or thick, tangled masses of winding vines and thorny brush. The Pine Ridge trail is well trodden by hot springs seekers but when compared to the freeways of national parks, it sometimes looks like a deer path....

Terrace Camp is the halfway point, and there is a trail that comes down from Coast Road to join the Pine Ridge trail. That would explain how, on a Monday with a handful of cars in the lot at Big Sur Station, one can arrive to find a dozen parties camping in the canyon. Well, that and the carless folk - I shared a spring with some young guys who were packing around the country. I leapfrogged with them all the way out the next day - they ran out of food, and hiked in temps in the low 40s in just shorts and boots with massive packs (one had a guitar on the back). I saw them as I was driving out, on the bridge hitching south - I was going north, but I'm sure they found a ride. They'd hitched this far.

The ranger was clueless about trail conditions. I took pictures and waypointed with my GPS and brought them back to show him - two redwoods, a bay, several oaks. The redwoods were particularly problematic as people bushwhack around them and make too many use trails into the woods, or cause very steep slides getting down and around the end. None of them will stop anyone getting to the hot springs.

The springs themselves are marvelous - the flow of water is so copious that the tubs have the barest amount of moss in the rocks. There were four tubs that I saw, possibly more, but of course I jumped in the first unoccupied one and soaked til dark. There was a hose bringing water down out of the rocks and it made a great shower. Judging from the foam in the river upstream, there are very likely other mineral, if not hot, springs up there as well.

This was also the trip I took way back when I was first getting into backpacking again - back when I had the wrong shoes, the wrong pack, and neglected a few key pieces of gear. I fared better this time, avoiding an embedded tick and massive blisters on my feet. However, I did manage to have sore shoulders. I failed to recognize that the weight loss I experienced in October had an affect on my pack size! The pack that has worked for me for well over a year now no longer sits on my hips, but slides downward, resulting in an ongoing battle to keep the weight on my hips that I mostly lost. The belt tightened up to the buckles (while adjusted to "extra small") is still not tight enough! Good thing it's holiday season, might not have to buy a new pack.

I'm not sure why, when in so many other parks and wilderness areas they warn about strenuous hikes that aren't strenuous, this hike has no posted warnings about the climbing and the long miles. The sign at the trailhead says Sykes - 10 miles, and the folks I saw on the trail ranged from overloaded to ... well, there were five people dayhiking it. I don't think they made it back before dark judging from the late start they got. One young man had a sack, not a pack, and a WalMart bag full of snacks - he said he was staying the night. Hmmm. I suppose he could spend the night in the spring to stay warm....

This is probably more of a people watching trip than a backpacking trip - mostly because the majority of the folks taking it are not backpackers. The Ventana is a very wild wilderness, there are reports of bear sightings (previous assumption was that the bears were gone from this area since no one has reported even a sign of them in previous years), and one of the campers I talked to had seen a ringtail - not a raccoon. Yet this one place can feel like a zoo... for people.

I shall never complain about trailhead quotas again.

THanks Lori!

We're always considering the Ventana area for winter trips...but somehow we don't manage to get down there.

And I LOVED this line: "Good thing it's holiday season, might not have to buy a new pack."

The rest of the wilderness is less trampled than Sykes. Pat Springs is popular, but not that popular, and the views are breathtaking from the ridge.

But, it's always best to be aware of trail conditions and water sources before you go - trails disappear without maintenance, and there's only a crew of volunteers doing the work. And lots of trails like Puerto Suello have turned into a line of ribbons through dense underbrush.

Great report, lori. I've read about those springs in a guidebook; this was an excellent -- and amusing -- first-person perspective.

Great report! and funny. Thanks for posting up.

I forgot to mention the clothing optional factor of the springs... don't think all the guidebooks mention that.

It can be pretty interesting - most of the folks were in their 20s, and then along comes middle aged me.... At least there were curtains of steam rolling off the water's surface to provide some cover as you beach yourself and try to get dry enough to pull on clothes.

What, no photos?

Well, okay.

But this is pretty graphic...

Wow! That's really pretty clear! I see toe cleavage! :^)