Dragon's Back to Arlington, Cathedral & La Cumbre Peaks.

Archived TRs for the Los Padres National Forest.
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Girl Hiker
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Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2014 7:46 am

Post by Girl Hiker »

I heard about a really cool hike called the "Dragon's back" trail in the Santa Barbara area, that involved some awesome rock climbing up a steep ridge that resembled the humps of a Dragon's spine.
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Sean & I woke up early Sunday Morning and headed to the Tunnel Trailhead, in the Los Padres National Forest, where our adventure would begin.
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We started hiking up the Jesusita Trail, to a steep, slightly overgrown ridge that would lead us to some cool rock hopping up the spine of the Dragon's back, bagging the first peak of the day, Arlington Peak.
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Selfie of course!
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Lunch break at Arlington Peak.
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It was a very misty day with the thick fog rolling through the mountains. We had to be careful as we hopped over wet, slick rocks throughout the trail.
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The next stop was Cathedral Peak that resembled a shark's tooth. This craggy rock formation was too slippery and dangerous to attempt climbing so we dropped down towards the saddle between Cathedral & La Cumbre peak on a use overgrown trail.
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We then headed towards La Cumbre peak which was another steep climb made up of boulders and slabs of Matillija Sandstone.
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Finally our 3rd peak of the day La Cumbre Peak.
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Bench Mark on the summit.
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After a short break we headed down Camino Cielo Road back to the intersection of Tunnel Trail that would lead us out back to the trailhead thus completing our loop.
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View from Camino Cielo road.
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Sean exhausted and happy to head back home.
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Sean
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Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 12:32 pm

Post by Sean »

Some additional pics:

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Scrambling up the ridge to Arlington

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There were several of these little tunnels to go through.

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Arlington Peak

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Cathedral Peak. The actual point, I think, is seen in background, but the exposed class 3 route was too slick for our comfort level.

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La Cumbre lookout tower

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Cecelia coming down the Tunnel Trail with the Dragon's Back in the distance.

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Santa Barbara and the Channel Islands seen from the Tunnel Trail.
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tekewin
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Joined: Thu Apr 11, 2013 5:07 pm

Post by tekewin »

Beautiful area! I did the easy route by descending from LeCumbre to Cathedral and Arlington. Great scrambling on Cathedral and it looks like some fun stuff on the way up to Arlington. Too bad the mist blocked the early views.

Thanks for the nice photos and report.
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