With 150 species found nowhere else in the world, Channel Islands National Park is California’s own Galapagos.
Call forth your hardy self to visit the Channel Islands
Waves tossed the skiff, as we approached Scorpion Cove at Channel Islands National Park and readied to leap ashore. The pier here had been damaged in a storm, my friend Stacey and I learned before catching the ferry at Ventura Harbor, and so we should be prepared to make landfall as if we were shipwreck survivors. And that’s really what it was like. Leaping from the ferry to the skiff and then onto the rocky beach made for an adventurous introduction to this secluded archipelago in the Pacific Ocean.
A year earlier, I had visited Santa Catalina, the most glamorous sibling among the Channel Islands. But Channel Islands National Park is something else altogether: No one lives there, and though you can camp, there is no visitor lodging nor any restaurant on the five islands that make up this park 30 miles south of Santa Barbara and 14 miles from the mainland. Park rangers, in fact, counsel would-be visitors that self-reliance and planning are essential, so remote and wild is the destination.
This isolation has influenced the park’s unique flora and fauna. More than 150 endemic species exist here and nowhere else in the world; it’s like California’s own Galapagos.
The islands may feel mysterious and remote, but if you grew up in California, you probably remember reading “Island of the Blue Dolphins.” Scott O’Dell’s 1960 novel about Karana, an American Indian girl, left behind on one
of the Channel Islands. It’s the fictionalized tale of Juana Maria, a 19th century Nicoleño woman, who survived alone on San Nicolas Island for 18 years.
Today, those islands are a hidden gem in the National Park Service, which is celebrating its centennial this year. The park receives just 300,000 visitors annually, says the park service’s Yvonne Menard.
It was overcast the morning our ferry shoved off from Ventura Harbor, but midway to Santa Cruz Island, the sun emerged — and even better, so did the dolphins, treating us to a beguiling performance, an irresistible flirtation. We cruised past a red buoy with a sea lion draped across its base and two young pups bickering over the remaining space. In the distance, we could make out oil derricks and, gradually, the imposing and mountainous island.
Landing on the beach, we were greeted by volunteer guide Bill Moritz, who was about to lead a geological history hike along the Cavern Point Loop at Santa Cruz’s northeastern tip. While we waited for other visitors to gather, Stacey and I explored a display of rusted farm equipment from the 1800s, including remnants from a sheep ranching venture that once supplied wool to Civil War soldiers.
Geological history may sound a bit dull, but Moritz drew us in as we hiked, his patter venturing from tectonic plates to the intriguing evolution of the islands’ plant and animal life. He pointed out native Santa Cruz buckwheat and held forth on the Chumash Indians, who settled the islands, and their masterful boatmanship. He described how Santa Cruz, the island chain’s largest and most diverse landmass, has been occupied for at least 9,000 years; the Island Chumash were sophisticated at fishing and trade.
Moritz introduced some of the island’s current denizens as well, including the charming island fox, wild animals, even though a brotherly duo scampered around us as if they were pets. With repeated references to — all in one breath — “cattle, sheep, goats and pigs,” Moritz explained the introduction of these species to the islands, and how grazing changed its vegetation and topography.
Despite that grazing past, the Channel Islands and their vast grasslands and canyons evoke what the region looked like a century ago. The goal of the park service and Nature Conservancy holding this land, Moritz said, is to return the landscape to an even more distant past, the days when the Chumash lived here. To a first-time visitor, it seemed they could hardly do better than the serene, pristine vista already before us.
At the juncture to the North Bluff Trail, Stacey and I veered westward on our own, gazing at the astonishing views of intensely blue sea and rugged cliffs, with their patches of green and red succulents toppling down to the shoreline.
We finally reached a ridge, unpacked our bag lunches and contemplated that view, dreaming of skiffs, shipwrecks and island days gone by.