Songs of the Wilderness

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I’ve been invited to speak at the Los Padres Forest Association’s first ever Trail Talk and Mixer to help raise funds for volunteer trail work projects. Through its volunteer projects the LPFA works with the forest service to help maintain trails in our local backcountry. Many of these trails are in remote wilderness areas and are either badly overgrown or were damaged by the 2007 Zaca Fire. 

Backpacking Santa Barbara’s Wilderness Trails
Tuesday, April 19th, 6:30 – 8:00pm
Santa Barbara Veterans’ Memorial Building
112 W. Cabrillo Blvd., Santa Barbara, CA

This talk dovetails well with the talk I just gave in March. That talk covered trails in the Santa Barbara and Ojai mountains that are well-suited for 2-3 day backpacking trips. This talk will focus in on several trails in the San Rafael Mountains that lend themselves well to longer 3-5 day traverses of our local backcountry. The trails are also ones that Los Padres Forest Association has either done work on through its past projects or will be part of one of their upcoming projects. 

Tickets are $10 each. However, admission is free for LPFA members. Basic membership is just $25, and so the bargain here is by becoming a member not only are you supporting volunteer trail work, but getting free admission for the other upcoming talks this year. The LPFA is planning on hosting quarterly Mixer/Trail Talks and has two more already in the works, one for the summer and one for the fall.

Seating for this event is limited, so get your tickets now by going to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/backpacking-santa-barbaras-wilderness-trails-with-james-wapotich-tickets-24306376025. Tickets are $10 each, plus an Eventbrite service fee of $1.54, making the total price $11.54.

To become an LPFA member go to http://lpforest.org/membership-account/join/. And then go to Eventbrite to reserve your member ticket.

To learn more about the LPFA go to http://lpforest.org/

I’ve been on a number of LPFA trail projects. They are a great way to give back to the trials, as well as connect with other outdoor enthusiasts. In 2014, I wrote an article about the LPFA, Trail Quest: Los Padres Forest Association, which describes a little bit about what goes into these projects and how the organization got started.

James Wapotich has hiked many of the trails in the southern Los Padres National Forest. He is a Volunteer Wilderness Ranger with the Forest Service, and the author of the Santa Barbara News-Press hiking column, Trail Quest.