Manzana Trail, Los Padres NF 2003
One of my friends moved down into California in March, so before worrying about getting his apartment set up he decided to stop by to experience some of the wonderful wilderness of Southern California. Over the course of a bottle of jack, a bottle of jim, a deck of cards, a dead car battery, and a weekend we went backcountry camping in the San Rafael Wilderness in the Los Padres National Forest. We hiked in along the Manzana trail, winding along a river snaking through valleys and canyons. The wildflowers had just begun to bloom and made for some beautiful vistas. The weather was wonderful and the trail was beautiful with less then about 10 people overall on it. I must definitely get back into this area more often. On the road back, one whole side of the mountain was covered in a poppy field. Hundreds of feet of California poppies were just strewn about the mountainside. I had never seen a poppy field before, and it was quite some sight.
The Photographs
These pictures were taken with my Miranda camera with Kodak Plus X 125 B&W film and Kodachrome 64 side film, scanned from negatives and slides on a SprintScan 4000. High resolutions scans are available. Click in the upper right to begin. My favorite photos from this set are: