Condor Trail: Hiking the 400 Mile Trail Through Los Padres National Forest

Presenter: 

Brian Sarvis

Description: 

Stretching more than 400 miles across the length of Los Padres National Forest, the Condor Trail is a distance hiking route that travels coastal mountain ranges and canyons deep in the backcountry of our Central Coast. Running through seven wilderness areas from Lake Piru near Castaic to Bottcher’s Gap near Carmel, this challenging trail highlights outstanding natural features, wild and scenic rivers, hot springs, wildlife sanctuaries, and some areas that will test a hiker’s pathfinding ability. The route follows a number of existing trails, some of which are severely overgrown, but in other sections there are no trails at all. It is easy to get lost in some sections along the route and limited water availability could make it deadly. It is not unusual to hike the trail for three or four days at a time without seeing a single person. Only a handful of people have hiked the entire route. Brian Sarvis is the second person to complete a thru-hike of the entire trail, burying food resupply canisters about every 50 miles along the route. He has hiked the route twice and published a trail guide so others could enjoy it without getting lost.

Bio:

Brian has long been attracted to adventures — running long distances, climbing mountains at extreme altitude, trekking in Africa, the Andes and the Himalayas, world travel. He was happily “stuck in Lodi” for years, raising children on a horse ranch he shared with a hungry beaver colony (that’s another story), and moved to Santa Barbara with his wife, Ann, 22 years ago. An educational psychologist specializing in learning, he has degrees from a number of universities with postdoctoral work at Stanford. Brian was promoted through a number of careers, but took a break from his adventures when he served as superintendent of Santa Barbara Unified School District for many years.