Santa Ynez River
Santa Barbara County, California

River Notes by Gary Van Meter
Photos by Darla Kot

The Santa Ynez River Click for detailed map.

Not all Southern California runs are tree-choked rockpiles. The Santa Ynez River offers miles of mellow, scenic floating in wet winters. These two trip reports capture some of the flavor of this relatively unknown river.

Hwy 154 Bridge to Buellton
(9 miles, Class I)

"If you cross over that fence and head down to the river I’ll call the Sheriff and have you all arrested."

This was our greeting from the ranch foreman when we tried to put in at the Highway 154 bridge between Santa Barbara and the Solvang turnoff. Actually Caltrans owns an easement 150 feet wide on both sides of the bridge, but we didn't know that then, and the big "no trespassing" signs seemed to bolster his story. The foreman chain smoked nervously, his face etched with deep wrinkles like the Marlbough man, hoping that we’d just leave. Wanting to hear the Sheriff's side of the story, we asked the foreman to call. And waited. And waited. Finally we realized that it was all just a bluff and made a quick put in. The foreman jumped in his truck and sped off, yelling "I’m calling the law!"

Mile 21, near Lompoc Click for more photos.

We had deep fast-moving water as we jumped in. But that was to be expected - it was April, 1998, after the wettest winter in recorded history, about double the norm, and the Cachuma dam spilling just a few miles upstream. We were apprehensive, not knowing what to expect ahead. Would there be dangerous obstacles, like barbed wire? Would the sheriff be waiting to arrest us? Would other ranchers shoot at us?

Plus we were rafters, not accustomed to such small craft: a Sevylor inflatable kayak with Rob Fratrick and Gary Van Meter squeezed on board (at or above the weight limit), and a rented canoe with newly married couple Rich and Darla Kot, still learning to work together as a team. The river was flowing at about 650cfs, and moving rather quickly down a narrow channel.

Though often 6 or so feet deep, the water was full of hazardous debris: old cars dumped over the side, broken concrete with rebar sticking out, and many large concrete pipes. I've heard of an inner tuber getting sucked into these pipes and flushed out the outer side (she lived).

The only tricky spot that day was a section of willow trees growing in the channel with hole-popping branches and stainers. It was located between the towns of Solvang and Buellton.

We took out about 9 miles and 5 hours later at the Alisal bridge, next to the 101 Freeway. Watch out for the hunk of concrete with exposed rebar under the bridge in the channel, and mud on the shore is like quicksand. Take out on the right just after the bridge.

This was a beautiful trip, reminding me of the lower Kings run with a littler less water. We saw very few signs of people, and those people that we saw waived back pleasantly. It felt like early California and we were early explorers seeing the untamed land. It was a great trip except for the ranch foreman. I'd say it was all class I. Rob even found a deflated raft tangled in a small tree that held air after he blew it up.

Buellton to Lompoc
(27 miles, Class I/II)

A week later, word had spread of our trip and we had many more boats. We had 3 ocean kayaks (one a 2 person boat with Willie and Linda Fields, who were also recently married and still trying to work together--but Willie later gave up and bought a solo river kayak). Rob now had his very own canoe- a battered aluminum Grumman he'd gotten for free. It was full of dents and looked like it had once been wrapped around a tree. We named it the "Dentmore". Rob's co-pilot was Phil Bohan.

Gary’s paddle partner was now upstairs neighbor Lisa B (much lighter than Rob), and fourwheeing buddies Bruce Cain and Dick Hoppe joined in on big ocean kayaks. A flotilla! Watch out Marlbough man, here we come!

We had more water on this section, as several streams added their flow to the river. Often it was 6 feet deep, but then we’d come to a wide shallow section and finding the correct channel was tough, but very important, unless your steed was the "Dentmore", and then you didn’t care, unless it knocked loose some of the epoxy that kept the water out (mostly). Again it was mostly Class I flat water, but there were 2 tight S-turns that caused "flippage" amonst the ocean kayaks. Bruce was the exception, but he gave us all a big scare when he paddled into some low branches and got knocked out of his boat and tangled in the strainers with his head mostly below waterline. We were quickly moving into rescue position when suddenly Bruce realized he could just standup and walk out. He had just guided a successful trip down Grand Canyon, and this was not how or where he wanted to die. Then we came to the only rapid of the day, probably only a class II and about 50 feet in length. We all wanted more , but’s thats all there was. Just more flat water. A total of 27 miles of it on the second day stretch, and from about 1 P.M. on we had strong headwinds-so strong that when I stopped paddling, my boat would back up. The hardshells didn’t have it as bad, but we were all beat hours before finish.. I never thought I’d be so happy to see the Lompoc bridge 9 hours later. Our only break the whole day was a 20 minute stop on an island for a quick lunch. We were on the water about 10 a.m. and didn’t finish untill about 6 p.m. that night. Lisa appreciated the spray jacket I brought and I was happy to wear my fleece jacket, even though the sleeves got damp, as it got cold when that wind picked up. The guage at the Lompoc narrows, just before the bridge, read 6.5 feet above datum. Again, it was a very beautiful, almost wilderness run with wildflowers in bloom and lots of green everywhere, and very few people or signs of them.

Upper Santa Ynez River
Second crossing on Paradise Road to the Boys Camp (first crossing)
(xx miles, Class 1-2)

June 1995. It was one of the drought years, before Rich got married, and we decided to run the upper Santa Ynez in my Sevylor IK. But my daughter Heather wanted to go, and we only had one boat for 3 people. But Willie had an old river kayak in his yard. So we drove over to Willie’s house. Unfortunately he wasn’t home. Lacota, his very large Female 80 pound Wolf was inside the fence. When she bares her teeth, you mess your pants. They aren’t really teeth like a dog has, but razor sharp cutting tools in a neat row.

The trick was to get the boat out before she got us, and we had already been spotted. Locota likes people (they taste so good!), but she has this bad habit of putting her jaw around your forearm, and then looking at you with this, "If I wanted, I could rip your arm off with one tug" look. But today was our lucky day, --so far.

Now that we had the boat, how would we get it to the Mountains? I had a Geo Metro with Heather, the Sevylor, 2 paddles and 2 PFDs in the back, while Rich had a Porsche 924 with a sunroof. Stick it out the sunroof!

Rich could really turn heads with 2/3 of a boat sticking out the top of his car..He looked like a giant Conehead! At 60 mph a lot of force was being exerted, and the boat was old and brittle. It had been in the sun almost as long as the Marlbough man.

Not alot of water that day, but we put in anyway. I dragged a lot of bottom, then we hit a really fast channel and came to a section choked by brush- it was a really tight squeeze, but we made it ok. Then it widened out and got shallow again.

We were going along bumpity bump, bumpity bump (literaly), when Rich screams out "Oh shit". That usually means something bad has happened, and this was no exception. I stopped and looked back. "What happened", I asked? "I popped a hole in the bottom", was Rich’s sad reply. I walked over, fully expecting a little crack or tiny hole, but no, this baby was big enough to throw a basketball through. I must have laughed for 5 minutes. Rich failed to see the humor in his predicament.

Heather and I contined to the end, and then drove back to where Rich had dragged the brittle boat up to the road. Heather "guarded" the borrowed boat while we picked up Rich’s Porsche at the put-in.

Rich is an Engineer and he always has all these special glues around that will fix anything (we used to call him the Mad Scientist). So we went back to his office/lab and cut the whole side of a plastic office trash can off and glued it to the boat with this stuff he mixed up. We worked on it till 2 A.M. It wasn’t pretty, but its probably the strongest part of the boat.

The next day Willie came home and noticed his boat missing. Rich called him and told him about what happened, but he was ok with it. The moral of this story: when your boat gets brittle, throw it away, and let sleeping Wolves lie!

Gary Van Meter
Carpinteria CA

This document was last updated on Saturday, June 19, 1999

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