This Creek In Particular

Sacate Creek

quail

Five million years ago, tectonic forces pushed and lifted the marine rocks of the Santa Barbara Coast out of the ocean, creating the Santa Ynez Mountains. Those mountains were carved by erosion, and the fresh water running off their southern flank cut a series of canyons, each with a creek flowing southwest to the sea. Anyway, this is what I have read, and this is how I understand the birth of my creek.

It's called Sacate, as is the canyon through which it runs, a name that derives from the Spanish word, zacate, for grass, and indeed its hillsides are grassy ones. Cattle have grazed here since at least as far back as the 1790s, when the land was leased by Captain José Francisco Ortega, chief scout of the Portola expedition that ventured into this region in 1769.

As creeks go, I suppose Sacate is an average one, but not to me. I have never before lived by a creek or gotten to know one well, so you can understand my special fondness.

It meanders for about two and a half miles, shallow or deep by season, here and there hidden underground, but always running.  When my daughter was a little girl, she and Monte walked through it once in tall rubber boots, from near our house all the way down to the main road and the beach, and they said it was like a path through an enchanted land, lush and leafy on either side.  

After heavy rains, it is turbulent and noisy, as you see it above, rushing through with startling force, rendering portions of the road impassable. Just this winter, I tromped around in it after a storm and was surprised to find a volleyball among other sundry items that had somehow ended up there.

But it is a welcoming habitat. I have seen shy turtles sunning themselves on its stones, slipping into the water as soon as they sense my presence, and a few days ago, in a place where the water pools like an estuary, I caught a glimpse of a heron stopping by, and a pair of red dragonflies darting about.

Years ago I slung a woven string hammock from a great sycamore tree by its banks, and it is a sad commentary on my life and personality that I so seldom leaned back and loitered there looking up into the leaves and sky above, listening to creek sounds, but it was lovely when I did, always cool and shady and smelling wonderfully of bark and mulch and creek water.

Rather than wading through it or sitting by it, I mostly walk along this creek. If I am going up the canyon, I pass a certain oak whose girth attests to a most respectable age, then a gathering of cottonwoods whose leaves turn truly yellow in the fall, then a stretch of hummingbird sage thriving in the damp creekside soil, and poison oak in abundance.

Beyond Jeanne's house I can smell the treated wood of a fancy bridge, a grander-than-was-needed act of construction by some investor from Los Angeles, followed shortly by the unmistakable pungency of naturally occurring sulfur, so distinct that I could tell you even blindfolded exactly where I am along the way.

Then, near the sandstone formations by the road, the creek diverts and widens, soon births a tributary that wanders toward Cuarta, but continues on its course, more or less. I have been told that Sacate was one of the more widely traveled roads through here in the old days, leading as it does up and over and ultimately down onto Highway One, with that faithful and useful creek alongside for such a good portion of the route.

There used to be a cross carved into one of the oldest oak trees by the creek, supposedly from the time of the missions and Spanish ranchers. I saw it myself, and I think it was carved more recently than that, but in any case, the tree was lost to wind and weather, one of many older oaks in this section that have fallen recently, retroactive victims of a fire that scorched the area in the 1950s. Although their growth continued bravely, the exposed inner trunks reveal the charred core of a shared history.

But whether or not some cross-carving padre ventured through here, he would have been long preceded by the native people who knew this creek and canyon well. Of course they did. How compelling would be a watershed so pleasant and reliable? The creek might have been silver with steelhead, and processions of quail would have paraded freely, as they still do, and anyone agile could climb up the rocks and hillsides for long views to the sea and Santa Rosa Island.

Just as it is to me, I imagine it was a backdrop to their lives. Maybe they heard the comforting din of its roar in the winter, and on spring nights perhaps a splashing of turtles, and the singing of frogs.

Turning around and heading back down the canyon, I see Sacate Creek become a deep gorge by the well, more level with the road as it goes past the house and the orchard, and then etching its own little ravine, finally emptying itself by the ramp at Big Drakes.

When it is storm-fed, it has been known to mingle with the sea, a brackish pool of driftwood, kelp, and debris, washing away the access to the beach. But it's summer now, and my creek is in its shy mode, which doesn't mean it has nothing more to say.