Sespe Area in Ventura County Renowned for Variety of Uses : 55-Mile River a Source of Passion for Outdoorsmen, Preservationists

How passionate is Alasdair Coyne about keeping the hand of man off Sespe Creek, a winding 55-mile river in Los Padres National Forest? His house, which the 37-year-old transplanted Scot built himself in a rolling Ojai canyon, owes much of its ambience to a rumpled banner that stretches across one entire wall of the barn-size living room:

Keep the Sespe Wild . . . Forever.

A wiry landscaper who can name all 250 varieties of drought-resistant plants on his two acres, Coyne is a founder of and chief spokesman for a group that wants to preserve the creek, which is the last free-flowing major river in Southern California.

Whether it stays that way might hinge on the actions of a U.S. Senate subcommittee. Today, hearings will begin on a wilderness bill, and the major issue being debated is how many miles of Sespe Creek to designate as a Wild and Scenic River, a zoning category that precludes development. Coyne and other preservationists want all 55 miles protected, about 24 miles more than those who favor keeping open options to build two dams.

In northern Ventura County, Sespe also is the name locals have given to the land around the river, a 270-square-mile watershed. The Sespe area is not officially listed on any map, but it is renowned for its recreation uses. And like the creek, it arouses passion, especially for its manzanita-covered hillsides, pine-capped peaks and mystical mountains: Piedra Blanca, an expanse of horizontal white stone, was purportedly a spiritual retreat for Chumash Indians.

Although the creek’s future remains cloudy, the area’s is bright. A provision in the bill is setting aside more than 200,000 acres in the Sespe--including 53,000 in the Sespe Condor Sanctuary--as a wilderness area, the first in Ventura County. But preservationists will not celebrate as long as the creek issue is still unsettled; they see the area as an indivisible entity.

“You can’t touch one part and expect the others to stay the same,” Coyne said.

The wilderness designation means condors, not condos, but it will have a somewhat disruptive impact on recreation. Although hikers, equestrians, backpackers and campers will be only slightly inconvenienced--nobody will be allowed to stay in the wilderness overnight without a permit--mountain bikers and off-road motorcycle riders will be banned.

A wilderness excludes oil drilling, roads and mechanized vehicles. Bicycles are considered mechanized vehicles. Currently, all the trails in the 220,000 acres are open to bicyclists. But after the wilderness bill becomes law--it is expected to pass once the wording becomes final--an estimated 100 miles of trails will be lost to mountain bikers, according to the U.S. Forest Service, which manages the Los Padres.

Mountain bikers, who traditionally have little support in the recreation community, have not had much luck lobbying congressmen to keep the trails open. And they will mourn the loss of the Sespe Wilderness. “It’s terrible,” said Jim Hasenauer, president of the International Mountain Bicycling Assn.

Hasenauer and other bikers particularly will miss their most popular destination, Sespe Hot Springs, a 210-degree geothermal treasure about 17 miles from the trail head at Lions Campground. “That trail has been ridden for years and years by mountain bikers--it’s absolutely suitable for bikes,” Hasenauer said.

While motorcyclists will lose the Johnson Ridge Trail, most other visitors to the Sespe will not be affected by the bill unless they venture into the wilderness. Most campers won’t notice a change because the wilderness boundary falls outside Rose Valley, the recreation hub of the Sespe. It will be business as usual at the three campgrounds: Lions (30 campsites), Middle Lions (8) and Rose Valley (9).

This time of year, pools provide the only vehicle for water sports in the Sespe. At Lions, which is on the banks of the creek, kids cannonball off 40-foot-high Swallow Rock into a 25-foot-deep natural pool. But fishermen don’t have much luck anywhere. Because of the drought, native rainbow trout are supplemented by stocking and, for the past five years, there hasn’t been enough water for steelhead to swim upstream from the ocean.

The lack of water hasn’t hurt the eel population, however. An abundance of finger-length lampreys have been reported in the creek this year.

The Wild and Scenic designation could have an impact on fishermen: It is not official yet, but fishermen might be required to use barbless hooks.

Although areas of the creek often resemble a desert, particularly in the summer, winter and spring rains can bring the river back to life with a vengeance. “It can become ferocious,” said John Boggs, a Forest Service ranger in the Ojai District.

When the creek fills and moves along at a gallop, it offers a unique (for Southern California) recreation opportunity: kayaking. Students at Thatcher School in Ojai occasionally use a 10-mile stretch of river above Lions Campground; more regularly, they practice on the half-mile run bordering the campground.

But don’t get the idea that the creek is a secret alternative to the Kern River. In the usable stretches, “There’s fast water some places but no real rapids,” said Chuck Warren, who teaches kayaking at the school. Expediency, he said, is really the only reason to set a kayak on the Sespe: “A kayaker wouldn’t drive up from San Diego.”

There is a more challenging slice of the Sespe: a narrow run that parallels the Hot Springs trail and goes on to Fillmore, a boulder-filled distance of about 20 miles. But such dangerous sections as Devil’s Gate--a deep, tight, rocky gorge with roiling hydraulics--make kayaking too risky “unless you’ve got your life insurance paid up,” said Jerry Little, a Forest Service planning officer.

According to knowledgeable sources, that section has been kayaked only once, in the early 1980s by experienced kayakers who benefitted from a strong rain.

It was while they were hiking the Hot Springs trail that Alasdair Coyne and a few friends realized the vulnerability of the creek and decided to form a group to protect it. That was five years ago; today, the Keep the Sespe Wild Committee has a mailing list of 5,500 and a pipeline to Washington. Last summer, Coyne testified before a House subcommittee.

“As more of the environment gets ruined,” Coyne said, “it’s important to preserve places like the Sespe.”