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Contents
  1. 1. Trip Summary
  2. 2. Ferry and Shuttle
  3. 3. Trail
  4. 4. Plan
  5. 5. Weather

This content was automatically generated by gpt-4o-mini (No human review). The original post is in Chinese.

My first backpacking trip in life is worth recording: we went to Santa Cruz Island and camped for one night at Del Norte Backcountry Campground, and also visited one of the largest sea caves in the world, Painted Cave.

This was my fifth time camping at SCI. The previous four times were at Scorpion Ranch Campground, which is less than 1km from the dock, has drinking water, and is essentially a car camping experience. This time, we went to Del Norte Campground, which is 16km from Scorpion Harbor and 5km from Prisoners Harbor, with no drinking water and quite a bit of elevation gain. So this backpacking trip was quite a challenge for someone who was backpacking for the first time without any experienced guides. I’m very happy that everything went smoothly in the end. Painted Cave is incredibly spectacular and definitely worth seeing. I’m really looking forward to kayaking with friends to explore Painted Cave in the future.

Here are the YouTube videos from this trip:

Trip Summary

On Saturday, we hiked 16 km from Scorpion Anchorage to Del Norte Backcountry Campground. It was not an easy hike with our heavy backpacks. I think my pack weighs about 10 kg, and Hao’s pack maybe around 11.5 kg. We carried 8L of water in total!!! because there was no water in the campground nor in Prisoner Harbor. The backcountry campground had an awesome view of the ocean and mountains. It even has picnic tables, fox boxes, and a toilet. We watched the sunset in the campground and enjoyed the ocean view from our tent. At night, there were many stars, and I saw the Milky Way, even though we slept super early.

On Sunday, we hiked 5 km down to Prisoners Harbor. And surprisingly found that the creek we saw in May still had water flowing (even though Island Packer told me it was dry already). And then we hopped on the Island Packers ferry at 11:15 am to Painted Cave. It took about 35 minutes to get to the Painted Cave. Along the way, I saw many caves, arches, and three big sea caves just before Painted Cave (each of them was as big as Cavern Point Cave). Finally, we reached the Painted Cave; there were already some sea kayakers ahead of us (I believe they were tourists led by Channel Island Expeditions company). The Island Packers big boat wasn’t able to go very deep into the cave, so we only entered a little bit and stayed there for about 5 minutes. The cave was really impressive with its size, arch shape, and the colorful wall. After the Painted Cave trip, we hiked 8 km to Pelican Bay.

Ferry and Shuttle

I called Island Packers to customize this trip for us, the original Painted Cave trip was a day trip and it only stops at Prisoners Harbor.

  • Ventura to Scorpion Cove - SCI
    • Saturday 10:00 am - 11:15 am
  • Shuttle: Prisoners Harbor to Painted Cave
    • Sunday at 11:00 am - 11:30 am
  • Prisoners Harbor, SCI to Ventura
    • Sunday 4:30 pm - 6:15 pm

Sunset: 8:04 PM

Trail

Plan

  • Day 1: Saturday
    • start hiking at 12pm, from Scorpion Campground to Del Norte Campground (16km, 6 hours). Arrive at Del Norte Campground before sunset at 8pm.
  • Day 2: Sunday
    • hike to Prisoners Harbor (5 km, 2 hours)
    • painted cave
    • hike Pelican Bay Trail (7km, 2 hours)

Weather

It was hot during the day while hiking without shade, but very comfortable at night for camping. We actually opened our tent’s rain cover at night to let more cool air in and enjoyed the ocean view from our tent.

Contents
  1. 1. Trip Summary
  2. 2. Ferry and Shuttle
  3. 3. Trail
  4. 4. Plan
  5. 5. Weather