Little Pine Mountain

Little Pine Mountain
Little Pine Mountain
	Little Pine Mountain is on the right edge of the photo
Highest point
Elevation	4,462 ft (1,360 m) NAVD 88 [1]
Prominence	518 ft (158 m) [1]
Listing	Lower Peaks Committee
Coordinates	34°36′02″N119°44′20″W / 34.60056°N 119.73889°W Coordinates: 34°36′02″N119°44′20″W / 34.60056°N 119.73889°W [2]
Geography
	Little Pine Mountain Santa Barbara County, California, U.S. Little Pine Mountain Little Pine Mountain (the US)
Parent range	San Rafael Mountains
Topo map	USGS San Marcos Pass
Climbing
Easiest route	Dirt road (Buckhorn-Camuesa OHV to Little Pine Road)

Last updated April 20, 2019

Little Pine Mountain is a mountain in Santa Barbara County, California, in the Los Padres National Forest at the southern edge of the San Rafael Mountains. It separates the drainages of Oso Creek, which flows into the upper Santa Ynez River, from the drainage of Santa Cruz Creek, which flows into the middle section of the river via Lake Cachuma. The mountain is named for a thin grove of Coulter pines located on the summit.

Santa Barbara County, California, officially the County of Santa Barbara, is a county located in the southern region of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 423,895. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria.

Los Padres National Forest is a United States national forest in southern and central California. Administered by the United States Forest Service, Los Padres includes most of the mountainous land along the California coast from Ventura to Monterey, extending inland. Elevations range from sea level to 8,847 feet (2,697 m).

The San Rafael Mountains are a mountain range in central Santa Barbara County, California, U.S., separating the drainages of the Santa Ynez River and the Santa Maria River. They are part of the Transverse Ranges system of Southern California which in turn are part of the Pacific Coast Ranges system of western North America.

The mountain is reached by the Santa Cruz National Recreation Trail, and is a popular day hike and mountain biking route for residents of Santa Barbara during the winter months. There is a camp at Happy Hollow Spring near the summit.^[3]

Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County in the U.S. state of California. Situated on a south-facing section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Santa Barbara's climate is often described as Mediterranean, and the city has been promoted as the "American Riviera". As of 2014, the city had an estimated population of 91,196, up from 88,410 in 2010, making it the second most populous city in the county after Santa Maria. The contiguous urban area, which includes the cities of Goleta and Carpinteria, along with the unincorporated regions of Isla Vista, Montecito, Mission Canyon, Hope Ranch, Summerland, and others, has an approximate population of 220,000. The population of the entire county in 2010 was 423,895.

The rocks of the lower slopes of the mountain comes from the Franciscan Assemblage, which creates serpentine soils that support a unique chaparral ecosystem. Large deposits of dark-red cinnabar are exposed above ground. The middle slopes of the mountain are dominated by the Espada Formation. The summit largely consists of Matilija Sandstone. There is a small band of Temblor Formation, a Great Valley Sequence unit usually found much farther north, encircling the high ridge of the mountain. North slope outcrops consist largely of Espada Formation rocks, with a band of serpentinite splitting the Espada section in half.^[4]

Franciscan Assemblage or Franciscan Complex is a geologic term for a late Mesozoic terrane of heterogeneous rocks found throughout the California Coast Ranges, and particularly on the San Francisco Peninsula. It was named by geologist Andrew Lawson, who also named the San Andreas fault that defines the western extent of the assemblage.

Cinnabar and cinnabarite, likely deriving from the Ancient Greek: κιννάβαρι (kinnabari), refer to the common bright scarlet to brick-red form of mercury(II) sulfide (HgS) that is the most common source ore for refining elemental mercury, and is the historic source for the brilliant red or scarlet pigment termed vermilion and associated red mercury pigments.

The Espada Formation is a sedimentary rock formation widespread in Santa Barbara County, California. Of late Jurassic to Cretaceous age, the unit consists primarily of shale with some interbedded thin layers of sandstone, conglomerate, and limestone.

Related Research Articles

Channel Islands National Park is an American national park that consists of five of the eight Channel Islands off the coast of the U.S. state of California, in the Pacific Ocean. Although the islands are close to the shore of densely populated Southern California, their isolation has left them relatively undeveloped. The park covers 249,561 acres (100,994 ha) of which 79,019 acres (31,978 ha) are owned by the federal government. The Nature Conservancy owns and manages 76% of Santa Cruz Island, the largest island in the park.

San Gorgonio Mountain, also known locally as Mount San Gorgonio, or Old Greyback, is the highest peak in Southern California and the Transverse Ranges at 11,503 feet (3,506 m).

Santa Ynez Mountains mountain range in Southern California

The Santa Ynez Mountains are a portion of the Transverse Ranges, part of the Pacific Coast Ranges of the west coast of North America. It is the westernmost range in the Transverse Ranges.

Black Mountain (near Los Altos, California) mountain in Monte Bello Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains, west Santa Clara County, California

Black Mountain is a summit on Monte Bello Ridge in the Santa Cruz Mountains of west Santa Clara County, California, south of Los Altos and Los Altos Hills, and west of Cupertino; it is within the Palo Alto city limits though not near the developed part of the city. It is located on the border between Rancho San Antonio Open Space Preserve and Monte Bello Open Space Preserve, with the summit located in the former. Early Spanish explorers commonly named tree- or chaparral-covered summits which look black in the distance Loma Prieta, from the Spanish . The Spanish also called the middle portion of the Santa Cruz Mountains the Sierra Morena meaning, extending from Half Moon Bay Road south to a gap at Lexington Reservoir, and which includes a summit called Sierra Morena. There are over 100 "Black Mountains" in California.

The Angeles Forest Highway is a road over the San Gabriel Mountains in Los Angeles County, California. It connects the Los Angeles Basin with the Antelope Valley and western Mojave Desert. The highway is also known as County Road N-3 or FH-59 or the Palmdale cutoff; the route numbers are unsigned, but noted on many maps. It is about 25 miles (40 km) long.

The San Rafael Wilderness is a wilderness area in the mountains of north central Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It is completely contained within the Los Padres National Forest, and is north of the city of Santa Barbara and east of Santa Maria. Formed in 1968, it was the first wilderness area to be created from a previously designated Primitive Area after the passage of the 1964 Wilderness Act. It also includes the Sisquoc Condor Sanctuary, created in 1937, which is the oldest designated sanctuary for the large endangered birds.

The Dick Smith Wilderness is a wilderness area in the mountains of eastern Santa Barbara County, California, United States, with a portion in Ventura County. It is completely contained within the Los Padres National Forest, and is northeast of the city of Santa Barbara and north of the city of Ojai. It is most easily accessible from two trailheads off State Route 33, which runs north from Ojai. It is adjacent to the large San Rafael Wilderness on the west and the Matilija Wilderness on the south. Across Highway 33 to the east, and also in the Los Padres National Forest, is the large Sespe Wilderness.

Simi Valley is a synclinal valley in Southern California in the United States. It is an enclosed or hidden valley surrounded by mountains and hills. It is connected to the San Fernando Valley to the east by the Santa Susana Pass and the 118 freeway, and in the west the narrows of the Arroyo Simi and the Reagan Freeway connect to Moorpark and Ventura, California. The relatively flat bottom of the valley contains soils formed from shales, sandstones, and conglomerates eroded from the surrounding hills of the Santa Susana Mountains to the north, which separate Simi Valley from the Santa Clara River Valley, and the Simi Hills.

The Chalk Hills are a north–south-running low 'mountain' range in the San Fernando Valley perpendicular to and adjoining the Santa Monica Mountains. They are located in the Woodland Hills District of the City of Los Angeles in Southern California. They run between DeSoto and Winnetka Avenues, from south of Ventura Boulevard to near Victory Boulevard.

The Vaqueros Formation is a sedimentary geologic unit primarily of Upper Oligocene and Lower Miocene age, which is widespread on the California coast and coastal ranges in approximately the southern half of the state. It is predominantly a medium-grained sandstone unit, deposited in a shallow marine environment. Because of its high porosity and nearness to petroleum source rocks, in many places it is an oil-bearing unit, wherever it has been configured into structural or stratigraphic traps by folding and faulting. Being resistant to erosion, it forms dramatic outcrops in the coastal mountains. Its color ranges from grayish-green to light gray when freshly broken, and it weathers to a light brown or buff color.

The Sespe Formation is a widespread fossiliferous sedimentary geologic unit in southern and south central California in the United States. It is of nonmarine origin, consisting predominantly of sandstones and conglomerates laid down in a riverine, shoreline, and floodplain environment between the upper Eocene Epoch to the end of the Oligocene Epoch. It is often distinctive in appearance, with its sandstones weathering to reddish-brown, maroon, pinkish-gray, tan, and green. Since many of its sandstones are more resistant to erosion than many other regional sedimentary units it often forms dramatic outcrops and ridgelines in many local mountain ranges.

The Rincon Formation is a sedimentary geologic unit of Lower Miocene age, abundant in the coastal portions of southern Santa Barbara County, California eastward into Ventura County. Consisting of massive to poorly bedded shale, mudstone, and siltstone, it weathers readily to a rounded hilly topography with clayey, loamy soils in which landslides and slumps are frequent. It is recognizable on the south slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains as the band at the base of the mountains which supports grasses rather than chaparral. Outcrops of the unit are infrequent, with the best exposures on the coastal bluffs near Naples, in the San Marcos Foothills, at the Tajiguas Landfill, and in road cuts. The geologic unit is notorious as a source of radon gas related to its high uranium content, released by radioactive decay.

The Cozy Dell Shale is a geologic formation of middle Eocene age that crops out in the Santa Ynez Mountains and Topatopa Mountains of California, extending from north of Fillmore in Ventura County westward to near Point Arguello, north of Santa Barbara. Because the Cozy Dell easily weathers to a clay-rich soil, it crops out infrequently and generally forms dense stands of chaparral in saddles between peaks and ridges of the more resistant Matilija and Coldwater formations.

The Coldwater Sandstone is a sedimentary geologic unit of Eocene age found in Southern California, primarily in and south of the Santa Ynez Mountains of Santa Barbara County, and east into Ventura County. It consists primarily of massive arkosic sandstone with some siltstone and shale. Being exceptionally resistant to erosion, outcrops of the Coldwater form some of the most dramatic terrain on the south slope of the Santa Ynez Mountains, with immense white sculpted slabs forming peaks, hogback ridges, and sheer cliff faces.

The Matilija Sandstone is a sedimentary geologic unit of Eocene epoch in the Paleogene Period, found in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties in Southern California.

The Juncal Formation is a prominent sedimentary geologic unit of Eocene age found in and north of the Santa Ynez Mountain range in southern and central Santa Barbara County and central Ventura County, California. An enormously thick series of sediments deposited over millions of years in environments ranging from nearshore to deep water, it makes up much of the crest of the Santa Ynez range north of Montecito, as well as portions of the San Rafael Mountains in the interior of the county. Its softer shales weather to saddles and swales, supporting a dense growth of brush, and its sandstones form prominent outcrops.

The Jalama Formation is a sedimentary rock formation widespread in southern Santa Barbara County and northern Ventura County, southern California. Of the Late Cretaceous epoch, the unit consists predominantly of clay shale with some beds of sandstone.

The Santa Cruz Trail is a trail in the Los Padres National Forest, in Santa Barbara County, California. It is the primary footpath from the Santa Ynez Recreation Area into the San Rafael and Dick Smith Wilderness areas. The section from the southern trailhead up to Santa Cruz Camp is designated as the Santa Cruz - Aliso National Recreation Trail.

References

1 2 "Little Pine Mountain, California". Peakbagger.com. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
↑ "Little Pine Mountain". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey . Retrieved 2014-09-14.
↑ "Little Pine Mountain and 19 Oaks". SantaBarbaraHikes.com. Retrieved 2014-09-12.
↑ Dibblee, T.W., and Ehrenspeck, H.E., ed., 1987, Geologic map of the San Marcos Pass quadrangle, Santa Barbara County, California: Dibblee Geological Foundation, Dibblee Foundation Map DF-08, scale 1:24,000

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[pb-1] 1 2 "Little Pine Mountain, California". Peakbagger.com. Retrieved 2014-09-12.

[gnis-2] "Little Pine Mountain". Geographic Names Information System . United States Geological Survey . Retrieved 2014-09-14.

[sbhikes-3] "Little Pine Mountain and 19 Oaks". SantaBarbaraHikes.com. Retrieved 2014-09-12.

[4] Dibblee, T.W., and Ehrenspeck, H.E., ed., 1987, Geologic map of the San Marcos Pass quadrangle, Santa Barbara County, California: Dibblee Geological Foundation, Dibblee Foundation Map DF-08, scale 1:24,000