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. (Source: Wikipedia)
Established: March 5, 1980
Size: 249,561 acres
Rank: 27
#Visitors in 2018: 366,250
(March 2017). My fiance and I visited Channel Islands during a trip to California which centered around a week-long visit to Death Valley. We traveled quite a bit around southern California afterwards, including time spent with family and friends in the LA and Santa Barbara area. While in the Santa Barbara area, we planned a day trip to Santa Cruz Island, one of the most visited of the Channel Islands. We pre-booked a 6-hr. boat trip with Island Packers, the only Channel Islands National Park boat concessionaire. We left out of Ventura Harbor at 9:00 am, arriving in Scorpion Cove around 10:00 am. Pelicans bid us farewell from Ventura and dolphins swam alongside us and greeted us in Scorpion Cove. We were blessed with gorgeous weather!!
We only had a few hours to explore the island as our boat was scheduled to depart at 3:00 pm. We quickly got on our way and chose to hike along Cavern Point Loop Trail to North Bluff Trail then out to Potato Harbor and back. We saw spectacular views of the coast line and were rewarded with the best view of all at Potato Harbor. The yellow wild flowers looked gorgeous against the bright blue skies and vivid green foliage. Unfortunately, these flowers are invasive species (I believe Wild Mustard), one of many invasive species the National Park Service is working to eradicate.
On the way back to Scorpion Cove, we walked through the campground not far from the boat dock. We were surprised to see so many campers with lots of gear and supplies and luxuries (like grills, games, chairs, etc). We were wondering how they got it all there since there are no vehicles allowed. We learned that there are wheeled carts that could be borrowed at the boat dock to haul your stuff to the campsite, which wasn’t far at all. Good to know for the future! There was also a Historic Ranch/Museum with toilets near the boat launch, but no other facilities on the islands. Due to the relatively high concentration of people in this area, we saw several Island Foxes, very small foxes native to 6 of the 8 Channel Islands. They are quite a nuisance, scavenging for food, but still pretty cool to see.
We arrived back at the boat dock in Scorpion Cove in plenty of time to board the boat back to Ventura. Of course, we could have stayed much longer…. camping next time?
