East Pinery Loop -

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Access / Parking

Ride Log

Expectations for Riding the Santa Barbara Area Trails
Country trails are multi-use trails and as such are used by several thousand users each week. If you are riding downhill on these trails, expect to encounter them on your way. Your cooperation will help make everyone's experience a safe and pleasant one.

Ten things every mountain biker who rides the front country trails is expected to do:

1. Have a bike bell so other trail users know you are approaching.
2. Keep your speed down; practice riding techniques that minimize impacts.
3. Good braking means never having to skid. Do not lock up your brakes.
4. Approach switchbacks with caution and brake well before you reach them.
5. Stay on the designated tread. The front country trails are multi-use, not a race course.
6. Ride with other trail users in mind and enhance rather than interfere with their enjoyment.
7. Always assume there is another trail user around each corner.
8. Yield the right-of-way to uphill trail users. Stop and dismount if necessary to allow them to pass.
9. When approaching equestrians, dismount and ask them what they want you to do.
10. Be courteous. Smile and say something friendly to everyone you encounter.

Background

On The Ride

The first 1.5 miles of this ride take you down Fir Canyon, a narrow gorge cut through Monterey Shale and filled with spruce, oaks, and maples. The single track is excellent, though you may want to walk some of it. When you reach the memorial to Edgar Davison, a bronze plaque set in a large serpentine boulder, look for the Munch connector on the right side of the creek. 

The trail is steep for the first hundred yards. You will have to push up this part, but after that the trail can be ridden. It is slightly more than a half-mile to an open saddle where the Munch Canyon Trail and East Pinery connector begin. 

Munch Canyon Trail continues straight ahead and quickly drops down into the canyon. To continue on the East Pinery Loop, turn right and follow the trail leading uphill. The first part is too steep to ride, but after you’ve pushed for several hundred yards the trail begins to switch back and forth and the grade is easy enough to ride. The switchbacks end at the loop at the bottom of the Pinery. At one time the upper part of the trail led through an enchanting forest, but the Marre Fire destroyed all of the trees below the loop road. 

Once you are on the dirt road it is 1.5 miles of easy uphill to Ranger Saddle. Turn right on the paved road and descend two miles to the Davy Brown trailhead.